Thanks to you, I feel no need to go back to “pointless, incessant barking.” Whether that means I’m engaged in “pointful, incessant barking,” or “pointless intermittent barking,” I’ll leave it to you to decide. Have at it.
This blog exists for two reasons; first because I think, on rare occasions, I have something worthwhile to say, and second because it gives me an opportunity to cross-post, and back up under my own steam, what may be some of my better posts from Ricochet, a site I love and on which I’ve been blogging for more than a decade.
If you haven’t run across Ricochet yet, please do check it out. It was founded in May of 2010, and although it advertises itself as a site for political discussion, it’s much more than that: It’s a community of right-leaning (in all senses of the word) friends and, dare I say, even of family (I believe, and have often said, that I think its founders are less appreciative, and less supportive, of this aspect of the site than they should be). Like friends, and even family, we sometimes engage in knock-down, drag-out fights with each other. Some of them are really ugly. But, by gum, my experience has been that when it counts, when and if we need to be there for each other, when and if we express a need for, and a willingness to accept, help, there we are, and there it is.
I’d be misleading you if I asserted that Ricochet hasn’t had its difficulties over the years, and that there aren’t people out there on the web who’ve been bounced from the site and who are determined to do it in by maligning either its purpose, its founders or its members. (Sometimes, those maligned members is/are me!!!!! Imagine my surprise. No, really, it’s more like “imagine my mystification.” I can’t even. Proverbs 27:6.) We all have sore spots, and we all have things or people in our lives we’d like to do away with if the thought of them gives us guilt or exposes our cherished delusions, or if it brings on pangs of inadequacy or hypocrisy, or even, on rare occasions, a justified sense of wrongdoing. But face it, endless circling of the drain doesn’t get us anywhere, and the best response to ill-use is never to double-down and make things worse.
And so, I’ve stayed on Ricochet. Because that’s where my friends are. I can’t give you a better reason for why I think that was the right decision than any of those described by Ricochet member Jenna Stocker, so here’s a link to her post. Please read the comments. I think you’ll get the idea.
I don’t have another agenda here. I’m a 66-year old grandmother with a fractured and much-loved extended family, a beloved circle of friends, a rural lifestyle, and an unshakable core of inner peace and well-being. I credit my nuclear family–mostly my Dad–for an upbringing that set my feet on the path to self-reliance, self-assurance, and the belief that I’m no better than anyone else, no worse than anyone else, and that (above all) I don’t have to take any shit from anyone else. And so I’m not gonna.
Love me or leave me, here I am. And here you are.
Who are you?
Well, my Google and WordPress stats tell me you are folks from 55 countries who follow me in numbers that an elderly widowed woman has no right to expect or enjoy, So, with frissons of excitement, I do enjoy! (Note well that I spent about 30 years of my life in positions of IT management, so I’m “fly” to the idea that some of you are “bots.” (See what I did there? If you were a rural person, you’d understand immediately, in terms that don’t need some woke 21st-century insight to comprehend. Ugh.) So I check you out. And the very great majority of you are not bots. You’re actual people. So, again, thanks!)
Thank you for following me, and for taking a look at each new post here.
Without further ado, here are the “lucky top 15” of the countries that visit this site:
| United States of America |
| United Kingdom |
| China |
| Canada |
| France |
| Nigeria |
| Australia |
| Germany |
| India |
| Romania |
| Thailand |
| New Zealand |
| Netherlands |
| Singapore |
| Philippines |
Few surprises, all things considered, given where I’ve been, what I write about, and who I am. Thank you all.
My goal here, over the next six months is to work on a more robust comment system. Please don’t feel obliged. But please do feel free. I’d love to hear from you.
Take care of yourselves, all. And know that I am rooting for you.
Love. And woof,
RWKJ
