For the last two years, when someone has inquired as to my welfare, I have answered, There are no bombs falling on my village.

For several decades prior to the commencement of the war against Ukraine by Russian, I had another ready answer, stolen from the late Leonard J. Hughes, Jr.:  I woke up this morning, which is more than a lot of people can say.

I alternated that with a glib, over the shoulder avowal:  On a scale of Nirvana to Bosnia, I’m somewhere in between.

But  let me just brag a minute, folks:

No bombs pummel my tiny village.

I haven’t had to flee southward to avoid enemy artillery.

No bridges where I live have collapsed, and given that I can think of at least seven significant draw bridges within a ten-mile radius, that’s saying a lot.

Twenty-seven years have elapsed since a team of doctors gave me six months to live.

My sister Joyce still calls me nearly every day, and I hear from my son a couple of times a month.  Various others of my siblings and cousins text and email on a regular basis just to keep our connection alive.

My eleven-year old car runs like the proverbial top.  (Note to self, Do tops run?)

Someone left three boxes of my favorite gluten-free pasta hanging in a bag on my doorknob today. ❤️

At age 68, I only have one tooth that aches and I’m sure it’s due to a lack of diligence on my part.  It hardly counts as anything other than a mild annoyance.

I make a decent living.  I have good neighbors.  I didn’t have to shovel snow this winter.  We only lost power once, for a few hours.  Trees bud; flowers bloom; robins sing.  

And it nearly goes without saying:  It’s the twenty-seventh day of the one-hundred and twenty-third month of My Year Without Complaining — and, my friends:  Life continues.