Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, assists the keeper and Phyllis in hosting Ava, a laid-back and laid-down beagle owned by Todd, Phyllis’s son who is off to a card-collector show. Ava’s mission in life is to pack as much sleep into a day as possible, preferably on the soft …
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Category:Holidays
Kickass and the April Fool
Bermicourt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in wondering why April Fool’s Day is not celebrated with a symbolic “April Fool” character in the manner of Santa Claus and Christmas, or the Easter Bunny and Easter. Perhaps there are so many candidates for the “April Fool” …
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Kickass and St. Pat’s Reminders
Photo by Yan Ming on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper dives into St. Patrick’s week with the following reminders: 1. It is the week of Phyllis’s birthday. 2. It will snow on Thursday. 3. Wisconsin’s minority rep. gov. is solidly in place. 4. Rare sunshine is not a health hazard. 5. The friendly black cat at …
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Kickass and Vow Renewal Ceremony
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog reports that the wedding-vow renewal festivities for the keeper and Phyllis and others at Vista West went off without a hitch–no pun intended. Witnessed by the keeper’s sons Larry and Mike, daughter-in-law Linda; Phyllis’s son Todd and granddaughter Taylor, the event–vowing ceremony, dinner and …
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Kickass and Valentine Vows
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, will assist the keeper and Phyllis today as they join other Vista West residents in Valentine’s Day festivities that includes a renewal of wedding vows. Not to give anything away, but to demonstrate his sincerity, the following is just one of the vows that …
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Mighty Love
Artwork by Michael DiMilo Originally Published 2/14/2022 By Geoff Carter In her novel Surfacing, Margaret Atwood wrote “The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them, there ought to be as many for love.” She‘s probably right, although what passes for love today might not be as important to us as snow …
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Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!!
The Pen in Hand Blog Photo by J. Amill Santiago on Unsplash
Kickass and January Rain
Photo by Phyllis Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper sipping from his first cup of coffee on a rainy January morning, sniffing with the dregs of a stubborn cold, but generally feeling smug about his good fortune in having accidentally migrated far enough south from his northern Wisconsin birthplace to …
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Kickass and MLK Bob Shephard
John Brighenti from Rockville, MD, United States, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper on this MLK weekend in the traditional salute to the memory of the keeper’s old Army friend Bob Shephard, from the wintery command integration on a Korean hill side to the life-long sharing …
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Kickass and Young Storytellers
Attribution: קלאופטרה, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes that while the keeper was a professional storyteller for decades, he found himself at a disadvantage recently in a storytelling session with Tyler and Trevor, a couple of very young great grandsons. It was one of those rare and wonderful occasions …
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Happy New Year from The Pen in Hand Blog!!
Pavel Ševela, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Pen in Hand’s Guide to the Movies: Ringing in the New Year
Maasaak, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (Originally posted in December, 2020) By Geoff Carter We thought we had it made after getting out of 2020, but this has been another hard year—remembering everything that happened is painful—but we have to; if we do not remember, we’ll be doomed to repeat the same mistakes yet again. …
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