Attribution: Amada44, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, on this eve of Valentine’s Day, indulges the keeper as he recalls how he once spent hours using a new pocketknife to carve “BS & AH” into the bark of an oak tree in the most remote corner of the cow …
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Category:Holidays
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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Can’t Buy Me Love
Attribution: Photo by Laura Ockel on Unsplash By Geoff Carter When I was in elementary school back in the early 1960s, St. Valentine’s Day was the day that brought life and color—and candy—to the gray slushy doldrums of grade-school winter. Everyone would attach manila envelopes with our little names block-printed on the front —our “mailboxes”—to the fronts of …
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Oh, Christmas Tree
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter (Originally posted in December, 2019) Each year, in the family holiday tradition, my wife and I venture out to buy our Christmas tree. We’re lucky enough to live across the street from a big tree lot so we don’t have very far to go—we can walk right over. …
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2024: Out of the Frying Pan
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter New Year retrospectives are, for the most part, eminently predictable. There are the usual lists of notable storms and natural disasters, celebrity memorials, messy political scandals, blockbuster movies, and the newest eye-dazzling technologies. People like lists. They’re quick, easy to read, and distill even the most complicated issues …
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Kickass and the Happy New Year
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis, wanting to keep their coughing colds something private and precious, cancelled out on Andy and Ohm’s New Year’s eve party and therefore missed an opportunity to revisit their former Mazomanie home on the hill and to share the …
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The Pen in Hand’s Guide to the Movies: Ringing in the New Year
Photo by Artem Kniaz on Unsplash (Originally posted in December, 2020) By Geoff Carter We’re almost there. We only have one more day of 2023 to endure. It’s been a year of firsts. Some we would like to celebrate, others not so much. But New Year’s Eve is a time to look forward to fresh starts and renewed …
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Happy New Year!!
From the Pen in Hand Blog Attribution: Jernej Furman from Slovenia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Kickass and Coughing Again
Attribution: Photo by Elisha Terada on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog joins the keeper and Phyllis in barking/coughing nonstop as if they were chasing cars down on Mineral Point Road. They have been so dedicated to their barking/coughing that they have not had time to come up with any New Year’s resolutions, which is not …
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Kickass and 2024 Tomorrow
Attribution: Kvasir at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in realizing that there are only two days left to make something of 2023 before 2024 comes barreling onto the scene like the Dalton gang. Since its inception 363 days ago, it has been the …
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Kickass Endorses Dumbness
Attribution: Shakib khan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in suggesting that those days between Christmas and New Years take on the official designation of “Dumb days” when dumbness is celebrated collectively and personally as befits its global prominence. An exchange of dumbness as in the …
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The Possibilities Book
Photo by Geoff Carter By Geoff Carter Christmas is a time that, for most of us, evokes fond childhood memories. Who doesn’t sit around the tree on Christmas morning, watching their adorable children tear violent swaths through reams of wrapping paper, and remember their own visions of sugarplums, bikes, road race sets, Barbie dolls, board …
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