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Work Day

Joyce Vance Nov 16

Tonight, we all need to take time for ourselves. It’s only been 11 days since the election, but it feels like it has been a lifetime. I’m noticing people’s batteries are running low and it’s easy to feel out of sorts, so be kind and take some extra time for yourself, please.

Today was a regular work day for me, but it had an unexpected start when I went out to feed the chickens and discovered Leeda had a cut on her foot, which really needed immediate attention. So, even though I was already dressed for TV, I brought her inside and we had a quick, pre-TV bath. (The control room asked if she was going to join me. Good heavens, no! She is very loud when she has an opinion about something.)

Leeda stayed inside with me, snuggled up under a big blanket—sort of like putting a tea towel over a parakeet’s cage—and went straight to sleep.

Afterward, she was super happy to go back outside, especially when I pointed out that there were some tender herbs still left in one of the raised planters.

Leeda was joined by a number of friends, who flew up to see how many chickens could fit inside of one planting box.

These two didn’t make it into the planter, but they’re too pretty not to share with you (that’s Clementine in back, named for my law school roommate’s beloved Samoyed, and Toot in front.) And that’s Red who you can sort of see off to the right, one of the two new chicks Esther hatched, and who, because I haven’t been creative at all lately, have become known as Red and White based on their colors.

I was really surprised by how strong the response to last night’s post about my Democracy Index project was. It seems that the same problem I’ve been mulling over in my head is one you’ve been thinking about too. I’m already at work, figuring out how to focus tightly on anti-democratic patterns without missing the forest for the trees and still packaging it so that it can be shared easily understood by people who don’t have as much time or interest in focusing on these issues as we do, while also linking to the full underlying facts. It’s going to be a project!

I appreciated all of your comments last night. I plan to be ready on day one, perhaps earlier. We already know this isn’t going to be a normal administration; the question is, what are we going to do about it?

We’re in this together,

Joyce