cheerfulmonk.com

Misty-the-Dog and Friends’s Post

November 1, 2025

What do you think the kids in this picture from local12.com were doing?

They were dropping off candy for a boy in the hospital. He and his mother always gave out treats for Halloween, but she was with him at the hospital and left a note explaining why they would not be giving out candy this year. They didn’t want him to feel left out. Click here for more details.

There is still a lot of goodness in the world.

Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2025

Actually it wasn’t the first time the phone line needed repair. It happened twice before in the 50 plus years we’ve had it. And like the previous two times we didn’t even see the technician.

When I made the appointment they said they would come between 8 AM and 5 PM, but they would text me in the morning to narrow the time period. Sure enough, at 7:46 AM I received a text saying the technician would be there between 8:25 and 12:25, and they would text me when they were on their way.

At 10:43 a text said they would be there soon, and at 11:27 they said they were done, the line was working again.

How easy was that? Their internet is also reliable, so we’re happy customers. We don’t take good service for granted.

October 30, 2025

Andy seldom phones our landline from up on the land — he usually sends texts or email messages. Fortunately he broke that pattern Monday. He tried phoning our landline twice using his cellphone but got the message,

Sorry, you cannot leave a message for [phone number]….

He told me about it yesterday and I had the same problem when I tried with my cellphone. Then I checked our landline and nothing, no dial tone. So I contacted our provider and they’ll send someone today to see what’s wrong. We’re surprised because we had our long weekly chat Sunday evening with Kaitlin and had no problem at all.

The interesting thing is our internet, which relies on a lot of wires run in my study, works just fine. And our wall phone in our living room, which is connected straight from the wire entering our apartment, doesn’t.

So we’re pretty sure the problem is somewhere outside the apartment. Anyway, bless Andy for trying to phone yesterday, Otherwise it could have been a week — when we tried to phone Kaitlin again — before we knew there was a problem.

October 29, 2025

When I drove back from grocery shopping yesterday, I automatically looked for my favorite parking spots, just in front of the old stairs we used to go down:

Those parking spots were full, but duh! I noticed one was open in front of the stairs we use now. (The picture taken after I parked the car.)

I’m guessing I will drop that old parking habit and start this new one. It’s so much easier lugging groceries up now.

October 28, 2025

it’s nice to have friends.

Misty-the-Dog and Friends’s Post

October 27, 2025

I took a little walk yesterday. In a nearby neighborhood:

And over to the pond:

I’m lucky to have them so close.

October 26, 2025

I can understand the appeal.

B.C.

October 25, 2025

I decided to look around for other poems like Camus’s and Oliver’s, and found Invictus. I had read the last four lines years ago,

I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

But I hadn’t read the whole poem,

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
—William Ernest Henley (1849-1903), Victorian poet

And I hadn’t read about the story behind it. The poem came from Henley’s personal experience — his reaction to being diagnosed with tuberculosis of the bone when he was twelve years old, having a leg amputated below the knee in his late teens, and suffering many bouts of extreme pain. He wrote Invictus and other poems while being hospitalized for a couple of years in his mid-20s.

According to Wikipedia, after Henley’s death in 1903 an acquaintance in Boston wrote a piece about her impression of Henley,

There was in him something more than the patient resignation of the religious sufferer, who had bowed himself to the uses of adversity. Deep in his nature lay an inner well of cheerfulness, and a spontaneous joy of living, that nothing could drain dry, though it dwindled sadly after the crowning affliction of his little daughter’s death.

Wow! I’m glad I looked.

October 24, 2025

of pushing back.

Don’t Hesitate

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are
plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed
or about to be. We are not wise, and not very
often kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left.
Perhaps this is its way of fighting back,
that sometimes something happens better than
all the riches or power in the world.
It could be anything, but very likely you notice it
in the instant when love begins.
Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

What brings you joy? How do you fight, push back, against all the nastiness and bad news? How do you affirm that experiences like kindness, love, laughter, beauty, peace are more important than all the power and riches in the world?

October 23, 2025