We All Need A Little Kindness

From Steeplejack:

Sulphur Springs, Texas:

It was manager Jayden Wilson’s senior night…pic.twitter.com/Rhg8C3xyf5

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) February 16, 2023

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I feel like someone sent this to me, but I didn’t mark it when I saved it. Please identify yourself in the comments.

Try watching this without smiling pic.twitter.com/pS8GrGwwfr

— Regan Budig (@regs177) November 26, 2022

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If Annie Lennox likes it, I’m not going to argue. These talented and adorable kids:

I keep encountering these wonderful versions of “Sweet Dreams”. Here’s the latest discovery! You’re gonna LOVE these gorgeous and massively talented young peeps! pic.twitter.com/rj2TFZYhCo

— Annie Lennox (@AnnieLennox) December 15, 2022

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Two Three longer stories. One from Dangerman:

Big hearted: Cartoonist Leigh Rubin keeps drawing while caring for friend who had heart transplant

The creator of “Rubes” has been friends with the recipient of the new heart for 50 years.

PAT PEMBERTON / January 28, 2023

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (CN) — After landing in Portland with a 3-month stash of art supplies, syndicated cartoonist Leigh Rubin immediately headed to the Providence Heart Clinic, where his childhood friend was waiting on a heart transplant.

“As it turns out, his new heart arrived the day I did, which was very thoughtful of him because he knows how much I hate to be kept waiting,” Rubin joked.

While many were holiday shopping on Dec. 8, Rubin had committed to becoming a caretaker for his friend Steve Ulrich, whom he has known since sixth grade. But Ulrich’s new heart, he said, was the perfect gift for both of them.

“He got the gift of life, and I got to keep a friend around for hopefully many more years,” Rubin said.

The entire story is a joy, read here.

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This story and the photos from Melissa is a great read:

Miraculous Search-and-Rescue of a Lost Child

As storms raged, a four-year-old boy from Asa went missing in the surrounding wilderness. While ground teams tried to track his tiny footprints, our fixed-wing pilot supported the search party from the air. One lost night stretched into several, and it seemed increasingly impossible that the child would be found alive in such a vast, unforgiving landscape. But then, on the sixth day, a miracle happened. This account is told by the SWT pilot who joined the search party, Roan Carr-Hartley.

On the evening of 29th November, we received a call from the chief of Asa, a community 52 kilometres east of the northern Tsavo East park boundary. He reported that a four-year-old boy had gone missing during a storm the day prior, while out herding livestock with his brothers. The chief had heard people from the neighbouring town speaking about a pilot who helped find a missing child just a few days prior. After hearing these stories, he too asked for aerial assistance.

It was too late to initiate a search that night, but the following morning, I left Kaluku HQ at around 6:15am and flew 70 minutes to reach the boy’s village. By the time I was overhead, a search party of 70 men were fanning through the wild scrubland in search of the little boy. I had a rough direction of the search party’s location given to me by the Chief. The party had tracked the boy to an area 7 kilometres from his village, but then the tracks started to become unreadable.

Read the entire story here. 

If you’ve forgotten, here’s where he started when he arrived on my birthday in August. I should do an update on him, but the short version is, he’s a joy. He’s very sweet and very stubborn. Fits right in here.

(added note: reading through the comments on the original Jasper post, I should answer some Qs – he’s come a long way with counter surfing – hardly ever an issue. The cats have not only adjusted to him but are happy to go to him for nuzzles. While Scout has come around, I’m still not sure she “likes” him.  And Nick, who is still much in love with the now spayed Trixie, views him as a rival and is constantly chasing him around the yard and biting at his ankles. Silly duck is lucky Jasper is a kind soul).

Remember, be kind to yourself.

Her son Harry’s name. A fresh wound that. Six months is not a long time. But it was done with no extra fuss. Like a teacup spilling over. Tears just happen and you wipe at the weepage and continue your nice conversation. Cracked eggs to make an omelet sort of thing. Her son had been the head docent at the Holocaust museum here in town. She worried her bags of bagels were inconveniencing me and I laughed.

She appreciated my Russian and the accent was good enough that she launched into a story that I caught about half of before strategically steering us back to English. I can’t argue politics in Russian. And she wanted to talk politics. We got to her house and she invited me to come in to show me her things. She’d been a teacher at a Jewish school. She told me about all her famous students.

Authors who’d invited their grade school teacher to their book release party. I know about this because I read the publisher’s personal invitation. Out loud for her to hear again while she smiled at the memory. Kirk FaceTimed me and there was my face and Barbara’s grinning over my shoulder to greet

him. So they happily met. When I left her I wandered all the way to Sweet Lady Jane to get a coffee and ogle their beautiful pastries. Yay, I finally had cell. I looked at the smart phone and laughed.

Last time I’ll let Apple tell me I have “connectivity issues.” Because that’s just not true. I’ll call on her tomorrow. But I’ll introduce you all tonight. Everyone, this is Barbara. My new best friend. I’ll leave you with this type written wisdom from Barbara’s refrigerator.

 

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O. Felix Culpa sent this to me, and I had actually meant to bookmark it when I saw it last Sunday, so I’m happy for the reminder.

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Steeplejack sent this gift link to NYT:

His talent for creating realistic documents helped children, their parents and others escape deportation to concentration camps, and in many cases to flee Nazi-occupied territory.

Worth a read for sure.

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And we all should have this much joy. You go Sebastian:

I know lots of you have been sending me Kindness, and it’s much appreciated. May still be a while before I get back to regularly posting them. Between tax season and my newest book heading to the publisher in the next week or so (still finalizing the cover and how best to format the recipes), I’m going all out these days.

Gonna be sub-zero this weekend and you know what that means! Ducks in the bathtub. I’ll post some video or photos if I’m not running on empty by then.

On the cooking blog, I’ve been focusing on meal shortcuts lately. Tonight I’m going to do frozen spinach ravioli lasagna. Last week it was Air Frying Frozen Potstickers. Not everything has to be a gourmet meal, but it does have to be tasty.

Meanwhile, here’s Trixie being Trixie and poor Scout.

Remember to be kind to yourself.

Tell us about some of the good news in your world…