And . . .

There’s a new darling of the entertainment world out there.  +  That’s it, just   +  .

+  can mean different things to different people. To a chemist it means that’s a cation, the positively charged ion, the opposite of an anion, that one that travels to the cathode, which an electrician will recognize as the opposite of the anode, the anode being the positively charged electrode possibly symbolized on a schematic as  +  .  A mathematician, not to be confused with an arithmetist, recognizes  +  as an means of identifying any real number greater than zero. An accountant hopes not to find  +  preceding the number on the bottom line of IRS Form 1040 which would indicate outstanding tax due. A doctor ordering blood knows it is important to include  +  after a patient’s blood type if the patient’s blood has the Rh Factor antigen present. A musician sees  +  and knows to raise the fifth note of a major chord by a half tone. (It sounds weird on paper but not so bad in the ear.) Back when you were an itty bitty youngster, even in the age of “new math,” you learned that  +  symbolizes addition, the one of the four basic food groups of math. Just kidding. I wanted to see if you were paying attention. Addition is one of the four basic arithmetical operations of mathematics, the combination of multiple numbers to determine a total or sum value. You know, 2 + 2 = 4.

The “experts” who upsell premium video content have latched on to an old hook that marketers have used for a while. Skip the words, symbols sell. If a picture is worth a thousand words then  +   is worth at least $4.99. That’s how much extra you’ll shell out for discovery+. That’s a bargain in the plus world now crowded with Apple TV+, BET+, Disney+, ESPN+, and Paramount+ .  It’s such a hot commodity even free channels are “adding” it to their names like Documentaries +, Halloween +, and the succinctly named Free TV+ and Free Movies+ channels.

I’m being a bit unfair calling  +  the “new” darling. The French pay TV service Canal+ began broadcasting in 1984. Not television but still screen based (although often much smaller), Google+ was available on line and on phones from 2011-2019. In the non electronic world  +  has occupied a spot in brand names for everything from clothes (Missen+Main) to soap (Etta + Billie) to window treatments (allen + roth). It wasn’t until FX+ was released in 2018 that  +  began a surge in the television industry. (FX+ was shut down when Disney purchased the network the following year.) Oh there were a handful of PLUS appendices but that little  +  kept itself tucked away. Until now. Expect to see more [Fillintheblank]+ not unlike how many cable/streaming services released [Pickyourfavoritechannel]Go in the 2010s. Expect to see  +  more frequently on the smaller screens again also. Apple News+ coming up on its two year launch anniversary. After a slow start subscriptions hit an all time high in the 2020 second quarter.

You might say  +  is multiplying. (A mathematician wouldn’t but there probably aren’t many of them reading this anyway so go ahead and say it!)

Reading Isn’t Believing

And they say you can’t believe everything you read. (I say you even can’t believe everything you think but that’s a topic for a different post.) No, this is really about what you read, or don’t, or think you’ve read. Or maybe even for some people what you think you wanted to read. Rarely it might be what you read that you wanted to think.

Not only are 4 out every 5 calls I get enticements to either throw my money away on a non-existent extended warranty, or to have them syphon money out of my accounts if I do so much as to actually think to answer it with a phone that had once been near an ATM machine while I was making a withdrawal (I don’t really know about that but it seems like the scammers have to do less and less to get our money, and what could they do to me for presuming otherwise, sue me for libel?) (now where was I?) (oh yes, I remember), not only are there oodles more nuisance phone calls, nuisance emails – either spam or outright phishing schemes – have taken a dramatic upward arc on the occurrence scale. However…every now and then you come across a spammer who didn’t get the new spam scam users guide. These are the ones that have multiple fonts, bold, lots or asterisks and exclamation points, and refer to accounts at banks and retailers you’ve never used or refer to you as your email address.

Yesterday I found a new one. Just in case you thought all the bold type, red bullet points, and mysterious name weren’t incentive enough to open the email, they included in the subject line, “This message is From a trusted sender.” I know that convinced me to open that missive right then and do whatever it said.  Hey, that Nigerian prince might still have some of his millions left to give away.

Clearly that was something not to believe even if I did read it in black and white.

Some signs nobody ever reads. Not far from me there is a stretch of road where for about 30 yards the posted speed limit is 5mph. I’m not sure my car can go that slow. It seems to me nothing between stop and 15mph even exists. Another instance of not believing what I read, although with not quite the same conviction. Oh I’ll slow down as slow as I can get, but 5? Ehhhhhh, probably not.

There is a sign I take with great seriousness and wish everybody who read it would believe it. No, it’s not the “Masks Required” sign but it would be nice if more people believed that too. No, this is this sign.

The rate of confiscated guns per million passengers doubled in 2020, a year when the number of people flying decreased by 60%. So far, with 2 whole months in for 2021, the rate is close to 4 times that of 2020. That puts the TSA on pace to confiscate close to 15,000 guns at security checkpoints. If that doesn’t worry you enough, over 12,000 of those guns will be loaded. Eighty-three percent of the handguns pulled out of pockets, purses, and carry-on bags are loaded.

The most common reason people give for attempting to enter an airport secure area with a concealed and loaded weapon is that they forgot they had it. Yeah right. Put that in writing and I won’t believe it then either. According to the Pew Research Center, 67% of gunowners say they purchased their guns for protection. If all those people getting on the planes are representative of gunowners, when the time comes to protect life or property I suppose they will have to convince the assailant to “hang on there a second, I want to shoot you which is my right, I just have to remember where I put that darn gun.”

It would be nice if people who decide they don’t want to believe the part of the TSA sign that says firearms aren’t allowed through airport check points at least would believe the rest of the sign, the part in smaller print that says they can be fined up to $13,000 dollars for doing so. Then again, maybe that’s not a lot of money to them. In that case … I know this Nigerian prince who needs a little help.

You can believe me on this. I am a trusted sender.

No Taboo On Tenderness

Once again I had a hard time deciding what thoughts to put out to the interworld. I had what I thought an absolutely timely and terrific piece and then all sorts of things came up from politically correcting toys that have no business being the subject of political correctness to speeches espousing incorrectness by people who have no business in politics. Wedged in between were musings on the Golden Globes, the Grammy Awards, and long wait for this year’s Oscars. Then if that wasn’t enough, I’ve been without a phone for the entire weekend which demonstrated how little difference it made in my life but also gave me a brief respite from the onslaught of what has become the extended car warranty spam/scam/abomination.

In the end I decided to go with my first thought even though I had to think so many times before I got there. That first thought was to join the world in celebrating March as Women in History month. There are so many women in history we can make note of, your location, profession, career, passion, and cultural background undoubtedly coloring your idea of the most significant women in history. Marie Curie, Marie Antoinette, Clara Barton, Clara Bow, Cleopatra, Cleo Wade, Sandra Day O’Connor, Doris Day, Sandra Oh; Eve, Sarah, Esther, and Mary. From Lucy to Siri women are history.

The women in our own histories will always be the most important women in our lives. Our mothers and grandmothers, aunts and honorary aunts, teachers, coaches, students, and teammates. And for almost everybody, there is that one person you did not even realize would become a part of your history yet found a way to be part of much of your life without actually being there. For me that woman is Mary Gonzales Duffy, RSM.

Sister Gonzales was a Religious Sister of Mercy. She was already a force in hospital pharmacist when I opened the mail and dug out my pharmacy intern certificate in 1975. If you have ever been a patient in a hospital and received a drug while you were there you benefited from some contribution of Sister. Sister Gonzales was one of those women who did not contribute to the history of pharmacy, she is the history of pharmacy, particularly hospital pharmacy. In 1962 working with the Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University School of Pharmacy she established the first postgraduate, academic residency in Hospital Pharmacy. She formalized drug information services, unit dose distribution methods, and pharmacy consultation services. In 1978 she was elected the first woman president of the American Society of Hospital Pharmacists (now American Society of Health System Pharmacists). That same year she was honored by Duquesne University at their centennial celebration as one of the top 100 alumni.

More than just a collection of her accomplishments in hospital pharmacy, Sister’s legacy reflects her gentleness and respect for those she served, as a pharmacist, as a nun, as a complete person. Sister was still working during my undergraduate years at Duquesne. Even when she received the Harvey A. K. Whitney Award, what is considered hospital pharmacy’s most prestigious award, in 1971, she was just Sister in the pharmacy moving it from a “service of things to a service of people.” Important women in hospital pharmacy are not uncommon, nor is acknowledging them. By the time Sister received her honor in 1971 she was in a long list of women so recognized going to 1953 in an award established just 3 years earlier. Still, she is the one I remember, the one who taught at the school where I learned, who lead the first hospital pharmacy I saw from inside its walls, the one who encouraged me and other young white coated future pharmacists to serve from the outside those walls.

Sister Gonzales closed her Whitney lecture with, “There are some in our modern society who claim we live in an age of insensitivity. Perhaps we do, but I hope not. There should be no taboo on tenderness. … May we be mindful of the fact that our Creator, who has placed us here on earth to do a work, touches the world mainly through the ministration of human services. We labor in an atmosphere where frequently good must battle evil, where some must suffer and die. May it be our happy task to ease the ways of all those for whom we care. May we be brought to the realization that true happiness is found in the knowledge that a job assigned to us here and at this point in time has been a job well done.”

Hers was a job done well, her job as a pharmacist, as a teacher, as a religious, as a part of history.

5 0 0 , 0 0 0

Five hundred thousand. 500,000. Five with five zeros after it. Half a million, half a mil. 500 K. Unless you’ve been under a rock or outside the reach of American news outlets, you’ve heard than number a lot this week.  Earlier this week it was reported that’s how many deaths the US has suffered attributable to CoViD-19. That’s 20% of the world’s CoViD death total. Not bad for a country that represents a little over 4% of the world’s population.

500,000…that’s a lot of people. That’s like all of the people in Vermont. Or Atlanta. That’s five times the people who can fit in Ohio State’s football stadium, about ten times the capacity of Yankee Stadium. Five hundred thousand deaths is 167,000 times the number of people killed in the 9/11 attacks on the USA.  It’s as many Americans who lost their lives in World War II, and Korea, and Vietnam. What it took three major wars almost 30 years to do, Orthocoronavirinae betacoronavirus-2 did in one year and 2 weeks.

That’s 20% of the world’s deaths from a country not even 5% of it’s population. Well, why would that surprise us. After all, that same 4.27% of the world controls almost 30% of its wealth, and damn near 99% of its football (as opposed to football). We’re badass. We don’t need no stinking masks, we don’t need no stinking social distancing. Oh but give us those vaccines. Oh yeah baby. The good old US of A has gotten almost 30% of the vaccine doses that have been produced.

We might as well give some back because 30% of Americans polled say they won’t get the vaccine. Last July that was almost 60%. It’s even gone down some since last November when 39% said they wouldn’t get the vaccine. Still, that’s almost 100 million people who I guess think the virus is a hoax. Idiots.

Sorry – no funny stories, no cute picture, no clever wrap up.  But one bright spot – at least it’s not politicians making me sick this week.

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

I had a complete post ready to go on the latest copy cat trend – counterfeit masks. Really, that’s a thing. Just last week US Customs officials confiscated another (another!) million counterfeit 3M N-95 masks. In the last year over 11 million of those little devils were seized coming into the country in twelve states, most of them headed for hospitals and other health care facilities. So if it seems to you like you’re not having any trouble finding them on internet marketplaces, maybe you should empty that shopping cart.

That’s what I was going to post and it was going to be great. Besides, I had been waiting for years to use that line for a title. And then I had this new story. It just can’t wait. Masks are important and all but surely I can come up with a non-CoViD related story every now and then. Now this new one might be tangentially virus related. Witnessing the speed it made it’s way around the interwebs it’s certainly viral. You might well have already heard this but not with my, ahem, unique spin. Unfortunately I had some things I had to take care of before I could go out and play right away so I had to make you wait all day for this. But it’s worth it. And I didn’t even have to change the title!  

So then, what is this new flattery.  Remember when you were a little kid sitting at the breakfast table with you hand thrust deep into the cereal box looking for that prize that was always buried at the bottom? If you are of my generation you remember that. Young folk reading, go ask your parents. While you at it you can ask them what it means to sound like a broken record. Back to the cereal box, buried under all that sugar coated crunchiness was a plastic truck the size of a pencil eraser, a whistle that never worked, or maybe a comic strip. To a five year old it was like uncovering buried treasure, like finding a million bucks!

Imagine finding 6 million dollars in your breakfast food. That’s what the US Customs and Border Patrol unit working the Cincinnati airport dug out of the boxes of frosted corn flakes shipped out of Peru on their way to a private residence in Hong Kong. I’m not an expert on international cereal shipping practices but that right there, doesn’t that sound somewhat suspicious?

Maybe that’s not the standard procedure for shipping sugar coated flakes of corn, but it might be just the exact way one moves cocaine around the world! Yes, those white crystals coating the corn flakes weren’t your everyday ordinary sugar crystals. Them there white thingies were cocaine. Forty-four pounds of cocaine. Talk about being grrrreat! That’ll put some pop in your snap and crackle. Now there’s one lucky lucky charm. Don’t stop me now I have a million of them.

That was far far far from the first time food was used to disguise a drug shipment. For some reason all of the news outlets ended the story with how last year Italian officials confiscated cocaine packed in individually hollowed out coffee beans but there are so many others they could have mentioned and not all looked like cut and paste news hacks. For instance, over the last 5 or 6 years cocaine has been smuggled packed in raw meat, carrots, cucumbers, bananas, and powdered drink mixes. My personal favorite is the cocaine packed pineapples, 400 pounds of it packing in hollowed out pineapples uncovered in Spain.

So you see, how could I go with counterfeit masks when phony flakes were asking to be uncovered.

 

It Seemed Like a Good Idea

How many times have you worked up what you were certain was a perfectly good plan, an acceptable idea, a jolly good show, only to find upon execution than what you really discovered was a newer, quicker, better than new and improved way to a folly good show? We all have failures in our back pockets. Some of us consider them learning experiences. Others may try to bury them. Or as one young man recently attempted, to drown his.

Good ideas are hard to come by. When we think we might be on to something the last thing we want to happen is to see somebody else beat us to the patent office with that better mousetrap because we took the time to think things through twice. Now make no mistake about it, the world is indeed still looking for the mousetrap to beat all mousetraps but it ain’t gonna hurt to stop and give that thought a second or third go ‘round through the old noggin.

There are times some of us share our ideas with others before acting on them. The prudent among us at least listen to the advice, consider the advice, perhaps rethink some or all of our thought and then seek again even more advice. And then there are times we don’t even have to consider the advice. If that advice is “heck yeah, that’s amazing!” we probably won’t question our logic. Likewise it the advice is “you’re on really thin ice” we return to the starting point and rethink that whole though. Usually.

Sometimes our plans are so outrageous we disown them. “No, I didn’t do/think/say that!” even coming up with an alternate “plan” when someone suspects we really did do/think/say that. Sometimes, very few times fortunately, we go ahead and do something particularly unthinkable and get caught for all the world to see. And then quite rarely we get caught with such a bad plan someone like me will come along and make sure as much of the world as I can reach gets to see it because, well, because sometimes stupid cries out to be heard or otherwise you just won’t believe people still come up bonehead ideas like this. Like what?

Like this: ↓

If you like you can read the whole story here but the gist of it is that the young man, um, make that the old enough to know better man thought: a) it would be fun to drive across the lake or b) it was a parking lot. Or perhaps c) all the above? since he gave both reasons to the local police.

So remember boys and girls, when you think you have a really good idea, don’t believe everything you think! (Oh, where have I heard that before?)

Only in America

This has been the week for Only in America. It’s funny. When I was growing up bright eyed during the days of The Donna Reed Show and Leave It to Beaver, Only in America meant the good things the country provided its citizens. Today, Only in America reflects the bizarre that no other country would expose to its citizens. 

 

The most watched show in the last week might have been the impeachment proceedings. And make no mistake, it was a show. Only in America is news an entertainment venture complete with spiffy graphics and market tested titles. At some news outlets this weekend’s lead graphic proclaimed “Senate Votes to Acquit 57-43.” Actually not true and misleading. Truer were the ones “Senate Acquits Trump 57-43” but still misleading. Truer and not misleading were those who published simply “Senate Acquits” or the least misleading, “Senate Fails to Convict.” Let me explain.

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Senate TV via AP

 

The headlines touting acquittal by a vote of 57-43 imply more Senators voted to acquit that convict and that more of them felt the charges were unsubstantiated.  In fact there was no vote to acquit. The vote was not taken to determine innocence but to establish guilt so the vote was to convict. Fifty-three Senators voted to convict, 43 senators to acquit and even though more of those Senators voted to convict the former President, it was not enough.  Only in America can less people vote for something and win.

 

This can explain the whole Trumpian movement. In 2016, Trump garnered fewer votes in the Presidential election yet was declared a winner. That may have led to the expectation that whatever is his desire is the reality, regardless of the actual reality. Thus America entered the Alternate Facts Era. Only in America can the be multiple facts for a given piece of reality. And it started when it didn’t rain on the 2016 inauguration – even if all those photos and videos show watery precipitation falling from the sky. Let’s review.

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After the Trump inauguration the White House press secretary declared the “largest crowd to ever witness an inauguration  – period” saw the new President sworn in. He even stated the Washington DC area mass transit system carried over 420,000 people that day as part of his proof that the inauguration was the biggest of its kind. When reporters questioned actual crowd size from aerial photos and established that the transit system had in fact carried only 197,000 riders, another top White House figure explained this difference by stating, “Our press secretary gave alternate facts to that [crowd size]” and so now whatever was wished to have happened will have happened and be proven if not with facts then with Alternate Facts. 

 

Although this concept of not telling the complete truth (which many rational people call lying) is not a new idea, for four years Alternate Facts ruled and millions of people chose the alternate version to the factual version. Everything was unfair game: medical pronouncements from windmills causing cancer to the use of mask and social distancing don’t do much to prevent the spread of air borne viruses; environmental related charges from California wildfires spread because the state diverts water from rivers to the Pacific Ocean to it takes 10 to 15 flushes to adequately clear a low-flow toilet; political charges from “Article II [of the Constitution] allows me to do whatever I want” to the election was rigged.

 

Alternate Facts are embraced by so many because they are easier to understand than real facts. Real facts often require a knowledge of a particular subject or at least a requirement read a full news article or opinion piece, anything beyond a retweeted Twitter post on a topic. Alternate facts, because they have no basis in actual fact require no research because there is nothing to research. Yes Only in America have so many received degrees in medicine law, political science, engineering, or economics from Google University.

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Alternate Facts often can boiled down to a simple slogan or phrase, something easy to remember. Again, not a new idea. Marketers have used the sloganeering since marketing began. For example, you may not know anything about American sports but you probably recognize the sobriquet Hammering Hank and know Hank Aaron hit a lot of home runs, or that the Steel Curtain had something to do with football defense. They are a playful nicknames that glean from the truth. Likewise advertisers have made household names out of obscure brands. “When you’re number two you have to try harder” was coined when Avis was actually a distant #3 in car rentals but by the time they were coerced into changing their slogan to a simpler “We Try Harder” they were closing in in the number one spot. Unfortunately some quick to remember tags are far from truthful like sticking the word “herbal” as part of the trademarked name of a skin product or vitamin when in fact there is no herbal ingredient. Or Stop the Steal when there was nothing stolen. Nicknames not at all playful, Crooked Hillary, Cryin’ Chuck, or Mike Pounce for example, to people other than to the bullyesque may live longer than Aaron’s hold on the home run record. Only in America.

 

Yep, Only in America can the majority vote for something and lose, can hard news be reduced to sound bites, and can political opponents, regardless of party be reduced to nasty nicknames, and can facts be substituted at will, yet some people see nothing wrong with that picture.  

 

And people say Leave It to Beaver was an unrealistic presentation of life. 

 

 

Chúc mừng năm mới

If you can’t read that (I can’t either without help) I’ll translate for you – Happy New Year! Tomorrow begins the Lunar New Year celebrations throughout the Asian world. If you’re an ugly American as even the most sensitive of us sometimes are, you’ve called it Chinese New Year for most if not all of your life, if you called it anything, Out in the real world, the Lunar New Year celebrations stretch back to the second century BC during the Han Dynasty. The “Chinese calendar” that begins time with this new year is a lunisolar calendar based on the moon’s cycles or phases in addition to our solar orbit.  (A true lunar calendar based solar on the phases of the moon spans 354 days rather than the 365 days it takes to completely orbit the sun – give or take so additional adjustments are made not unlike the quadrennial habit of tossing in leap day.)

The Lunar New Year falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice, this year on our February 12 and marks the beginning of year 4718, the year of the Ox (or Buffalo, Bull, or Cow).  Over 2 billion people from mainland China to Brunei, more than a quarter of the world’s population will celebrate the turning of that calendar page . The greeting I began this post is in Vietnamese where the celebration westerners call Tet will begin with a day devoted to the immediate family. (“Tet” translates to “Festival”) The lunar new year celebrations can last up to 14 days ranging to the first full moon after the new year. For as many cultures that celebrate the Lunar New Year there are that many variations on the celebrations. In Vietnam Tết Nguyên Đán (Festival of the First Morning of the First Day) may last only 3 days.

We would do well to emulate the Asian cultures celebrating this new year. Unlike the western new year the Lunar New Year is not marked with discounts on mattresses and major appliances., there won’t be insincere promises to resolve to do better, be better, live better for the next 12 hours or until the first sign of temptation comes along, and the first morning won’t be welcomed with a hangover headache from over celebrating on the eve of the day most likely to be on the road with a drunk driver. Lunar New Year celebrations typically revolve around family: the immediate, the extended, and the helpers. Traditions likely include sharing tokens of good luck and prosperity and  homes brightly decorated and filled with scent of long held traditional family foods. Think of Thanksgiving without Black Friday mixed in with a little Christmas and a bit of the Fourth of July (fireworks, everything is better with fireworks!).

If you’re looking for a reason to celebrate this weekend and you’re not already one of the aforementioned 2 billion, grab the ox by the horns, gather round the family, and wish each other long life, good health, and prosperity to all!

Not The Smartest Guy In The Room

I have a sign on my office wall hung where I can see it easily from my desk. I’ve had that sign for years. It has travelled with me to all my professional stops, always front and center, always within sight. It reads, “Don’t believe everything you think.” It is that gentle reminder that I am not the smartest guy in the room – even when I am alone. That has served me quite well for so many years, even now when my only real brainwork might be deciding what color towels to put out in the bathroom this week. Most often I do not go with my first thought, just in case it might be wrong. Because um, most often, well, ah, it is.

I could stop right here. But you know I won’t. (You’ve probably gotten used to that about me.) So I won’t. I can’t. At least I don’t think so. Hmmm.

I would just love to multiply my little wall sign and send it to a few hundred dozen people who really really really need to stop believing what they think. Stop and, if you’ll forgive the expression, think about this. In the last year we have heard people say some incredibly stupid things with seeming sincerity. Or perhaps seamy sincerity.  Of course celebrities specialize in stupid, as do politicians. Making up their own “alternate facts” to fit a circumstance is what noticeably separates that group from “normal” people. The fact that these facts are not the facts doesn’t stop these folks from holding onto them as facts. Nor does just repeating a fallacy over and over turn it into a fact. So Rep. Greene, the gun rights lobby was not behind the Las Vegas shooting and lasers from outer space did not start the California wildfires. Mr. Barkley you undoubtedly pay a lot in taxes but as they say, money can’t buy happiness, let alone a CoViD vaccine. Major League Baseball Player Association (aka “union”) chief Tony Clark, that the average baseball player made “only” $1.59 million would be plenty “incentive to compete” for the several hundred million Americans who don’t get paid to play a child’s game for a living not to mention the several hundred thousand who are getting paid to even do work right now. And gee golly willikers Mr. Former Chief Executive, where do I begin?

What has me more concerned now is that the normally normal people are starting to act like celebrities, apparently deciding their version of truth and right is true and correct even when founded in falsehood and irrational thinking. Notwithstanding the loonies who claim they had no intention of rioting even though their Facebook posts say “On my way to the second revolution” and they are seen thrusting a battering ram into the door of the Capitol, there are far more normal people now acting as if their own wants are the only required justifications for their action.

I could run through a bazillion examples taken from the comments sections of the posted news articles reporting the activities of the celebrities and notorious lesser knowns. It would only serve to give me a headache and heartburn because those abnormal normal people certainly don’t read my posts and if they do I’m not so influential that I can change anybody’s thinking. In truth I really don’t want to change anybody’s thinking. Your thoughts are part of what makes you you. Your ability to temper your thoughts, to ponder, consider, and adjust are part of what makes you greater than just you.

No, I don’t want anybody to stop thinking, I’d just like people to stop and think again before acting on that first thought because, well really, you can’t believe everything you think.

Chasing Groundhogs

For Twelve days I chased that groundhog, that rodent brought to me …

Twelve handlers handling
Eleven chipmunks chatting
Ten marmots munching
Nine ground squirrels chomping
Eight gophers going
Seven woodchucks chucking
Six lemurs lounging

five – hollow – trees! 🐾

four woolen mufflers 🧣
three top hats 🎩
two fur-lined mittens🧤

and a shadow for him to later see 🕳

 

 

((C) MRoss 2021, All Rights Reserved)