Woke up to brilliant lightning and close claps of thunder this Friday August the 28th morning of 2026, mug of hot & black. The bed was so comfortable and warm, and, late to bed last night, I'd counted on another hour or so of sleep. No matter: hey! I'm still here, eh? Thank you, God!  We really enjoyed watching the lunar eclipse last night, from its tentative start of just a little smudge of shadow on the bottom left of the moon, right through the narrowing crescent phases until there was just a tiny bit of light right on top of the lunar surface. Clouds were in the way at first, but by half-way the moon was out in the open, higher and clear of clouds.  We were looking high, southeast, and were treated to intermittent bursts of fiery lightning low on the horizon over toward Apalachicola. This is a great place, with a clear view to watch the southern sky. The only thing is that the bright streetlamp right on the Bay edge in Oaks by the Bay Park next door has lightened the n...

Life goes on with or without us, and as people die it occurs to me again this morning that some of us make life better in some way or other for the rest of us. Some measure and mix of their integrity or intelligence, honor, trustworthiness, generosity, kindness, brightness, the very value of their existence among us in our lifeTime.  None of us really know anyone else, and there are things about everyone that we don't know or might not admire, but thinking beyond family, loved ones and friends, for me it's been people I've named here before and others - - in my Time, Franklin D Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Gandhi, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, scholars of The Jesus Seminar, Ike Eisenhower, maybe Bart Ehrman and Sean Dietrich; some in the entertainment industry including Dolly Parton this morning, whose brightness illuminated a Time in my own life.  Even today some of her songs run through my mind and get stuck there, repeating for maybe days on end. As with anyone, IDK, mayb...

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE In its years, +Time turns out to be something of a cross among a weblog and a journal, a diary, a mind dump, a place for food experiences, a bible study; with political viewpoint largely, deliberately, avoided because I know a lot of folks on all sides, most of whom are way smarter than I am. But a trade war with import tariffs, waged among allies and adjacent neighbors whose economies are historically interdependent and a free trade zone, is inarguably Stupid.  So, and I note as a military person, a naval officer long retired but still one, is a border and immigrant war policy and practice that  arrests law abiding loved ones of military members,  destroying morale and loyalty: not the first time, but in this morning's news, arresting the dad of a sailor on the USS Abraham Lincoln. One sailor matters and his dad matters. The simple, cruel meanness of it, and disloyalty to our military members, is incredibly, inarguably stupid, mind-bending...

 ...  and I don't fault or blame them. And that's not meant as a challenge or dare. Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a new type of object called a "black hole star" (named MoM-BH*-1). Located in the early universe about 660 million years after the Big Bang, it looks like a massive red star, but it is powered by a central black hole wrapped in a dense gas cocoon instead of nuclear fusion.  ++++++ Yesterday's breakfast was a second mug of hot & black with a jumbo slice of the cherry pie that I ordered along with the rhubarb pie that is long gone. Once every two or three years I buy a cherry pie like Mama used to make: whole montmorency cherries, a tart, red, sweet pie that just hits the spot when needed. Today, Thursday's breakfast, which I've been thinking toward while I leveled my weight off for my annual doctor appointment weigh-in, was a magic mug of the newly opened club coffee that arrived for August, along with two ...

  What, me worry? I was there, if you weren't yet alive in the best years of being an American, you missed it, that's your loss and I feel for you. It was the years after World War Two. We had It Pays To Be Ignorant on the radio every week ("It pays to be ignorant, to be dumb, to be dense, to be ignorant. It pays to be ignorant just like me."). We had Pogo the Possum with Albert the Alligator, and Maggie & Jiggs, and Our Boarding House with Major Hoople, and MAD magazine, and Dick Tracy, and Buzz Sawyer and his pal Roscoe Sweeney and Sweeney's sister Lucille, who played football, and The Squatleys with their filthiness (Mrs Squatley complaining, "Don't nobody never come clean up fo' us").  We had Captain Easy. We had Archie with Betty and Veronica. We had Li'l Abner with Sadie Hawkins Day and Lena the Hyena, and the wealthy giant crow who rode in the back seat of a long, chauffeur-driven touring car with the top down and his feathery wing...

The emergency alarm and speaker went off while I was in the shower, for no apparent reason as usual, and when we left 7H for church a few minutes later, the elevators were inoperative. At 90 years of age, we are not walking down seven levels and back up seven levels, so instead of church this morning I had pickled artichoke hearts and a martini.  First and only martini in months, have not forgotten my usual mix: ice cubes in my shaker, an ounce jigger of English gin and one of Polish vodka, a pour of dry vermouth from France, a couple of anchovy-stuffed olives from GKWhere, a pour of olive brine, and shake shake shake. This one on ice, so instead of a martini glass, which makes it classic and proper and somehow taste more right, pour into a glass mug. Maybe a bit of pickled herring to go with, eh?  A blessing or stroke of good fortune this morning is that we did not go to eight o'clock church and return to Harbour Village only to be confronted by no elevator service to level s...