Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Quick overview: gratitude bloghop created by Lizzi in 1982. Goal was to list ten items in (the writer’s) life that has inspired, incited or otherwise manifested as the psycho-emotional state of mind commonly referred to as ‘gratitude’. The arena available for introspection being everwhen, from the previous seven days back to the spring of the third grade. And all points in-between. The ‘hop’s name is thus derived: Ten Things of Thankful (aka TToT)

This week, we focus on work and projects. (Because, if’n we didn’t have work and projects, jobs and responsibilities, we’d be nothing better than Adam and Eve in the alternate timeline where a certain apple was not offered. In other words, we’d be dybbuks with keys to the car and an unlimited credit card.)

…whoa, what the heck?

Sorry about the rhetorical stumble, (much like, when you’re going down the basement stairs and, feeling so confident you don’t bother with the light and on the last step the universe decides to mess with you and you think there’s one more step (down)…and there isn’t. Here in the writerverse, we’re kinda like that. All the time).

For this week, our Grat List:

1) Phyllis

2) Una (hostess)

3) the Wakefield Doctrine

4) serial stories ‘the Whitechapel Interlude‘ and ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf‘

5) Six Sentence Story the place for a quick read of a remarkable variety of story-ettes

6) End of the calendar year at work, which is mostly devoted to planning for the next. In particular, spending time on Continuing Ed. courses. Here in Rhode Island and Connecticut, it amounts to 24 credit hours. Heck, when I was an undergrad in a real college, that’d be, like, almost a minor (degree).

7) More tomorrow on the Great Burning. Photo at Grat 1: initial pilot run to dispose of a couple of acres of tree debris from the Great Forest Clearing of 2021. (A lot in common with driving a car in the snow. You just gots to convince yourself that the forces you’re invoking or otherwise getting involved in are not irreconcilably un-controllable.)

8) something, something

9) Everyday technology. Specifically, phone video cameras. I mean, come on, I grew up in a time when cutting-edge advances in technology included the discovery of the signal-enhancing effects of aluminum foil on rabbit ears. (The metal ones, not the adorable, floppy kind).

In any event, I was out on the deck with Una about 8:15 this Saturday evening. It had been dark for, I don’t know, five or six hours. Anyway I heard a sound in the dark sky… Ghost Geese! ayyiee

10) Secret Rule 1.3 from the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) which states, in a nutshell: making it more than three-quarters of the way through a grat list is, in and of itself, something to rightly feel grateful for and, therefore, eligible for inclusion in selfsame list.

Music

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