Sláinte . . . Here's to a clear-headed year . . .

Well, here we are: it’s a Moon Day and 2024's first day . . .

. . . suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings. – Meister Eckhart

Four years ago yesterday, The World Health Organization first learned of “viral pneumonia” cases in Wuhan, China; the disease was later determined to be COVID-19, which became a global pandemic the following year.

We’ve got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible, because we are still each other’s only hope. – James Baldwin, in an interview with Margaret Mead,

Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness. – Leo Tolstoy,

Speaking of novelists: Today is J. D. Salinger's 104th birth anniversary. The author of The Catcher in the Rye was born on this date in 1919 New York City

Debra Ponemon posted a note of positivism for our resolutions list.

It is not happiness that makes us grateful. It’s gratefulness that makes us happy – David Stendl-Rast

“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. . .if they're running and they don't look where they're going [they could fall off a cliff]. I mean, I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.” (Holden Caulfield) — J. D. Salinger