So get excited about dog parks.  There's a new one here in Knoxville.  Or, working on Christmas gifts before the Twelve Days.  Or, that other person getting a smile about something.

  Sometimes when the big picture seems not matching up to reality; or, it's gorging on its own reality we have to realize that even doing our best on a day isn't a whole life of days.  Sometimes everything being mediocre works to the advantage of long haul.

  On long hikes a lot of it is boring, focus is on sore feet, a nub in the backpack, how there doesn't seem a point...then you get to a waterfall, or surpass your goal of five hundred miles.  Most of life is realistically not overly exciting, and not all war.  Even in politics the glory of conquest and campaigning fades into steady beat of just getting the damn job done.

  Economically, most people I know are re-cooking the same beans we've been cooking for the past four years.  Everybody's a bit cardboardy, not real excited about much.  Conserving energy for a change up to come.  Focusing on making self solid...taking care of family and an Americanism that will be freed from a lockdown on success.  Grinding through the last of tied to sinking ship mentality.  Not afraid.