For years the food companies have been reducing the size of containers or net weight

of products in order not to raise prices. Now we're getting it both ways. I can remember when a regular size can of tuna was 7 oz. Some years ago they were reduced to 5 oz., but the price didn't drop. It's happened to lots and lots of products.

Wordle 575 1/15 **Spoiler Thread***

Wordle 575 4/6

⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩mouse
🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩shine
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩spite
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩spire

Lucky I didn't have to go to 6 with multiple choice for that last letter.

The Alphabet Game

A little diversion for us all stuck inside looking out at blah, cold and gray.

I'll start. Tell us where and when you took the shot.


A is for Anteaters (shot in the window of a shop in Vienna, November 2013)

Wordle 570 1/10 ***Spoiler Thread***

Wordle 570 4/6

⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨dream
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜crimp
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜trims
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩grimy

More multiple choice.

Wordle 567 1/7 ***Spoiler Thread***

Wordle 567 4/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩train
⬜🟨🟨⬜🟩clown
🟨🟩🟨🟩🟩melon
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩lemon

Second time in only four days that I've had all the letters, but wrong word. Weird.

I turned it off.

These shitsacks are not worth my attention when it's time to unwind, relax and prepare to sleep. Their self absorbed important drama is not going to be part of my Friday night.

And I decided tonight that just as I rarely refer to the orange one by name, I will no longer refer to the party of Lincoln by its name. Instead, members of the political organization once known as the Grand Old Party will now be referred to as shitsacks because that is all they have become in my view: containers of fecal matter.

Cell phone clouds

Do you see the faces and figures? This was dawn from my front porch one morning.

Been going through my cell phone and thought this was a fun shot.



And this was a shot just of the clouds without reference to trees or houses or horizon.

I think that some of us are more deeply affected

by what is happening around us and that colors our perception of a good or bad year, even though our own individual lives may not have been personally affected by all the awful things that are happening in the world: Ukraine, continuation of COVID, creeping fascism, Dobbs decision, attack on voting rights and civil liberties, domestic terrorism, book censorship, gun violence, climate change, water supply, inflation, investment losses, homelessness...and on and on.

There is another DU thread asking people to rate their year from 1-10 and it's surprising to see so many 8's and above. https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181756214

I am a senior white woman who owns her own home and has sufficient resources from Social Security, a federal pension, and investment income that I do not worry about a place to live or enough food to eat. I have Medicare and a supplemental plan funded by the federal pension. And yet, I am afraid for the future of this country and our planet. The Dobbs decision gave me so much anxiety that I ended up with a trip to the ER one morning last summer because I thought I was having a heart attack. It wasn't, but I've had acute anxiety attacks, and what I was experiencing was much different. I continue to have a deep malaise regarding the future, despite my own personal more than satisfactory circumstances.

I hope your wife responds well to treatment for her leukemia.

Wordle 561 1/1 ***Spoiler Thread***

Wordle 561 4/6

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ happy
⬜🟩🟨🟨⬜their
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩shine
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩whine

We all slept in! No whining?! Happy New Year!!

Yay Georgia!!