Author: zenzalei

Into birds, music, nature, science, hockey, movies, fitness, books, chocolate, wine, and spooky things.

Abundantly Yours

I love tarot cards. This raises a lot of eyebrows. The religious go on about the alleged evils of the occult, without really knowing what the word “occult” means, which according to Merriam-Webster is “matters regarded as involving the action or influence of supernatural or supernormal powers or some secret knowledge of them.” (In other words, pretty much every rite and ritual in every religion.) My fellow atheists go on about “superstition.” Everyone else except fellow tarot-lovers goes on about “new agey b.s.”

Well, I don’t care. I’ve said here before that tarot cards help me sort through things and bring up ideas that were bubbling in my subconscious. I also love the artwork in many decks. I don’t use them for “fortune-telling” or divination, as I don’t believe the future is either knowable or predetermined.

Point is, I find tarot cards useful and generally nice to look at barring pretty much every depiction I’ve seen of the Ten of Swords. The Three of Swords and the Nine of Swords are never pleasant, either.

But some cards are just all-around amazing because of their meanings, so I was delighted to find duplicates of some of my favorite cards in a deck that arrived yesterday, The Guardian of the Night Tarot by MJ Cullinane. All of the other cards are there, so these are extras.

Tarot cards from the Guardians of the Night Tarot deck.

When you buy anything through Amazon (yes, I know, bad billionaire supporter, BAD), there is an increased chance that whatever you’re buying is counterfeit, so I checked the author’s website. I love Cullinane’s work and already have two of her decks, the Crow Tarot and the Urban Crow Oracle, and I’d be upset if the cards were counterfeit and someone else was profiting from her hard work. However, the publisher is correct and the deck came with a guidebook in a two-piece box like her website says it should, so I think the extra cards are just a manufacturer’s mistake.

But oh, what cards they are!

Nine of Pentacles: Financial independence, self-sufficiency, a little luxury, enjoying abundance, treating yourself to a little something nice (without going overboard), enjoying the fruits of your labor.

Ten of Pentacles: Financial security, wealth that is passed through generations, permanence, accomplishment in your career that allows you to have all you need, abundance.

Page of Pentacles: Good news regarding money, business, education, career, property, or health; manifesting your goals; opportunities to create your own security and prosperity.

Knight of Pentacles: Hard work, productivity, determination, diligence, ambition, tenacity, finishing what you start, striving toward your goals.

Queen of Pentacles: Prosperity, financial security, nurturing the practical, balance between home and work, being resourceful to create peace and stability in your life.

King of Pentacles: Worldly success that is shared with others, generosity, fulfilment in creative tasks, creating a rich life emotionally as well as materially, knowing what you’re doing and having success with it.

I’LL TAKE IT. I’m in my late 50s. I’m in journalism, which is not exactly the most lucrative of fields. I’ve survived several recessions by the skin of my teeth, and fought off homelessness twice. I have a day job and freelance on the side. I’m pretty good at what I do, but grew up with a lot of financial instability and insecurity and never really feel financially secure. Plus, like many people in the middle class, I’ve had to start over a few times and am vulnerable to the effects of recession. So if the Universe wants to encourage me with a message of abundance, I’m happy to embrace it.

The timing is great, too: In a personal journal I recently whined about wondering what the purpose of my work is if I’m not even sure it’s making a difference in the world, especially with the strange and dark times that are coming to the U.S. (I cover mental health and substance use. The U.S. is not okay and I sense it will be even less okay when the new administration gets in there and starts cutting funding for mental health and substance use treatment services. Those two things have been bipartisan causes for a while—suddenly they became important when White kids started dying by suicide and overdose—but still. Something heartless and ignorant this way comes.) So I’ll take this as a nudge to persevere.

At any rate, I think this deck will be fun to work with. I’ve set the duplicate cards aside, but it’s nice to know that the extra tarot goodness of those particular cards is there. Now I’m off to manifest.

Saturday 9: Something New

Time for a Saturday 9. Hey, it’s still Saturday in California! Here’s the song:

We’re beginning the year with a song about new beginnings. What is something new you’d like to try in 2025?

That’s actually a pretty challenging question. I’ll most likely try a few new recipes. Maybe a few new restaurants. I have a set of PanPastels that I’d like to use in my coloring. I did sign up for a coloring meet-up at a local establishment for later in the month, so that will be nice. Wouldn’t mind meeting some new people who share a hobby.

The lyrics recall what was said “in the mist of the midnight hour.” Where were you when the new year dawned?

I was coming out of the Metro. It made me a little bit sad actually. The station closest to my home is also a major bus stop so it’s very well lit and there are a lot of homeless people there. One of them, a woman, was greeting people with a soft, almost childlike “Happy New Year, everyone!” I thought of how a post of mine went viral, one about an encounter with a homeless woman whom I tried to help but couldn’t, and how one person who was once homeless said “You saw her. That right there means so much.” I waited for the woman to see me and I smiled and wished her a happy new year, too, though I don’t know how it came off because seeing her there was putting tears in my eyes. All I could think was “Here this woman is, with nothing but the possessions in her cart, wishing everyone a happy new year because that’s all she has to give, and no one is acknowledging her. She’s offering something and no one will accept it.” It hurt my heart.

The Axwell of Axwell and Ingrosso is Axel Hedfors. He began as a drummer and moved on to experimenting musically on the computer, eventually mastering music sequencer software. Do you consider yourself more a technophile like Axwell, who loves technology and digital devices, or more a technophobe, anxious about learning new programs?

I love technology—when it works.

His musical partner is Sebastian Ingrosso. Sebastian became interested in dance music when he accompanied his father, a choreographer, to the studio. When you were young, did you ever go to work with either of your parents?

I was 9 or 10 and I went to work with my father, who at the time worked for an ad agency in Manhattan. It was St. Patrick’s Day so after working in the morning, he took the afternoon off and took me to the St. Patrick’s Day parade. I wish I could say it was a good experience, but it wasn’t. There was a vendor selling buttons and pins that said things like “Kiss Me, I’m Irish,” but that being New York, there were a few other pins for other ethnicities. My father winked at me and bought one that said “Italian Power.” Well, some drunk Irish-Americans saw him and began hurling slurs and epithets for Italian-Americans at us. We never went to another parade in Manhattan after that.

That feud between Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans ran deep. My father, a member of the WWII generation, grew up in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn. He had two fistfights as a kid, and one was with an Irish-American boy Danny who made it a point to antagonize him to the point where one day he dared my father to meet him outside after school. This stupid kid didn’t think my father would do it, but not only was my father already out there when Danny came out of the school, he chased Danny home and right into Danny’s own living room, where he proceeded to beat the snot out of him until Danny’s mother pulled him off.

So Danny’s mother went marching down to the school the next day complaining to the principal about this “Italian brute” who beat up her precious angel and the principal called my father down to the office. My father had to wait in the hallway while she spoke her piece, and then when she came out with her little brat in tow, it was my father’s turn to go into the office. With just my father in the room, the principal asked a few questions.

“Did you beat up Danny?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“He kept calling me a guinea wop.”

“I see. Well, you’re not in trouble. Us Jews and Italians need to stick together.”

He let my father leave, and as my father walked down the hallway, he heard the principal bellow, “DANNY, GET IN HERE. No, Mrs. O’Brien. JUST DANNY.”

I suspect this was not the first time darling Danny said bigoted things to the other kids, because he got suspended and when he came back he had to stay after school every day helping teachers clean blackboards—for the rest of the school year.

Nyahh.

But that was 1930s Brooklyn for you.

Axwell & Ingrosso gave their premiere performance at the 2014 Governors Ball Music Festival in New York City and their last concert at the 2017 Ultra Music Fest in Miami. Looking back on 2024, did you attend any outdoor music or theater performances?

Freaks on Parade! I finally got to see Filter. They’re one of my favorite bands. But also Ministry, Alice Cooper, and Rob Zombie. It was awesome!

In 2017, when “Something New” was released, we lost the TV star who could “turn the world on with her smile.” Without looking it up, do you know who that is?

Absolutely. And it was a spinoff, Lou Grant, that first gave me the idea as a kid to become a journalist if I ended up not being a doctor. Well, tenth-grade biochemistry made me reconsider the whole doctor thing, but I was still fascinated with the human body so here I am, a medical journalist.

There was also that dalliance with guitar, where my instructor said I had a lot of promise and my style reminded her of Ace Frehley’s, but like Curly himself, I absolutely HATED sheet music and just wanted to do it my way, which wasn’t doing me any favors academically. And unlike Curly himself, I lacked discipline. Plus I was a girl and a pretty straight-laced one at that, so no rock-and-roll for me. At least not that way. I’ll travel halfway around the world to ride a rail, though. See, blonde center stage gawking up at Olli Tukiainen and Jaska Makinen of Poets of the Fall in a club in Warsaw, below.

Image: Glen Loit

Come to think of it, I’ve managed to interview a few rock stars in my career, too. The most famous one is Bret Michaels of Poison. I wrote a profile about him 18 years ago. Me and my stupid sense of journalistic ethics didn’t take him up on tickets to a show for his solo tour, though. It would have been fun to meet him. He seemed like a super sweet guy during the interview.

Also in 2017, Today Show anchor Hoda Kotb announced she had adopted her first child. Do you know anyone who is adding to their family in 2025?

Not that I know of. Some may be adding pets, though.

Have you made any New Year’s resolutions for 2025?

Yep. I posted them a couple of entries ago.

What was the first thing to make you laugh in 2025?

The wankpanzer burning in front of the Manchurian Cantaloupe’s hotel in Vegas. This was before I knew there was someone in the vehicle and he died by suicide before the explosion. Now it’s not so funny.

I’d better post this before it’s only Saturday in Hawaii.

Lightning Strikes

The Empire State Building, One World Trade Center, the U.S. Capitol, and the Washington Monument were all struck by lightning last night. The best line I’ve seen on the socials so far: “Jimmy Carter told God what’s going on down here.”

Others are saying it’s the Tower card in tarot come to life. If you’re not familiar with tarot, here’s the Tower card:

The Tower card in tarot.
Image: Wikimedia

The Tower means sudden, world-rocking change. It’s disruption of the highest order, often accompanied by crisis and danger. WHEEEEEE!

Then this morning a Tesla Cybertruck exploded and burst into flames in front of a Trump hotel in Las Vegas, killing one person inside the vehicle and injuring several others who were standing nearby. According to NBC, the blast is being investigated as a possible terrorist attack.

Yeah, ya know, those things have a tendency to do that. They’re notorious for catching fire, not unlike Apartheid Clyde himself blowing up and melting down time and again. Excuse me, Kekius Maximus.

Really, someone needs to do a welfare check on that guy. Where’s his family? He’s been having a very public breakdown on his social platform since Christmas Eve. I really would not be surprised if at some point he barricades himself in and starts screaming about aliens and liberals and Laura Loomer coming to get him. If he didn’t have such an army of mush-brained worshippers hanging on his every word, I’d almost feel bad for the guy. It’s clear his doctors are failing him, and my prediction for him is that he’s going to end up either having a psychotic break, which the media will call “exhaustion,” or shedding his mortal coil like Matthew Perry, who died of a ketamine overdose in October 2023.

And through all of this, not a peep from Mark Zuckerberg. I’m no fan of billionaires, I don’t care for his business practices with how Meta handles personal data, and I hate that he’s in with Tiberius Tinyhands, but I have to admit the man is smart. He knows how to keep his mouth shut, his thumbs still, and his profile low. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep an eye on him—it’s often the quiet ones who wreak the most havoc—but he’s not making a braying ass out of himself the way so many in TrumpCo and the GOP are these days.

At any rate, if the last 24 hours are any indication of what’s in store for the U.S. this year, I’m going to need to stock up on popcorn. I like the lime-flavored stuff.