As we do each year, we remember the events that took place outside Chase, Md., on this date in 1987.
Another January 4 arrives, and The Universe is still letting us participate in The Game. It could have literally all come to a crashing end 36 years ago today, but through some lucky blend of cosmic benevolence & mysterious grace, here we are. If you told us we’d end up in 2023, at age 55-and-counting, with acceptance (self- and otherwise) & love & family, not just one of those, but all three, in quantities that seemed unattainable & undeserved, we would have snickered and walked away.
Yet this is how it is turning-out, right now. We cannot deny it, and we do not wish to push it away. As always, it could all come to a crashing end after we hit ‘Publish’ on this post, or start degrading slowly tomorrow — it is not for us to know for certain! But we accept that potential and try to keep going, perhaps backward, maybe sideways, hopefully forward, for whatever amount of time the fates have cut out for us.
Good, bad, indifferent — those are all unnecessary judgments. If the passage of moments, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years & decades has taught us anything, it’s this: it’s enough to just show up and then play The Game however the situation presents itself. Control is a mirage, and The Universe typically laughs at any single creature’s plan.
Just show up, do what you can, try to be a helpful soul, or at least a harmless one, and then step back and let the gods decree what they shall. They’ll give you friends, they’ll give you health, they’ll give you stepsons & stepgrandchildren who adore you, they’ll give you a partner & a canine who are faithful beyond faithful. And then they can take all those things away.
Whatever it is, just show up; you’re still in the game.
Amen. Shantih, shantih, shantih.
BestLine Racing Society Recap:
Gulf & Tampa today from sunny & warm Florida.
In the eighth at the former, #6 Laker Mamba (.135 Win Prob / 6.41-1 Fair Odds / 9.37-1 Premium Odds) won it for Kobe & the Rest of the Purple & Gold at $45.40. The exacta with runner-up #11 Exult (.140 / 6.14 / 7.57) paid $237.80; it needed to pay $160.60 to be a premium-type proposition.
BestLine Racing Society Nightcap:
Turfway tonight.
Strongshots
Race 3
#1 Fancy Liquor (.280 / 2.57 / 3.29)
Race 7
#10 Hurricane Debbie (.235 / 3.26 / 4.11)
Longshots
Race 2
#4 Idiomatic (.411 / 1.43 / 1.92)
#1 Quality Star (.221 / 3.52 / 4.43)
Race 6
#3 Tiltingatwindmills (.140 / 6.14 / 9.00)
#1 Complete (.136 / 6.35 / 9.29)
#5 Texas Magic (.134 / 6.46 / 9.45)
#4 A Real Hero (.127 / 6.87 / 10.02)
#8 Taperinea (.118 / 7.47 / 10.86)
#10 Elusive Justice (.112 / 7.93 / 11.50)
Tomorrow, Allah willing!
