It’s been a year, hasn’t it? And that doesn’t even include the previous 4 years as we descended into madness of the former guy’s reign of terror.

Fezbook likes to sideswipe you with memories from years past, and so my post about the passing of the real life Mehitabel popped up, from January of 2017. She put in her time and then some, living almost to her 21st birthday. She managed to avoid coyotes, owls, and raccoons that call my woodland their home.

I will miss you forever, my beautiful kitty girl.

During that month, as we anticipated the incoming former guy, with a lot of trepidation, we also experienced a day of solidarity and joy as all over the world we marched to say, we are watching you. Even my little town of Langley had a massive turnout, despite many people (4 bus loads if I remember correctly) headed into Seattle for an even bigger march.

In the final year of the former guy’s assault on democracy (is it the final year? Seems like he is still assaulting us;) we lost over 600,000 to a worldwide pandemic, which, among TFG’s many crimes, the crime of letting the pandemic run almost unopposed was one of his worst. So many families were torn apart as their loved ones died in hospitals, unable to be together or mourn their losses with family members.

The panda community lost one of our own, not to Covid, but to a bad heart, which is kind of ironic, since Jayelle had one of the biggest hearts I’ve come into contact with on these interwebs.

I made this series of ‘toons in her memory:

2020 did have one bright spot…well, at least two that I can think of. The first was our own little miracle cubby born at the Smithsonian National Zoo in DC, who just made his public debut about a month ago, and is already wowing the crowds.

And the real life Bao Bao (Princess Pinky to her Panda Chronicle fans)had a cubby in her new home in China. alas, as an inexperienced mom, they decided her cubby would do better with an adopted family with an experienced mom and a brother. Fortunately for us, they have their own panda cam, so we can watch her antics.

It left me with a dilemma, since I have chosen to keep Pinky a perpetual teenager, living at home with her family. Hey. It’s fiction. I can do anything I want. I mean Charlie Brown was six for like 75 years, okay?

But there is more than one way to..um… well, you know.

It’s been a very hard year for so many, and a hard lifetime for so many more. I’m not sure where we go from here when so many people are so insistent on denying the reality of the former guy’s loss. The events of January 6, 2021 weigh heavily on my brain. The centuries of racism and the continuing assaults on Black, Latin, and Asian people in this country hurt my very core. The GOP led states who are even now passing voter suppression bills to amplify the harms done, make me wonder if there is any hope for humanity.

Could we learn to be better people? It sure doesn’t seem like that’s the direction we’re headed in. I’m waiting for those who have the power to make laws, to practice justice, to do their jobs and use their power to help people and not just find ways to hold onto that power.

Sorry to be kind of down tonight.

Call your Congress folks,
Get your vaccine,
Work for social justice.

Panda on
Bob T Panda