Ruthie's Christmas Wish 2011

I ran across a blog tonight, as one does.  I highly recommend that you read it.  It's called Ruthie in the Sky.

You know how, on Blogger, when you click on a blog's "About Me"/"View My Complete Profile" section, you are taken to the blog writer's profile?  Right!  And you know how, once there, part of Blogger Fun is being asked a nonsensical (or terribly, awfully sensible) question, to which the blog author jots a quick answer, something wry and, one prays, not too embarrassing?  Right!

Well, in the course of setting up her profile, Ruthie drew this gem to answer:

When your science teacher smashed a frozen rose with a hammer, did you warm the petals to bring them back to life?

And answer the heck out it, did Ruthie:

No. I sang to the petals and they warmed into rubies that glittered with diamond dew.

Just so you'll have one point of comparison, the clever bit of Blogger back-and-forth included in my profile went this way:

BLOGGER: Create a tagline for a new line of plastic bedsheets.

ME:  No. Meh.

Ruthie identifies herself, in general, as a middle-aged woman, a hitchhiker, a blogger, and a photographer.  I suspect that this merely scratches the surface, but we'll respect the limits of self-disclosure, and leave that but-who-*is*-she-really line of inquiry alone.

Well, here.  This is how Ruthie states it at Knol:

I have hitchhiked throughout Alaska, most of the Provinces of Canada and every State in the Continental U.S. This is my eighteenth year on the road (since 1993) and I am now fifty-six. You want to know the truth about hitchhiking in North America? Read on! And check out my blog, "Ruthie In The Sky" (created in 2004) for updates on my latest run on the road.


I have hitchhiked between Montana and North Carolina and Pennsylvania to Colorado, this year (2011) (hitchiked thousands of miles back-and-forth) and I am still posting regular updates in my blog. I am still on the road, as of Thanksgiving 2011 but I might settle in Nebraska for the winter months.

So, I may be a Ruthie Fan, is what I am trying to say, although serious consideration must be given to how swayed I am by romanticism of the highway, the byways, and all the rivers that run to the sea.

I thought, though, that you might enjoy reading her Christmas Wish for this year:

It's almost Christmas and the people in this Country have different ways of celebrating.


Today, I wonder how those who are considering doing something terrible are planning to spend Christmas Day?


We have quite a few children missing, right now. Two men with guns have already taken innocent lives.


And it's only the second week of December.


So, in the true spirit of Christmas, I am going to make this request:


Stop hate.


Because hate hurts and it makes people cry. It breaks hearts, destroys families, takes lives and it makes our Country weak.


If you can't be every person's best friend, at least don't be their worst enemy.


You may find this hard to accept but...love still has a place in the United States.


So give a better part of you away this Christmas. Toss hate in the nearest basket and give out some love, instead.


Every day until Christmas, you will have a choice: Love someone or lose something.


Think about it.


Thank you.

Her update from earlier today is not so heartening, and Ruthie predicts that only in its virtual forms will her Christmas have the "normal" warmth and comforts of the season.