The last card for the drawing of 2019 is the Knight of Wands. This heralds creative success. But my, if that is so, November’s Strength put a high price on it.
A Difficult November
I worked tirelessly on cleaning up my book for querying as my mother lie dying. She will not live to see it published so I read it to her out loud, not knowing if she even heard it. November really tested faith and hope dealing out despair in pairs. I have never seen my father look so defeated. Or my brother so angry.
Mental illness and addiction are demonic. That awful cry of how do you save someone from themselves? The story of how my mother brushed up to death (again) is not one I am ready to tell at this time. She has survived a major surgery but remains hospitalized unable to walk or even sit up on her own. She has weeks, possibly months, of PT and rehab to pass through with a body that is so weak that she faces long odds. I know she won’t live much longer but I hope she can find some light before the end so it is not the darkness that takes her.
I cling to the things that make life feel bearable. The routine of work. My writing. Liverpool FC. Time with family and friends. But all feels weighted. Looking for good news in the New Year on the other side of a long and dark road back to the light.
On New Year’s Eve 2018, I did a tarot drawing with the cards my daughter had given me for Christmas. For November, the drawing was Strength. And I will need it for the battles to come.
There are too many fixtures. Jurgen Klopp is right. For top EPL teams, the fixture list is insane. Some painful decisions must be made by FIFA. None will be popular. The best solution (to start with) is to cut the EPL down to 18 teams in order to remove four fixtures per team from the schedule. This ensures that the teams are the very best in football. Yes, EPL players make a lot of money but this fixture list destroys the best players. It’s too much. 
The drama queens were at it again for the second time this week. My heart is barely beating. It went down to the whistle as Liverpool pounded out a last second penalty kick to continue their record-breaking winning streak.
October is my favorite month of the year. I love Autumn and in the South, the fall tends to come late, usually around mid-October. I love the crisp autumn air. Nothing makes me feel more alive than the dying year.
In September, I had thought briefly she might want to keep working here in the South. The cost of living is cheaper. She can make quite a good living here, but she misses New York already. So I am going to appreciate the bit of extra time we get together. I know Frankie has appreciated having two humans to boss around. I can’t believe there are only two months remaining in this year. I thought I would be further along with things. I really did.
Two games, two wins for Liverpool in week 7 of the long, long season. So what is this about unicorns?
Baby narwal goalkeeper, Caoimhin Kelleher kept a clean sheet on Wednesday against MK Dons. He played the Neigh card over and over again, denying MK Dons even a single goal. He looked way more experienced than his twenty years dancing about on this planet.
In his pre-game press conference, Sheffield United’s coach said he would play Liverpool to the death. He would not go down easy. And he was true to his word.
Sheffield United showed true quality. They could have beaten us but for the fact that our players defended as the magical unicorns they are. However, Sheffield did the equivalent of playing the dread Pandamonium card on Liverpool for much of the game, turning our fierce unicorns into pandas which have no magical properties whatsoever.
So I went to watch Liverpool play Chelsea with my brother at a pub that happens to be the Chelsea Fan Club spot. I sat, a lone Liverpool fan in a sea of blue. Even my own brother is a Chelsea fan. It’s not a committed relationship with him like Liverpool is with me. My brother loves Christian Pulisic who did not play one second of the game. I am personally glad about that. Not sure the result would have been the same if Chelsea had put Pulisic on the field. I wonder what the issue is there? Anyone have any ideas?
