Today’s missive is delivered to you mostly by my great granddaughter, RuthAlice, named after my mother, and every bit as smart, willful and charming as the woman who raised me.

In challenging times, good news is more precious than normal, it seems. And the good news is that several generations below me is a cadre of young people preparing to take over the country, and the world – if we can keep it going long enough. I’m proud to count RuthAlice and ALL my other “grands- and-greats” among them.

I’ll admit that, despite being what I consider quite well-read and well-informed, I’d given little thought to the platypus. In fact, on further review, it turns out the things I don’t know about platypi are quite numerous, kind of like a certain President and a certain virus – but I digress…

Duly noted: The platypus is, in some ways, like people my age – short on teeth and always hungry!

And the biggest threat to this lovely marsupial? People. What is it young people say? “We can’t have nice things.” Thank you, RuthAlice, for looking out for the platypi and everyone else!

And, to my indulgent readers, if you’ve been worried about who’s going to replace me as the author of this blog, say, 60 years from now, I commend you possibly to the capable hands of RuthAlice.