The Burrow

Tucson has hit the big time.  As our population base for commercial purposes inches past one million, retailers become more interested in us.  So, when Toby Keith's bar and restaurant (no weapons allowed, thank you very much) went out of business, leaving a curbside, 20,000 square foot space available in the biggest mall in town, look who thought we were worthy.  Because we are so special, bloggers in the area were invited to be the first non-employees to tour the store.   Becca  posted about it and I started my happy dance. Melanie sent me an invitation, and the doors opened as I approached.  Aiden welcomed me and gave me a moment. The view from right there stopped me in my tracks. Hello.   My name is Ashleigh.   I am a Container Store Addict. Aiden and I talked about Big Cuter's gentrifying San Francisco neighborhood as he escorted me to the lunches and the chairs and the hand outs.  It was another example of ...

Waiting for carry-out, watching the news on the television above the cash register, hearing nothing, reading the words scrolling across the bottom of the screen, discovering that there is "a clear and present danger to Christianity"  here in America... and it's all the fault of gay marriage. Marco Rubio must know, right?  After all, he's running for the presidency.   There are seven hats in the Republican ring right now, seven more in the offing.  There's not a one of them who could earn my vote, given the positions they are staking out on ..... well, on almost everything. I listened to Bernie Sanders last night, and agreed with nearly everything he said.... once I got past the fact that his usually unruly hair was neatly combed and not blowing in the wind.  Did he get a haircut?  Is he trying to appear more mainstream?  I think that is a mistake.... unless his aim is to look more adult so that he cannot be dismissed because his hair is too l...

I haven't given anyone an assignment lately.  That's my only excuse for encouraging you, dear denizens, to follow the link to Ronni Bennett's post on Elder Orphans  and then to get your affairs in order. Elder Orphans are those of a certain age without family or friends to care for them should the need arise.  They are the people whose circles have shrunken, leaving only themselves behind. For them, not having a person  is serious business. Those of us who have people, are usually guilty of leaving them uninformed and frustrated when needs arise.  Daddooooo's ongoing care needs sent me into their Health File for the long term care insurance information; it took months of conversations and reading and examining and thinking and considering and studying before I had a handle on it... and then he was in hospice and then he died. G'ma, seeing the tumult, promised that she would have everything organized, and, true to her word, she did.  When she moved her...

The meme on Facebook this weekend is a rant about a phrase.   " Happy Memorial Day " is offensive, it seems.  It's a time for sadness, not happiness, is the argument. The holiday commemorates those who died; to wish for happiness at such an occasion is inappropriate, at best, downright rude at worst. Oh, my.  I just don't know where to begin. After the loss of grandparents and parents and friends old and young, I heard the same advice.   "Remember the good times,"  I was told.  The prescription for memorializing a death was to bring back the joys we shared.  I was aimed toward happiness by those who loved me.  Can't this be a piece of Happy Memorial Day ? There are those who are making a link to wasted lives in the Arabian peninsula; veterans and survivors and those who claim to speak for them emoting on ISIS and what were we there for, anyway ? They are trying to move the meme from memory to memory-with-a-purpose, from the individua...

Once again, my traditional Memorial Day post, first published in 2009, and updated just a little each year.  I used to march in the Memorial Day parade. I was dressed in my Brownie uniform, and then in my Girl Scout uniform - replete with those hated anklets. I wore them because the troop leader said we couldn't march without them and marching was too cool to pass up. All the school bands marched too, and the moms on Benjamin Road provided the materials and the labor to make the capes the high school kids wore. There must have been a military presence there, but I didn't pay enough attention to notice. I was marching and I knew that, all over America, other kids were being Americans and marching, too. I belonged. In Marin, the Memorial Day parade was always good for a  controversy  or two. Or three. Should the anti-war protesters walk alphabetically in the main march, or have their own march, or walk 50 yards behind the official march? I especially liked this discuss...

Why work, when you can play in the sandbox? That's my girl, the one who has had a smile on her face from the moment that first real food - a Chicago, deep dish pizza crust - crossed her lips.  She wanted to join the party, and once she did, she's rarely found it wanting. Not to say that there haven't been moguls along the way. Simply to say that we've found our way through, relatively unscathed, and still speaking to those we love. That's the talent she has, my little girl. She's honest, and not shy about speaking her mind, but the words are so obviously true and from her heart and there's not an ounce of condescension or taunting to be found, so you are forced to listen and hear her and learn. Say what you mean, woman!  she would cry, and I'd stop dancing and start singing. And then, when we'd said what needed to be said, she would move on.  Why wallow in the past when the future's so bright, you have to wear shades? I admit that I h...

Today has gotten away from me, so I'm going to reprise, with some editing, an old post.  The Hormonal Demons are attacking a formerly delightful 13 year old.   I really hope this helps, MS. Would You? A question for my female readers over the age of 15: Would you go back to being 12 again? OK, you can stop screaming now. I am absolutely confident that the thought of living through that year or so makes you want to leave the room and begin drinking. Even if it is 6 am. And you're underage. Or your medicines contraindicate it. I don't care how old you are, you still remember. It's a horrifying idea. The year Little Cuter turned 12, I was sitting at the kitchen table writing the 10 or so holiday cards I'd send to my close but far-flung friends.  "I'm doing...... TBG is....... The Big Cuter's so...... and The Little Cuter is trying to survive being a 12 year old girl." TBG, reading over my shoulder, was appalled. How dare I? It wa...

I mailed Mr. 11 a hard copy of last week's post on his hero, Tom Brady.   Why That Tom Brady FatHead Has to Go  was written as a letter to him, after all; a personal copy seemed only fair. Amster says that he read the post half a dozen times, or more.  There has been a lot of head-shaking, a lot of shopping on the FatHead website for a replacement hero, and some consideration - by Mr. 11, if not his maternal unit - of repainting his entire bedroom to complement his Brady-less decor. But, mostly, she says, there have been conversations about cheating, and honesty, and standing up for yourself.  Taking responsibility for your actions, admitting when you've strayed, knowing that those who love you will respect you even if you're not perfect.... these are the conversations they were having. No one was arguing about The Ideal Gas Law.  They were talking about things much more important than soft footballs. And that, denizens, is the silver lining in this othe...

That's the name of the memorial designed by  Chee Salette Architecture Office, and selected by the panel of artists and architects and philanthropists and survivors to commemorate and inspire our community when thoughts turn to January 8, 2011.   The Embrace  is a perfect name and a perfect image for how we felt after the shooting.  Random strangers hugging me in the produce aisle, sympathetic smiles from those who make the connection between my name or my face and January 8, but more important, and grander, and worthy of celebration, is the general embrace which Tucson gave itself after that awful Saturday morning.   Although only 19 of us will be personally remembered, all of Tucson shares a piece of the memory and the memorial itself.  Chee Salette recognized that; there's a living wall with nooks and crevices into which visitors can place seeds. I can't tell you how happy that makes me.  It's creating new life, moving on, bringing joy and en...

That's what Everytown for Gun Safety  is asking. Orange is the color hunters wear to warn others with guns that they are not targets. It's an idea originating with the friends of Hadiya Pendleton, the Chicago teenager who died -  a victim of random gun violence - just a week after meeting President Obama in the White House. Her parents are sympathetic, the story is tragic, the idea is noble. I'm just not sure I can do it. I see a holstered pistol once or twice a week, here in Tucson..... and I'm not talking about those on the hips of law enforcement agents.  There is no hologram or license or plastic flag on those holsters, there's nothing to tell me whether the wearer is a good guy or a bad guy or a good guy having a bad day.  And then there are all those concealed weapons which are legal here in Arizona, too.   At least those are not obviously in my face. But I wonder, as I wait in line at the grocery store, or at a stop light, jus...

The New England Patriots have responded to Deflategate like true Bostonians , according to Boston.com .  They don't think their quarterback has done anything wrong, they think the punishment is undeserved and over-reaching, and they are defending Tom Brady to the moon and beyond. That's fine.  They're fans. There's a certain amount of loyalty, even over-the-top loyalty, within that community. ***** Brady's agent's ad hominem attacks on Ted Wells were uncalled for, and spoke to me of desperation. If you can't attack the message, attack the messenger.... although that has never convinced me of anything except the hater's lack of imagination and the eventual veracity of the message. ***** Sporting News  has the best reporting on the controversy.  There is a certain snide cynicism attached to the stories in USA Today and CBS Sports and the other websites which Google deemed worthy of my attention. Sporting News was the only site to link to the actua...

I went outside, after being inside all day. I saw this  and this  and this. I leaned in to the gladiolus, because the colors could not be ignored. I admired the new hibiscus . I moved from container to container,  and then I was done. This is all that's filling my brain right now, and that's why I can't write (any more) today.

Different books bring me different pleasures. That innocuous sentence took a look of thinking before it ended up in pixels on your screen.  Not that the rest of my work is slipshod and fast off the fingertips, bypassing my brain entirely (this has been said, with much truth, about my speech, at times) but some sentences carry more import than others. This is especially true of topic sentences, as my children's homework reminded me over and over again.  I want to capture you and state my thesis and move the story along apace.  I don't want you to read my opening offering and groan.  That's what stymied me this afternoon.  I know what I want to say, but it seems so obvious when I put it down for you here in The Burrow. Of course, you're thinking, finishing Ulysses  leaves you with a different feeling than putting down 50 Shades of Grey . Both stories revolve around sex; other than that, it's no contest.  Now, I never got past the first 30 or s...

http://www.fathead.com/nfl/new-england-patriots/tom-brady-quarterback-wall-graphic/ Dear Mr. 11, I'm sorry, but your Tom Brady Fathead has got to go. I know. I know. I know.  You love your Fathead.  It was a present. It completes your Patriot's Man Cave.   It doesn't matter.  I am the self-appointed Keeper of Morality in Sports, Mr 9 & 11 Division.  Since the only thing I'd change about my Mom is if she knew more about sports  defines your maternal unit's relationship to grown men playing games for profit, it has fallen to me, your faux-grandmother, to intervene. We've already been through the Aaron Hernandez debacle; I remember your surprise when you learned that the first trial was for murdering the people who knew about the murder in the second trial.   TWO murders???  you gasped, and I had to tell you that, in fact, there were three dead people attached to this soon-to-be-former hero.   There were no arguments...

I was up and in the garden before breakfast. The plants had been delivered earlier in the week; I spent time arranging and rearranging them until everything was just right. Wearing my favorite new tank top, I spent the early hours of the day covering myself with soil and sweat.  I dug and I upgraded the irrigation and I set loosened root balls in holes twice as wide as themselves. I found irrigation tubing hidden in the holes I was digging.  It was only that water which made it possible for me to dig holes in the caking-up-because-it's-almost-summertime ground which passes for a planting medium in Tucson.  They'd softened the soil enough so that, even in my weakened state, I was able to dig.  It wasn't easy, but I got it done. There are times when I miss Marin... for its dirt. ***** I didn't spend too much time wallowing in self-pity, though.  I was having too much fun.  For the umpteenth year in a row, I was spending Mothers Day up to my elbows i...

FlapJilly's feet = a butterfly

Mothers Day and my becoming a mother coincided in 1983.  It was TBG, my OB/Gyn, a nurse and me.... no medical students, no aides, just the four of us bonding over a sunny Sunday morning and the entry to the world, face up and looking around, of a little human we named for his Grandpaw. It really was the first day of the rest of my life. Up until then, I could sleep without worry.  Up until then, my heart lay securely within my ribs.  Up until then, everyone for whom I was responsible, TBG, was able to be responsible for himself. We looked out for one another, but we were not obsessed. At 12:16 pm on Mothers Day, all of that ended.  My heart was breathing at the foot of our bed, in the cradle my father made, each little snuffle a tug on places I didn't know I had.  It was beautiful and terrifying, all in the same moment. The pediatrician called, the first morning we were home, asking  "How are you?" I started in on the baby's night, but he interrup...

I was very proud of myself.  I saw that Alexander McCall Smith had written a modernized version of Jane Austen's Emma ; I can't remember where.  I went home from wherever I was and opened the public library's new and improved website to find that there were 26 copies ordered, 5 copies in large type, and that I was the first person to put any one of them on hold.  Three days later, an email arrived.  My book was ready to be read.  All I had to do was get myself to the branch and pick it up.  I finished the Anne Perry Christmas story I was devouring and found my book on the Reserve Shelf. It was brand new.  I was the first patron to open the binding of the large type edition. It was thrilling. I am not exaggerating.  There's a wonderful frisson I feel every time I open a new book.  The fact that I wasn't paying for the book made it all the sweeter. (Yes, I pay taxes for the library and I donate to The Friends of the Library, but no funds ...