The Burrow

  jpetersenphotography.com

I accomplished something today.  I've never done this before, not once in all my more than seven decades on this planet. I never imagined such a thing would occur,  let alone could occur.  After a trip to the local Ace  Hardware for sealant and to Michael's for clay pots, after another recess spent organizing water brigades running laps with plastic watering cans between a working hose bib and Grandma's Garden, after collecting and tossing those Dollar Store watering cans which could not bear the burden,  I sat quietly under the umbrella and began to create ollas.  The sealant is equal parts water proofing epoxy.  The dispenser is a clever gadget mixing the two.  The lid edges of the three inch pots are wide enough to drag it along.   The situation becomes more complicated when the pots are pressed together. Goo extrudes. This is not a bad thing; I use my fingers to turn the olla and smear the extra in and around the seams.  The las...

There has been lettuce in the standing garden outside the gate for a few weeks.  The oregano is a new addition.  The tiny clay ollas I made and thought were useless are now passsively irrigating our produce. . For scholars who are just walking by, Would you like a bite of lettuce?  is a powerful inducement to stop and have a taste.  I now have enough plants to allow us to denude one or two and still have more to feed us tomorrow.  The oregano is there to balance the blandness of the buttercrunch; it tastes like pizza  is my favorite comment. We filled the two new raised beds with ollas and veggie starts.  Celery and basil and dill and a tomato plant here spinach and dill and some petunias and a snapdragon in the other bed (which I forgot to photograph...sigh). This raised bed has lots of something coming up..... I have no idea what it will turn out to be.  There didn't seem to be any leaves punching through the soil on the right edge, so we placed...

It's pitch dark by 6:15. Thanksgiving is a month away, with Hannukah nipping at its heals. And suddenly it's almost TBG's birthday and then mine.   I remember thinking that I would be 9 forever.  Now, I keep forgetting how old I am; the years are flying by in a way they never have before.   All this while I'm conscious of living in the moment, of being present, of relishing each smell and sound and sight. I'm not sure I'm pleased with the situation.

SOME HIT CLOSE TO HOME Being Twenty in the 70's was more fun than being Seventy in the 20's I don't mind getting older but my body is taking it badly. It's weird being the same age as old people. I don't want to go through  things that don't kill me but make me stronger  anymore. SOME WERE PERSON SPECIFIC Everyone is born right handed.  Only the gifted overcome it. Emotional Support Husband - Do Not Pet Being a TROPHY HUSBAND is exhausting. Excellent friend.  Would recommend. SOME WERE SELF-REFERENTIAL Sometimes I talk to myself, then we both laugh and laugh I'M COLD.  Me 24:7 My password is the last 8 digits of pi. I just want to bake stuff and watch Christmas movies. Bigfoot saw me but nobody believes him. Sarcasm.  It's how I hug. Underestimate me.  That'll be fun. If you think I'm short, you should see my patience. Hold on.  Let me overthink this. My plants are rooting for me. SOME WERE EXPLANATORY I've lost my mind.  I'm pretty sure ...

Mayo Clinic is remarkable. It is also a four hour round trip from home. I'm impressed, relieved, and exhausted. If I could put two thoughts together they would be about great medical care. Unfortunately, I cannot.

Rep. Ciscomani and twelve other vulnerable Republicans  sent a letter to Mike Johnson on Tuesday, a letter that is being touted  as a plea to reopen the government.  As my Representative's website reports: These 13 House Republicans reaffirmed that Congress’s first duty is to keep the government working for the American people - not to use shutdowns as leverage for political gain - and that r esponsible reforms, such as with healthcare, must move forward on its own merits, through regular order, as soon as the Democrat-caused federal government shutdown ends. (the underlining is mine)   In and of itself, that seems perfectly reasonable....  at least the parts I underlined.  Kinda like a middle school social studies book describing the role of one of the co-equal branches of government. Oh, right. Nobody teaches civics any more.  And that whole co-eequal branches thing is long gone.  And don't get me started on.... no don't even mention what ...

Moderate temperatures were promised.  Home Depot's founder just donated $50million to HBCU's so I felt good about shopping there.  Not-Kathy and Aunt Jane were there, too; hugs were exchanged.  I loaded up a cart with lettuce and spinach and celery (!) and Early Girl tomatoes and basil, checked myself out, and was at the garden ten minutes later.  That's when things began to go awry. It was hot.   In order to reach the handle, the kiddo who volunteered to open the umbrella was found standing on the tree stump that holds it up - a definite no-no.  Whistles were blown.  Conversations were had.  It all worked out in the end ( I'll remember - no feet, no knees, nothing but my bottom on the stump)  and tears were averted, but it was a close call. I found the clay pots I glued together last year in my first attempt at creating inexpensive olla balls.  They were enmeshed in spider webs holding little white balls of baby spiders (ugh)....

The protests were peaceful but he's still in the White House, building a ballroom by tearing down the East Wing, and gilding everything in sight.. He's also touting all the land available in Egypt and surrounding Arab nations for the Palestinians to create great lives as the shelling continues in Gaza. The Mayo Clinic is the victim of a "nationwide technology problem" leading to an hour or more wait time on the phone.  The site won't load anything beyond the home page. The olla ball company has not returned any of the messages I've left over the past 10 days.   TBG's on a 7 day course of treatment that precludes his three major food groups - chocolate, caffeine, and milk. Frustration rules.  Silliness, really.  Most of life is going along quite smoothly.  It's just that I'm always on edge these days, and everything kinda hurts.

The sun was out and I was here to protest in it, at 8am.  By definition, it was a good day. By the time I left at 9:30 there were people around the corner, out of site. This is the entrance to the community that protests every Saturday.   Their usual dozen or so had swelled to many many dozens. I left and collected TBG and we drove up to Oro Valley.   He usually lets me represent the family, but this event hit him differently. "Numbers matter and I care." The crowd was a little younger (not much) and a lot more boisterous.   I didn't chant in the 1970's and I didn't chant yesterday.   I did wave my sign(s). Having held placards at these events before, I created a self-standing unit to lean upon. Yes, they are garden stakes.  They, as well as the Camus quote, attracted a lot of attention. I learned another lesson.   20 year old scrapbooking adhesives do not live up to their name.  I spent the first protest sticking the stri...

The frog hats I crocheted arrived in Marin less than 24 hours after I dropped the Express Mail envelope at the post office. The front of my sign is a work in progress. The other side is blank.... for now.  I have all day Friday to work on it. The big decision, as in housing, is location, location, location. There's a big rally downtown .  Un-seated Rep. Adelita Grijalva and Tucson's Mayor Romero will be speechifying.  I'm sure the media will be there. There will be people lining the main road  of the upscale suburb, the one that brings those living north to get downtown.  I've been there before. There will be people deployed at the four corners of a well traveled intersection in midtown.  And there will be people at the entrance to  a community of townhouses and apartments on the road that follows the Rillito River as it cuts through town, from east to west.   I'm not going to the big rally downtown.  Parking problems, big crowds, and ...

We were filling the new raised beds - 2'x6'x2' ribbed metal ovals - with soil.  The soil - eight heavy 3cu foot bags - had to be moved to the beds from their resting place, outside the garden fence.  This took coordination and planning.  I left it to them to figure it out.   Some bags were rolled.  One was tipped over the fence. Most were carried by a gaggle of garden kids of all sizes.  It took two of the four recess sections, but we managed to fill the beds, keeping most of the soil inside. Fourth and second graders joined the party, which had moved from breaking up clumps of soil to evening it out with hand rakes and small trowels.  There were giggles and questions and then there was silence. A second grader's face was covered with soil.   A fourth grader's face was abashed. Sorrowfully, the big girl said Not by purpose, I got her face dirty. It took a minute or two to wipe the little one off.  All the while I was playing that se...

The still living Israeli hostages have returned home.  A few thousand Palestinian detainees have done the same.  This is excellent news and, like President Biden , I will give FFOTUS his due.   Remembering that 135 hostages were released under Biden before the negotiations fell through, and that neither of the warring parties are signatories to the deal, and that the Rafa Gate is closed, and Hamas is returning along with the displaced in Gaza..... I don't have much hope for a lasting peace. Still, those separated from loved ones and home are now reunited, and that, in and of itself, is a good thing. ***** No Kings protests are preemptively described as Hate America protests.   If I hated America I would stay home on Saturday and be grateful that FFOTUS and his minions are doing their dirty work.   No one who truly loves America would attack freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, right?  ***** A raptor just flew in front of my window, not ...

My daily viewing patterns are back to normal.   The gigantic bump was related to comments I left on a Substack or two in September.  I lurk there under Ashleigh at the Burrow; there's a link associated with my penname.  Readers of the post who dug deeper into the comments (often, as everywhere, as interesting as the main content itself) would have found my sentences.   Then Sister forwarded my Disney post  to her mailing list of thousands, encouraging them to read it and spread the word.  The bump continued.  It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.   People seem to have read back a few weeks.  Some seem to have continued reading for a while.  Then, in October, most of them disappeared.  Just like that, they vanished.  I am a victim of the algorithm.  The Substack posts which bore my comments are no longer boosted on the site.   I've done the same thing to others.  I've enjoyed a c...

Having the holiday fall on the 13th of the month neatly solves the problem identified in the first sentence.  Thirteen years later, it still makes me smile. Friday, October 14, 2016 Happy Birthday, Daddoooooo An earlier version was published on 10/14/12, three weeks after we hosted Little Cuter & SIR's wedding. ***** It was always very confusing - was his birthday the 12th or the 14th of October?  One of them was Columbus Day and the other was Herb's Day and to this moment I still have to stop and think.... and it's gotten harder since the bureaucrats moved Chris's Day to the generic. But he was around me in spirit at the wedding he missed by a decade or so, and he's not having an easy time returning to his life on the other side. Yes, I am much happier blaming him for intruding than wondering why I am conversing with dead people. In my defense, we're not so much conversing as he is hovering and I am feeling nudged. For example, I misplaced the green metal h...

As we settled in to watch some baseball, TBG and I were discussing the incursion of AI into our lives.  Every time my phone requires a security update  I return to find two or three new games installed without my permission.  TBG's Yahoo mail account requires closing screen after screen of ways that AI can help  him.   I opened Blogger, my hosting platform, to write to you about vulnerability and resilence.  That will have to wait, because this is what greeted me: **Try our New Beta Features**: Create a more engaging reading experience with the help of Google Google Search links :  Based on your blog content, Blogger will automatically identify key words and phrases in your post and insert Search links in case your readers want to explore more. In Compose View , Look for the ‘Pencil’ icon on the top-right of the page to get started. That's not what I signed up for.  I do not want anything automatically identified nor inserted in my work....

Nothing happened today, according to the people I follow on long form posts.  That may be true.   I exist in a trauma-centric world these days - indicting Jack Smith; indicting James Comey (not my favorite human but still....); air traffic creaking to a halt; ICE and the National Guard and the Insurrection Act propeling us toward who the hell knows; and a Congress beholden to a madman and his minions.  It all seems to be happening all the time. I remember when crises would come one at a time.  I remember when the Presidency and the Supreme Court were respected.  I remember feeling safe. Maybe nothing happened today.  At this point, for me, it's really hard to tell.

I've been making my calls to my federal representatives through the shutdown.  Senator Kelly's office usually answers in person.  Senator Gallego sends me to an attended mailbox.  Congressman Ciscomani's offices in DC and Tucson are staffed and answering the phone.   When Ciscomani's staff are busy, his message references the shut down and says he'll be doing the best he can.  Today, reports are circulating that Arizona's Republican Representatives are pressuring our Senators to reopen the government so they can get back to work.  Mike Johnson says the Epstein files have nothing to do with his refusal to swear in Adelita Grijalva ; he, too, is waiting on the Democrats to come to their senses and destroy the ACA and SNAP-Ed. I must have written urging Representative Ciscomani to vote to release the Epstein files because yesterday I got a written response.  I wrote once before and also got a written response.  The only difference between the co...

That is the question.  There's just so much.  I know it's their plan to overwhelm us on all fronts so we're exhausted and will forget about the fact that now the Epstein files are a hoax.   They took on Tylenol.  They took on Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert (while Brian Kilmeade is free to suggest lethal injections for the mentally ill homeless who refuse treatment)   They are bombing speedboats in international waters and zip tying children in the middle of the night.   And have you seen the ICE videos and, even worse, the ICE recruiting tv spot?  For those of you lucky enough to have been spared the experience, anyone who thinks the police are too restrained by woke regulations should come on over to ICE, where you can wear all sorts of cool gear while wearing a mask.  And don't forget the $50,000 signing bonus, college tuition assistance, and the chance to chase down random dudes on the street. It's appalling.  I sat with my mou...

Yesterday, for an hour and seventeen minutes, I spoke to Rooomie, a friend from junior high days .  She'd texted me the day before: MTF, my true friend since college, died last week. MTF was a good friend who appreciated her friends.  She hosted some of the best girls' weekends ever.   She had a big, generous heart.  She was a caregiver and a grandmother.   She was happiest when her daughter was born, writing that  the rest of the world can go away, because I have her and that's all that matters.   (I still have the card.)    The people she let into her life appreciated her snark.  She was afraid I'd lost mine after being perforated; my mantra (The sun came up today and I was here to see it; by definition, it's a good day) offended her image of me. Ever since I got to know her in college, she had trouble finding the bright side.  Even though she had all the things I knew would have made me happy when we were in high school...

It's impossible to be sad when little ones are hugging you.  I've proven that over and over.  Squealing kindergarteners holding onto my legs cures just abou every pain in my heart.  Today, the mediumm ones proved that they, too, are a balm for the soul.  Eating the fruit brought by a friend, sitting in the shade, on the bench they had placed themselves ( Really? We can decidet? Really?) we talked about friendship.  Nothing very profound. No advice. Just them opening a window into their lives.... as they ate pineapple and apple slices slathered in hot sauce. I didn't understand it, and I didn't want to share it, and they were okay with that. I looked across the garden at the Littlest Kid being tended to by the current guardian of the hose.  I looked across at kids who are trying to learn English, asking for a trowel from the trug.   What is wrong with this picture?  Absolutely nothing.  It's beautiful, it's natural, and it's not extraord...

I started the day looking at the landing page of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.   The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need. That's the banner.  I didn't change the size; it stretches from edge to edge on the full screen.  It also comes in a red version . A survey wondering how satisfied I was with the website, right there in the bottom left corner.  I filled it out, strongly disagreeing and strongly dissatifying wherever I could.  I mentioned the banner  and the Hatch Act in the Comments section. I looked at the Submit button and I froze.  I hadn't given my name, but even a luddite knows that nothing stays private if it's on the interwebs.  So, I clicked on their  Privacey Policy . Click through.  It's a three column, densely packed with tiny print.  It's page 68647 of the Federal Register.  It's incomprehensible.  It also has n...

Emptying the dishwasher, scrambling the eggs, chopping the veggies, cooking the bacon - all normal I don't feel like eating anything heavy tonight  activities for TBG and me.   I offered to do it all, mostly so I could send my music streaight to my hearing aids, and bop along as I cooked.   (This bopping is different than the FFOTUS admired bopping of President Obama, a story picked up everywhere from the Times of India  to  The London Economic ). I let the algorithm shuffle my music.   The Temptations Encyclopedia of Alabama started me off, followed by Dusty Springfield   and  The Mamas and the Papas .   Yes, I am stuck in my own past.... and I love it.  Big Cuter often says that good music stopped with your generation.  I tend to agree. And then the past caught up to the present when  Sly and The Family Stone   https://tinyurl.com/mtac9e3f put it all together for me. Sometimes I'm right and I ca...