It's Still July

Costco's aisles were filled with backpacks and lunch boxes this afternoon.  

Monday was New Teachers First Day.

School starts in one week - Wednesday, August 6th.

My desk is covered in planning for the year.  A planting calendar, the school year calendar, Back to School Love Feast..... my brain is not prepared for this.

It's July.  It's the middle of the summer.  I should be planning a trip to the ocean, not deciding which seeds to plant in Grandma's Garden.  

I don't understand why the school year is structured the way it is.  

Tucson Unified School District is floating the idea of year-round school, or 4 days/10 hour weeks.  (Parents have been asked to weigh in; this woman's analysis is worth reading).  The Cuters' school in Chicago was on trimesters; we loved it.  Having vacation time when everyone else was in school made ski slopes uncrowded and theme parks deserted.  We made good use of the time.

I'm not just complaining.  I have a solution.

Tucson kids can't really play outside in the summer; the sidewalks are scalding, the sun is relentless, and playground equipment is too hot to touch.  Our schools are air-conditioned.  Outdoor time is scheduled in 20 minute increments. 

The weeks between Thanksgiving and the start of the Winter Holidays are filled with learning squeezed in around partying.  Everyone is distracted.  

What if our school year began the first week of January and ended on Halloween?  

Families could travel to see distant relatives.  The weather is beautiful in the winter time; just ask the snowbirds.  The kids could be outside, families could be together, and, when the summer heat sets in there will be cool spaces for our students.

We're not an agricultural society any more.  Most kids aren't needed in the fields in the summer.  Maybe it's time for a change.

Coming Home

TBG is being released today.  The relief is palpable.... for both of us. 

The hospitalist managed to secure a follow up appointment with a doctor whose scheduler told me the next avaliable date was in November. 

Home health care is organized, and I had nothing to do with it.  Behind the scenes, people were working and planning and all we had to do was say yes. 

His bills this year are close to $500,000, and that's without this 8 day plus surgery stay. We paid a manageable deductible.  Procedures billed at thousands were magically reduced to hundreds because we have insurance.  The uninsured pay the not-discounted-amount.  It's easy to see why medical debt destroys families. 

Medicine in America is broken.  None of the staff here received the 40% increase that TBG now is paying for h his insurance.  Where did that money go? 

Gun violence is never acceptable.  I can, however, understand the rage and fury and helplessness that fed Luigi Mangione's desire for retribution. 

Saturday Night

Drove home in the dark, though tonight it was punctuated by bolts of lightning.  This is not the lightning of Long Island or Chicago or Marin.  These are vertical, startlingly bright, tremendously long, bolts of light that illuminate the mountains and make midnight feel like late afternoon.  Sometimes there are more than one at a time, and the whole sky turns a milky white.

I would rather have been a passenger than the one responsible for staying calm as the night explodes.

Hadn't remembered to leave a light on and groped to find the alarm, whose bright green clock wasn't enough to encourage a speedy transit of the 5 steps from the door.  I dropped my hospital purse and the bright pink cooler on the kitchen counter and turned to the sink to wash my hands.

I looked up as I replaced the detritus of the day with aloe and grapefruit and saw this

Last month,  Auntie M and Mr. T sent me a fruit basket filled with lots of multi-colored paper, some unfortunate fruits, and this plant.  It really didn't need much care; I basically ignored it, admiring its blooms. and picking them up when they fell.  When the last one bit the dust, I took away the basket, plopped the pot into that polka dot container, and, once again, ignored it..... until it announced its presence with authority Saturday night.  

I took it down to the lower counter to reassure myself that there were, in fact, little flowers - a few of them blooming and the rest of them teetering on the brink.  I grabbed my secateur (garden snips; it lives by the sink with the pot holders) and began to trim.  I spent twenty satisfying minutes repairing my prior pruning.  Those dead stalks I thought would sprout buds apparently would not.  

The anthropomorphism has officially begun.  I gave her some water and have begun to contemplate a name.  I'm taking her reawakening as a sign that TBG's health is about to break free from the ridiculous and into the sublime.  I went to sleep with a smile on my face and love in my heart.  

Gardening will do that.

Magic

Drove home in the dark.  

Hungry, but this isn't New York City so by 9pm there's MickeyD's or Burger King. 

Created a boring but filling turkey sandwich, read Miles Taylor's Substack.

Found Arcturus and Vega and went inside; the air was too thick to be enjoyable.

I was moping.  

Came into the library and saw a new message blinking red on  the answering machine (yes, an answering machine for our landline.... yes, a landline, too).

Wondered what the other 14 messages were and listened from the beginning.

Magic.

Giblet and Little Cuter babbling happily, signing off with a resounding BYE!!!

FlapJilly and Little Cuter encouraging Giblet to say hi.

Big Cuter and Queen T after their first ultrasound; she's beautiful.

The rest were nonsense and easily deleted.  While congratulating my past self for saving them, I replayed my three love notes from the past.

I'm smiling and my heart is full.  Like I said: Magic.

A Room With A View

Trying to find joy in a hospital setting is a matter of small steps.   This morning,  TBG was ready to lighten the darkness and let me roll up the windowshade.

It's a lot easier to be anxious when there is beauty avaliable with a tug on a chain.  Instead of focusing on the tubes and the beeps and the evidence of illness surrounding him, I'm lying back on the small, sort of comfortable, sofa,  watching the clouds and writing to you. 

I can feel the love.  I feel you caring.  It's a virtual, giant, warming hug. 

Thanks for being here.  

Degrees of Kindness

Hospitals (yes,  we're back in the hospital) create an interesting collection of humans.  When we arrived this morning, there were white,  middle aged,  sick people in the waiting area of the Emergency Department.  This evening,  it is filled with people of every color and size and shape. 

It also creates an interesting collection of machinery,  much of which is attached to TBG at the moment.  Heart rate,  blood pressure,  respiration.... I can watch it all from my chair at the end of his bed.  There are green squiggly lines,  white curves with flattened tops,  blue  mountains, all sorts of numbers in pink and green and turquoise.

There's some comfort to be taken from monitoring the monitor.  It makes up for the fact that I can do nothing to fix what's wrong with him. 

The EMTs came just after my 911 operator told me to call back if he stopped breathing.  That was a piece of information.... what else did she think I would do?  I've never seen an unattractive EMT; I had 7 of them in our bedroom. They poked and proceed and tested and left us the option of going to the hospital or staying home. 

That's when I looked around for the grown up who would tell me what to do.  Unfortunately,  there was no one else there.   

Having spent a night in the hallway of the Emergency Department last month,  I was not eager to repeat the experience.  We probably should have gotten him on the stretcher right then.... but I'm not second guessing myself.  Taking care of me is important, too.  Guilt will get me nowhere, fast. 

He's been examined inside and out as we wait for a room to become available.  I'm trying not to think about why there would be an empty bed at 9pm; discharges happen in the morning. 

And so,  I sit.  I read.  I play Candy Crush Soda Saga. I charge my phone.  I send texts updating family and friends. I do crossword puzzles.  And I watch the graphs on the monitor tell me that he's still alive. 

There's not much else to do. 

One Of Those Days

Did you ever stand in the middle of the room looking for the adult who would tell you what to do?

That was me, last night. 

I'll have more to say tomorrow.  Right now,  I'm trying to be the competent grow up on the room. 

Real Change

"Are you and the President friends?"

"I'm his lawyer."

At a certain point, the rest of us have to stand up and shake the 37% of Americans who think that this shit is okay.  It's really really not.

JD says that if Watergate happened today, it would be a 12-hour news story.  I have been thinking about that since he said it last month.  No matter how I spin it, I can't make it okay.  He's telling us that his administration's sins dwarf  Nixon's.  And he doesn't seem to mind.

It's not okay.  It's really not.

Pete Buttigieg just explained it all very clearly while talking to Jen Psaki.  We are in a moment where real change can happen.  FFOTUS certainly broke everything, but that doesn't mean we have to put it back together the same way.

Real thoughts spoken in complete sentences combined into paragraphs and plans and ideas and I really really really hope he gets to be president.  Soon.

20 Minutes of Terrifying Drivel

TBG and I managed to listen to some of it.  We clicked away at the same time that CBS stopped showing it.  

Sen. Mark Warner (not John Warner, the Virginia Senator once married to Elizabeth Taylor) called on his Republican colleagues to stand up and defend our elections against FFOTUS's lies and mendacity.  

But it's more than lies and mendacity.  It's truly drivel.

DRIVEL Definition & Meaning

Merriam-Webster

https://www.merriam-webster.com › dictionary › drivel

Jul 2, 2026 — 1. to talk stupidly and carelessly

FFOTUS accused China of stealing millions of Americans' personal information by hacking into our (unbelievably, like no one has ever seen) insecure voter data bases.  

Sure, maybe.  Except it's an incredibly dumb argument, especially coming from a politician.

Anyone can access those data bases by paying the County a fee.  It's how campaigns are run.  I brought the huge computer printouts from the Marin County Recorder's Office to our Parcel Tax campaign office in the early 1990's.  I know it is true.  I did it.

You can trust me.

What you can't do is trust the man in the Oval Office.  He told me to go to whitehouse.gov  (he said it twice) to read the damning documents.  

I couldn't find them, although I used every possible iteration of election security documents released today in the website's search box.  If the documents are there, I couldn't find them.

I'm obedient and reasonably intelligent.  He's uninterested in learning anything and careless with his speech.  

Stupid and careless.  Not a great combination for running the United States of America..... yet here we are.

*****

Jan 6 is one of the tabs on the White House website.  Here's an excerpt.  Read on, if you dare.

The Democrats masterfully reversed reality after January 6, branding peaceful patriotic protesters as “insurrectionists” and framing the event as a violent coup attempt orchestrated by Trump—despite no evidence of armed rebellion or intent to overthrow the government. In truth, it was the Democrats who staged the real insurrection by certifying a fraud-ridden election, ignoring widespread irregularities, and weaponizing federal agencies to hunt down dissenters, all while Pelosi’s own security lapses invited the chaos they later exploited to seize and consolidate power. This gaslighting narrative allowed them to persecute innocent Americans, silence opposition, and distract from their own role in undermining democracy.  

The Canary in the Coal Mine

The interminable road work fronting her business for the past too many years to count forces me to drive several extra miles, ignoring the map lady's guidance, since none of her left turns or u-turns are possible.  It doesn't matter.  She's worth the trip.

The relationship between a woman and her hairdresser is personal and private and, if it's a long term relationship, a living diary.  You have the same basic conversations every time, because that's what life looks like.  Family, work, sports, politics.... whatever your connections, you've watched them evolve over time.  Children grow, teams win, politicians die, but the chair and the tools and the participants remain the same.  

Today, as most days over the past few years, we moaned and groaned over FFOTUS's clown car government and its ripple effect on small businesses like hers.  People are stretching out their intervals for services, letting their hair grow, giving up colorizing.  

I'm the canary in the coal mine.  This is just the beginning of what a recession looks like.

Her clients spend more money than is absolutely necessary to trim our locks.  Supercuts would do an adequate job, I'm sure.  But we'll drive the distance and spend the money because we can and we want to.  When her upper income clients are scaling back on can and want she sees signs that, as Miss Imbrie predicts in Philadelphia Story, Belts will be worn tighter this winter.

In a few months the snowbirds will be back and her business will pick up.  But the future looks less than rosy from her perch.  Arizona's primary ballots are due on July 21.  She's a high information, well informed voter.  This is what she told me:

It's the primary, so it's less consequential.  Still, I needed to make a statement.  I voted against every incumbent.  If you're in office right now you are not working for me.

One More

TBG found it.  He was searching for something that wasn't sports related.  He stumbled upon something neither of us knew was coming.  It didn't appear in any of the what to watch lists that come across my feed.  It was just lying there, waiting to be discovered.

Season 3 of The Diplomat is on Netflix.

We were excited.  The sun was still up and we turned it on anyway.

Six hours later, well past our bedtime, we decided to save the last two episodes for tomorrow night, in part so I could type to you, but mostly because we want to stretch out the pleasure.   

This is brief.  I am tired but my mind is racing.  I'd definitely add this to yesterday's list. .

Things to Read and Watch

It's been a while since I shared the good stuff.  Here are snippets to entice you to dig deeper.

Geraldine Brooks is one of my favorite authors.  Her take on Little Women won the Pulitzer Prize.  Horse is about so much more than the celebrated stud sire and his enslaved groom.  Memorial Days is her latest and I loved it as much as all the others.  It's a retrospective and real time look at  grieving the death of her husband, Tony Horwitz (who turns out to be a very interesting character himself and whose Confederates In The Attic is on my library reserve list.

*****

Millie Bobbie Brown won my heart as Eleven in Stranger Things.  Although TBG dismisses it as barely a chick flick, I find the Netflix adaptation of Nancy Springer's young adult novels to be absolutely delightful.  Where he sees puerile, I see guilelessness.  Her gender bending clothing, her fierce and admirable mother, and her domineering yet vulnerable older brother, Sherlock just add to the fun.

*****

Doesn't that look like a face you'd like to converse with over the dinner table?  From his 

takes on psychedelics to America's relationship to food, Pollan's output is consistently fun, profound, and deeply researched.  A World Appears was so thought provoking I had to return the library copy and buy one of my own.  I can get through three or four pages before I have to stop and have a conversation - with TBG or myself or anyone who's around at the time.  Even the footnotes are fun.

 

Happy Birthday, Giblet

Today, he is 8.

Fitzgerald, the dog zooming through the birthday photo shoot is oblivious, while I am struck by the passage of time. 

Wasn't it yesterday that FlapJilly and I were waiting at home for Mama to push him out?  Now he's hitting home runs.

I love the big kid he's becoming,  the kind, sensitive, artistic, responsible, human who runs faster than anyone else, ever, and whose heart is always open and giving. 

He was that way as a toddler.  He's that way now.  Watch out, world, for what's coming next.  He's not a baby any more. 

  

It's Really Very Hot

At 7:15  this morning,  as I realized that, once again, the water in Grandma's Garden was not working,  my car thermometer read 98.  

Tonight, at 8:30, our pool's thermometer read the same.  

The heater turns off when the pool reaches 85 and we let the sun warm it up the next few degrees to take the edge off.  But sustained triple digits during the day lead to overnight lows around 82 and if I've not done my laps by 10 I'm swimming in bathwater.  

Without a sun shield and a shaded parking space, my car barely cools off by the time I'm home.

First world problems, I know.  But the service dog I saw this morning was wearing rubber soled booties with gripper dots to raise her paws off the sidewalks.  It's not an overreaction.  People who live outside show up in Emergency Rooms with third degree burns from sitting and sleeping on our sidewalks.... and that's a first world problem, too.

Anyway, it's too hot to do much thinking.  

I wonder if there were thoughts about putting him on his brand new if unsecure Air Force One.  I wouldn't be surprised.  It was in the triple digits all day in Ankara.

A Sigh And A Smile

Whatever the reason, the quarterfinal game was hard to watch.  The Americans were late to every ball.  They stood around as Belgium danced around them.  

4-1 is an embarrassing soccer score.  Watching that fourth goal bounce into the net, initiated by an errant pass and unimpeded by the goalie, had us groaning. 

Is soccer just not our game?  Was the brouhaha over the red card too much of a distraction?  Did changing the line up and then changing the line up confuse the players?  Or did they just not care?

That's the sigh.  Here comes the smile.

Waiting in line at the clinic's pharmacy is always a pleasant experience.  Weird, I know, but absolutely true.  Today, we three women all agreed that, although none of us (nor TBG on the bench) could recall its name, the Sally Fields movie with the octopus is a must watch film.  

Although I was feeling pretty good after sharing intelligent thoughts about an amazing actress with a total stranger, it only got better when  I turned and really looked at the woman behind me.

Her t-shirt read: Don't ask me to do anything.  My body is under construction.

It most certainly was.  We laughed together.  No one's going to argue with something that obvious.

Her person stopped by, able bodied but stooped and looking exhausted.  I laughed even harder when I read his t-shirt.

Are you enjoying sitting there watching me while I do all the work?

Musings on Sex and Power

Eric Swalwell was MSNBC's favorite panelist until he wasn't any more.  He vanished in an instant, withdrawing from California's gubernatorial race (and why isn't that governatorial?) amid allegations of sexual misconduct by numerous women.

*****

John Kennedy engaged in numerous acts of sexual misconduct during his presidency..... that we know of.  Were women too frightened to come forward then?  Or was he just so charming that no one could say no?  

*****

Graham Platner managed to defuse his tattoo disaster only to fall upon yet another allegation of rape.  Bernie Sanders, an early supporter, wants him to withdraw from the Senate race.  Seems like we'll be watching Susan Collins be shocked and surprised for 6 more years.

*****

Ruben Gallego, once a good friend of Eric Swalwell, now regrets their relationship.  Ruben used to be a regular on MSNBC, too.  We haven't seen him in a while.  Is the stain of that relationship souring his status among the Dems, or just the media?

*****

Bill Gates regrets his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.... and where are those files, anyway?  

*****

Would Thomas Jefferson be allowed anywhere near our founding documents today if his children with Sally Hemings became known?  

*****

Time passes and mores change and most of that is good.  It's too bad that behavior doesn't change that much.

And The Beat Goes On

After ruining my 4th of July, FFOTUS decided to trash my World cup fun, too.

Was the red card an overreaction?  Do we like VAR?  They won without him with only 10 players on the field so maybe it doesn't matter?

All that was interesting to consider as we waited for tonight's match.  Then the Corruption Hotline fired up and our felon was talking to FIFA's crook and afterwards the red card disappeared.

Note: the rules say a red card cannot be overturned.

Note: the two guys on the phone have never, will never, can never play by the rules.

So now, instead of watching the US men triumph or collapse under adversity, we're faced with a match whose outcome has already been marked with an asterisk.

Everything the man touches dies.

What A Flop

America couldn't throw itself a birthday party.  Everyone seemed to lose interest once it became all about FFOTUS.  

There was no bunting.  

There were no American flags put out for the occasion (except ours, because he doesn't get to take that memory away from me).  

There were no 250th Birthday Sales.  Our Mexican restaurant did offer me a $6 margarita (which I happily accepted) and volunteered to change the tv channel (is that even a thing anymore?) so that we could both watch the soccer with ease.  We didn't inconvenience anyone; we were the only patrons.

For some reason known only to himself, TBG turned our television to Fox and invited FFOTUS into our living room.  God, Communism, and your beautiful 2nd Amendment later, he began introducing very old veterans who were to salute very old flags and then take their very old selves off FFOTUS's stage.  

Some of them didn't get the memo and seemed to overstay their welcome.  The crowd kept clapping.  FFOTUS's Thank you very much noise kept coming from the podium, sounding more like a command than a gratuity as the applause grew.

Such a small man in such a large space.

Then there was music.  The Joint Armed Forces Orchestra (who knew?) performed admirably.  The US Army band belted its way through explosions, accompanied by the lamest singers imaginable.  To make it worse, they tried to gyrate while wearing dress whites.  It left cringe-worthy behind before it really got started.  

The crowd seemed to love it, though, so maybe we're just old.  Or maybe we have better taste than people who will stick around for hours to listen to an old man ramble.

And then the fireworks began. 51,000 individual pieces, according to one of the talking heads on Fox (before I muted the sound) and I don't know where to begin.  I've tried for the last few minutes to organize a coherent train of thought.  But, like the fireworks, the details have gotten lost in the smoke.

There was so much smoke it looked like the War of 1812 all over again.

There was a pond near (I think) the WWII memorial that periodically sent up giant flares.

The director couldn't decide where to place the cameras.  There was no best angle.  It was an unholy mess.  Zoom in and the sparkles vanish into the smoke.  Zoom out and it really does look like the city is on fire.  

And really, it didn't make any difference.  Like most things associated with the man, his celebration was all sound and no fury.  There were no interesting configurations.  There was no red white and blue theme.  There were just balls of similar color, some occasionally twinkling. And it went on for almost 45 minutes.

It was finally over and the people who brought their babies (none of whom wore noise cancelling headphones) could now take them home and put them to bed where they probably should have been all night long.  It was a mostly white crowd, who seemed thrilled to be sharing their MAGAness with other likeminded individuals.  

But there's one more thing you have to know, and, like the savvy story teller I am, I've saved the best for last.  

There was not one person of color on the stage throughout the entire performance.  

Not among the veterans nor the orchestra nor the band nor the featured singers.  I'm not sure how he organized that feat, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that it was happenstance.  

Among all his other crimes and misdemeanors and felonies and general repulsiveness, he hijacked what could have been a really fun four day weekend.  How many times can he spit in America's face and still remain in office?

Happy 4th of July

This is how I feel about America right now - droopy.  But there was a time when I felt hopeful, even enthusiastic about our standing in the world.  That's when I originally wrote the post I'm reprinting below the sad flag.  I'm going to let those memories take me back in time for the 4th of July.

And it turns out that I will put on our country's colors and not give in to the despair I feel.  I cannot let him take this away from me, too.

The sky is pure blue,  painted that way as G'ma said every time she looked up.  The occasional fluffy white cloud drifts by, and I'm hearing G'ma remark on that, too.  The flag in front of the house is swaying, the pole wedged between the base and the capital of one of the front columns, secured with thin, silver, crafting wire.  

It's an elegant solution to TBG's reluctance to put holes in his house;  I feel like Daddooooo every time I wrap another ring around the post.

Daddooooo was big on ingenious remedies to intractable problems.  He was also big on flags and the 4th of July.  We always went to the beach.  We always stopped at Custom Bakers on the way home, where the owners always let us go back and stick our fingers in the vats of frosting.

We always went to the Boardwalk in Long Beach, arriving as the sun was setting.  Skeeball and mechanical fortune tellers and the smell of the ocean, too black to be seen but too noisy to go unnoticed, occupied us as we waited for night to fall.  We practiced our ooohs and aahhhs; we were in fine form by the time the booms and the bangs began.

Through it all, the flags were flying.

There was a big one in the bracket beside the garage door, until the house was painted and further holes were frowned upon (is this some kind of male thing I just don't get?). A pole-holding-tube was sunk into the flower box, and while it was neither sturdy nor attractive, it did the job and as far as Daddooooo was concerned that was that.

There was always a plastic flag attached to the car's antenna, and all our bicycles had flags on the handlebars.   

I'm not letting the tradition fade away. 

I'll be wearing my red white and blue tie dye - the dress, the tank top, the even bigger tank top - as I go through my day. 

*****

I'm So Disappointed

I'm not in the mood to celebrate or look back on happier times.

I should have no problem with my closet this weekend.  I have a plastic tote filled with red, white, and blue tie dye, with flag adorned t-shirts, with sweaters fastened with patriotic buttons.  It's our country's 250th birthday party and we all should be celebrating.

But there's nothing going on.  No Happy Birthday America sales, no bunting, no flags, no nothing.

I feel somewhat awkward putting on any of the celebratory finery. 

FFOTUS has preempted America's birthday party.  He's crashed the event, made it all about himself, and in doing so ruined it for the rest of us.  It's hard for me to feel proud of America's exceptionalism when FFOTUS has smeared it with feces.

Take a look at these pictures Brother took on Tuesday afternoon at Trump's American State Fair on the National Mall in DC.

From Brother's accompanying text: The temporary buildings are synthetic stucco and canvas murals and air conditioned. The state and government departments are in 30 foot square rooms not connected. Go in look at the freebies turn around and leave.  Several sound stages with no performances.  No cows pigs goats or sheep or crowds of humans. The best part was the exit.

Sister wondered if there was food.  Doesn't look like there were many takers.

It looks like I'm not alone in my disdain.

I want to sing God Bless America at a neighborhood fireworks party.

I want to put my flag embossed pin wheels on my car.

I want to smile at the other people who are wearing USA colors and gear.

I want to feel good about America again.

November cannot come soon enough.

Really, Mr. Chief Justice?

John Roberts wrote both decisions.

In one, he says the President can fire anyone he wants, in any Federal agency, even those created by Congress to be independent of the political party in power.  Goodbye FTC Commissioner Slaughter.

In the other, he says the President can't touch the Federal Reserve Board.   Member Cook keeps her job.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett took him to task, pointing out the tension between the two rulings.

If you're still wondering whether the Supreme Court is acting as an independent body, beholden to the Constitution and the American people, I'd love it if you can explain this.

All I've got is that the money-ed class does not want the global economy rocked any more than FFOTUS has done already.  They are less concerned about big businesses merging and driving up prices while lowering competition and worsening the situation of those American people they're supposed to be serving.

My Congressman is running tv ads saying I work for YOU!  His office was unable to explain to me how this makes my life better.

A Conversation While Swimming

I find swimming laps to be unbearably boring.  There's nothing to read and, while my head is submerged, there's nothing to hear.  There are just my thoughts and me.  When I'm not thinking about using my muscles appropriately, I'm running ideas for The Burrow or wondering about my offspring and their offspring or the memories the songs on the speakers evoke.

Slow dancing in the twilight at 6th grade graduation parties.  Standing in the cafeteria line for breakfast during my freshman year in college.  The Beatles. The Stones. Grace Slick in all her configurations.  They each bring something to the party.

But yesterday I was flummoxed.  I ran the conversation over and over in my head until they played a song I didn't like and I got out of the pool and enlisted TBG in solving the problem.  He laughed, of course he knew what was what, and then he proceeded to stumble over it all just as I was.  So, for your confusion/edification/delight, here's the problem:

Everybody's talkin' at me..... can't hear a word they're sayin'.... only the echoes of my mind......

That's what I heard when I came up for air.  

I got as far as Ratso Rizzo, Dustin Hoffman, and Jon Voigt.  But the name of the movie escaped me?

Rhinestone Cowboy?  Certainly that fit with the naive young man's background and occupation.

Or was that the one with Robert Redford and Willie Nelson and Jane Fonda and the horse paraded in lights and rhinestones through the Vegas strip?

But it's in NYC, so maybe Urban Cowboy?

But there's the John Travolta movie where he rides the bucking bronco in the bar, and maybe that was it.

I was very confused.  So was TBG.  I resisted looking for the answer from the Google, but succumbed before frustration set in.

It's Midnight Cowboy, The Electric Horseman, and Urban Cowboy, in that order.  

And Rhinestone Cowboy, the title that started the whole situation?  It's just a song.

 

Somedays

There are times when I feel like a hero, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Today, I'm looking askance at curbstones.

I'll be back tomorrow, with thoughts. I'm not in a position to have many of those right now. 

An American Tragedy

I'm too worn out for original thought, though everything is going just as planned (for once).  Instead,  I'm giving you a link to why I think Mayor Pete's Sunday appearance with Joanna Mendoza here in Tucson was abruptly cancelled this afternoon.  

TBG and I planned to attend, had signed up on line, were waiting for the exact location to be revealed.  Instead, we received a this event is cancelled email with no explanation at all.

Later on, I opened Substack and read this, by my favorite Mayor and Presidential Candidate:

        A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family by Pete Buttigieg

Even in today's climate, there should be one fundamental principle everyone respects: whatever you think about someone in politics, you leave their kids alone.

Someone decided to hurt our family this week. I’m furious, and I want to share what happened.

Read on Substack.  There's the link.  There's no paywall.  You don't need a subscription.  

Read it and weep.

The NBA Draft

I cannot believe that I watched it.  I was enthralled, captivated, drawn in the way a good movie draws you in - slowly, the anticipation growing then the climax and then it starts all over again.  It's usually a dull, boring, repetitive process.  

Not this year.  This year I recognized most of the players.  This year I remembered the Iowa State games and the Houston games and how Arizona's Wildcats fared against them.  I had opinions on scoring and defense and attitude.

I could take issue with the talking heads about who should go one or two.  Lacking knowledge of the NBA teams' particular needs, I relied on TBG's somewhat greater insight, although he warned me that his information came solely from other talking heads.  Was Burries too short for .... where is Koa Peat..... Veesaar as one of Jay Bilas's prime picks halfway through the first round?

Tommy Lloyd's recruiting progeny are strewn over the college landscape, as NIL and the transfer portal become the highway to success.  For me, the follow one team and otherwise a casual fan, that resulted in a remarkably interesting Draft Day.

As the next day unfolded, Koa was chosen and Burries was traded and now, I think, all things basketball must be put on the shelf until next season.  I'm switching my sports calendar to the FIFA World Cup... USA and Cape Verde and Messi and Ronaldo.... does anyone know where I can get one of those long knit scarves?

In Case You Missed It

For those of you who were otherwise engaged in more substantive pursuits, allow me to share the highlights of the hours it streamed on my laptop as I watched the NBA Finals unfold.  

I tuned in after the right section of the scaffolding had been erected.  The work resumed after a lengthy rain delay, and those minions on the left are handing the metal rods onward and upwrd.

They got higher and the night got muggier and anyone who has ever had the misfortune to be in the District in the summer knows that the air is thick even when it's not between storms.

The moisture in the air must have made the support beams quite slippery.  I beame concerned when the workers got up to the piano keys.

Fortunately, most of them were tethered, as the arrows indicate.  But what about this guy out on the beam, way at the top on the right?  There wee no tarps covering the material that's being lifted, and the humidity was intense, yet he's hanging out on a board above concrete without a net.

And then it began to rain again and it was well after the court's deadline and it was tomorrow morning already so they exited, descending scaffolding left.  

I can't bear reprinting the shower curtain that appeared the next day.  This will have to suffice.
 

And Now It's Tuesday

And we're home and life is much better.

A hospitalist listened and questioned and followed him from the hallway to the private room (Be very grateful about this!) spending all the time needed to figure out what came next.  She was the first person to consider the why, to share the lab results and what they might and eventually did reveal, and to help us create a viable plan going forward.

There are still so many floating pieces, so many appointments and tests and treatments to schedule.  There's so much to understand.  We have insurance and the means to pay for it (and all its hefty deductible and co-pays).  We have no work or child care obligations.  We have smart and supportive family and friends, and we're not afraid to abuse them.  I am comfortable dealing with the system.

I've spent all day watching soccer and swimming and cooking and recognizing that I live a very privileged life.  A change in any one of those pieces would throw everything else out of kilter.  Two or three blips and chaos looms.

Most of America does live one kidney stone away from disaster.  I'm anxious and exhausted and living on the edge of overwhelmed and there's nothing I need that I don't have or can't get.  And I'm not most of America.

The Hospital is Full

We arrived at the Emergency Room yesterday about 2pm. TBG's pain and nausea were treated well and efficiently..... in the hall. 

There were 50+ patients waiting for beds in the hospital.  We were seated in the hallway 

******

That was the start of Friday's post, written Thursday afternoon, on my phone, still in the hallway. the patient no longer seated but able to lie down on a stretcher in a screen-divided, open to all passersby cubby.

Those hours, all eighteen of them in the Emergency Room hallways before a room became available, revealed the open wound that is America's health care system.  Without a curtain separating us from our fellow captives, we saw and heard it all.

Sir, are you living outside? 

The strong smell of urine as the bedraggled man struggled by us on his way to the restroom; and the lengthy clean up afterwards.

The EMT's from car accidents all over the county and beyond.  The Yuma EMT who explained their four hour drive to his gurney riding patient this way: The nearer hospitals are closing departments and now not all of them have everything you might need.  But this is a University hospital and they have all the bells and whistles. So, here we are.

Nurses doing yeoman's work on twelve and a half hour shifts, with a 30 minute lunch break.... unless it's overwhelmingly busy.  We felt well tended.  It took only a bit of my pushy personality to find TBG a place to lie down and at least pretend to be comfortable.  His needs were met almost instantaneously, since he was open to all the action and all the actors all the time.

This isn't how it should be.  

The uninsured are once again showing up at hospitals instead of clinics.  The underfed and untreated are not turned away.

Instead, our Medicare Advantage plans went up 30 and 40 percent, respectively.  No one in the hospital, from the cashier in the cafeteria to the hospitalist who solved TBG's problem, received a thirty or forty percent bump in their salary.

This isn't how it should be.

The bill from his last hospitalization was $121,239.50.   We have insurance that covered it all.  It's easy to see how the uninsured are one kidney stone away from bankruptcy.

This isn't how it should be.

On The White House Lawn

It happened on our lawn.

Not only was it tacky.  Not only did the grift include paying the fighters in the felon's personal crypto.  Not only were the military personnel (fit and clean shaven) used (illegally) for political capital.  Not only did the fly over shake buildings in DC and delay flights out of National Airport (without prior notification of the airlines, passengers, or air traffic control).  Not only were the lights bright enough to cause a pilot to file an incident report (because he couldn't see) with the FAA.

Nope, that's not all.  At the end, the winner decided to opine on Michelle Obama's gender.  The head of the UFC smiled.  There were cheers.  

All of this happened in front of the people's house.  A president created a situation that allowed (and appreciated) a foul remark about a woman to go unchallenged.  That woman lived for eight (exemplary) years in that house.  It was her lawn.  

On FFOTUS's birthday, he defiled it.  

If your neighbor's animal crapped on your lawn, you'd do something about it, right?  As Nicole Wallace pointed out, none of the corporate sponsors whose banners decorated the arena have spoken out about the outrageous behavior.  I searched and found that I don't patronize most of them - Ram trucks, Budweiser, Monster Energy (there were others).  But there was one place I thought I could make a difference - Scotts Miracle Gro.

I have a conflicted relationship with them.  I usually buy untreated (but excellent) soil and add my own amendments.  Especially for the school garden, it's the most cost effective way to grow.  I don't have grass, but Scotts line of grass related products is extensive and profitable.  

Their advertising is ubiquitous, featuring responsible, middle class, home owning family men, none of whom are shown shirtless.  I get the trucks and the beer and the energy drinks.  I don't get Scotts Miracle Gro, not one little bit. 

That this obscenity occurred on a lawn makes their lack of response even more egregious.  

I went to the computer, found the website, looked high low, clicked on all the links I thought would be relevant, and finally found  Send us an email.   Obediently, I clicked.  And, after several failed attempts to load the page, this is what I found:

            So sorry.
We're currently updating this site.

It won't take long, so check back soon.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

- The Scotts Company

There's a phone number I can call in the morning.  There's a land address to which I can send a (soon to be more expensive) letter or postcard.  Those are at the end of the post if you want them.  They offered a chat option, but this is what I got when I typed how can i comment in the little box:

Agent said  Could you tell me a bit more about what you'd like to comment on? Are you looking to leave feedback about a product, an article, your order, or something else? Let me know so I can guide you!

You said  corporate response to ufc fight

Agent said I’m sorry, I can’t help with that request.       

They really don't want to hear from me.     

But I needed to write about the cowardice of executives who do nothing when their advertising is used to promote the most vile of insults.  There's no walking this back.  Target lost $12 billion when they abandoned DEI. This fool insulted the most admired woman in America in front of the people's house and got paid to do so. 

Some of the money that went through FFOTUS's crypto company on its way to rewarding the slimiest (expression of freedom of) speech imaginable originated in The Scotts Company's coffers.  If they deplore such behavior they should say so.  

Actually, they should have said so already.  

Their silence speaks volumes.  I'm no longer conflicted.  I hate them.

And yes, I promised to post the address and phone number but I've just spent five fruitless minutes searching for them, all to no avail.  Have I mentioned that I deplore them?

I Found The Joy

The World Cup was barely on my radar.  

Then it started. 

Suddenly I'm cheering for Uruguay and searching for the exact location of Cape Verde (which is now Cabo Verde and has always been about 350 miles off the coast of Guinea Bissau).  

I can type during hydration breaks and half times.  Otherwise, I'm mesmerized.

Almost like I was mesmerized on Friday night, watching the scaffolding, and the rain, and the workers outside The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  

But that's a post for another day. The Iranians and the Kiwis are about to go at it again.  

Gotta go.

I Got It Back

Big Cuter learned about MJ in preschool.  He was a devoted fan until Jordan's last (championship) game with the Bulls in 1998.  His loyalty never transferred to the team.

We were living in Marin by then, and the 1990's Warriors were uninspiring, to say the least.  The 49'ers, on the other hand, were the winningest NFL team of the decade, and his fandom stretched to cover every aspect of his life except, perhaps, his underwear.  

He moved to the East Coast and took his 9'ers gear with him.  He was a regular at the neighborhood sports bar which showed their games.  He dragged us to one here in Tucson in what he said was a crucial situation.  Sunday game times were sacrosanct; call only if you wanted to talk football. 

We knew that Queen T was the one when he shared a photo of them hiking while his team was on tv.  Granted, they weren't playing that well and being disappointed had dampened his affections just a bit, but still.... these were his 49'ers.

I envied him his devotion.  I didn't think I had it.  I came to the Cubbies in my twenties and I love them still.  That's felt like my longest connection until this past week.  Once I heard the organ in the Garden I was transported back to my childhood on Long Island, when tickets for the family didn't call for a second mortgage, when Daddooooo or Uncle Abby chaperoned one or two of us into the city to see The Knicks. 

They were very good and then they were very bad and I had the Bulls and glommed onto Big Cuter's Warrior's obsession once they moved across the bay and I didn't miss the Kncks at all. Or so I thought.

I've spent the past ten days feeling every bit the New Yorker I am at heart.  Taos Bubbe and I text about it frequently, as does Sister.  OG Anunoby's Indiana University heritage creates a double whammy of affection, as proud alum Little Cuter delights in reminding me.  Big Cuter calls cheering for the Spurs and my New York snark joyfully fills the air.  

I am seriously thinking about investing in a championship t-shirt.  Turns out I do have a childhood sports connection.  It ust took 53 years to reappear.

I Understand It Now

He did it often.  It was commonplace.  Others of his species appreciated it and were willing to join in his enjoyment.  More than once.  It amazed me that he could find something new to see or feel.

There were times I could identify what was on the screen before entering the room.  Not always from the announcers' voices, but from TBG's moans, groans, and cheers of delight.  Watching and re-watching and re-re-re-re-watching certain sporting events made him inordinately happy.  

I didn't really understand it until now.  But I spent the better part of last night watching and re-watching the Knicks come from behind, erase a 29 point deficit, and triumph with 30 seconds of exceptional basketball to end the game.  It made me inordinately happy.

This morning I watched rabid Knicks fan Stephen A Smith tear up recounting his experience on his couch with his kids.  I never watch him willingly; today I awaited him anxiously.  Michael Wilbon called it the most epic collapse he'd ever seen in a championship series, and I enjoyed ever schadenfreud laden moment.  

I watched those last 30 seconds again and again and again all day long.  TBG tried to find something else to watch and I whined until he relented.  The last time I could name more than one player on the Knicks was 1970.  Listening to Let's Go Knicks chanted with the MSG organ's encouragement brought the fervor of those days right back.  

Sister texted me her memories, including specific point totals and players' actions.  She'll happily engage in a Was Game 5 or Game 6 more impressive conversation at the drop of a hat.  She doesn't recognize this new game, calling it football with jumping.  I suppose that's why she gave up and slept through the second half, a fact I plan to use when she goes on too long about her long ago devotion to the team.

And now it's time to watch the hockey finals.  I can't believe I'm watching and enjoying hockey.  As my life continues to expand in unexpected ways,  it's nice to find one that one of those ways amuses me.

 

And Now It's Wednesday

And that sports post is still awaiting ... lurking... hiding in the shadows of my draft folder and seemingly unable to escape.  There's another game tonight and another game tomorrow night (basketball then hockey... yes, hockey) so it will still be relevant if I ever finish writing it.

But it's hard to focus on The Burrow when I'm just feeling sad and overwhelmed and angry at the world.

FFOTUS doesn't think Stephen A Smith has the brainpower to be President.  Rolling Stone attibutes this to racism.  I think it's a doddering old man's go to response when he has no idea what he's talking about.  Whether the Orange Menace's presence at the 3rd game of the NBA Finals caused the Knicks to lose is debatable.  The fact that he fell asleep during the game is just unacceptable.

TBG's medical regime creates unbelievable tiredness and dizziness. This gets in the way of most everything he (or I or we) want to do.  Part of the reason my posting has been sporadic is because nothing is happening.  I don't like leaving him alone; falling is not part of the future I have planned.

It's triple digits and getting hotter here in Tucson.  It was too hot to plant seeds at 9am.  I tried to see The Kiss again last night (Venus and Jupiter touching in the sky.... not really, since they're zillions of miles apart, but to us here on earth it's pretty spectacular) but there were clouds in the early evening when they would have been visible.  My zip code is not being kind to me.

I'll try to recover my good humor and my sanity and anything else I'm missing so that I can be back on a regular schedule once again.  Thanks for your patience as my brain sorts out this new reality.  It's really no fun at all.

Monday, Monday

Are you with me here? The next lyric describes it all - can't trust that day. 

I slept until 9:30. I did the puzzles,  and the 30 minutes of doomscrolling i allow myself each morning, and there were house chores and laundry and a drug store run and suddenly it was 2pm and I had yet to swim (self care for today: 45 minutes in the pool and garden) orshower before TBG's appointment. 

Somewhere in there i was supposed to put the finishing touches on today's post.  That will now appear tomorrow. 

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

 Explicatory Bloviating

The Big Cuter thinks I should divulge more of myself because, in this medium ("New Media, Gasp" said Princess Myrtle one day) bloviating is encouraged. The Little Cuter is my first follower. It's nice to be loved and supported and mentored by those you've loved and supported and mentored yourself. Maybe that's what G'ma means when she thanks me these days.

Ashleigh Burroughs has been with me since college, when I realized that I was never going to write the great American novel but that, perhaps, Ashleigh would. It's good to have dreams and it's awful when your dreams make your reality seem paltry in comparison - especially when your reality is a good one. Giving Ashleigh her own persona cured that problem lickety-split. Like her namesake from Gone With the Wind, her intentions are stronger than her actions. But that's ok. She's been waiting for just this occasion to shine.

The Edgar Rice Burroughs Martian series kept The Big Guy sane during boring summer jobs in his youth. He read them aloud on Carribbean beaches and at Floridian pool-sides and they prompted a 7 year old reluctant reader to become a literary junkie. Inspiring, exciting, provocative -- I'd be glad if the Burrow meets that standard.

When I really really really like a book I'll try to make it last by rationing the chapters I allow myself to read in one sitting. Herman Wouk's The Winds of Wargot me through my first lonely weeks in graduate school that way. The Hobbitkept me company on a cloudy week near Disney World, and Sam Gamgee and Bilbo Baggins (also great names) have been by my side ever since.  Bilbo loved his burrow home, and never wanted an adventure, and fit right in with the community and his friends and went out and DID SOMETHING SPECIAL anyway. Home should be like that, I think - keep you cozy and toss you right out.

Ashleigh Burroughs is a great writer's name. A burrow is a great place to live and to leave. Living up to the name and enjoying the adventure - that's the challenge. Welcome to Ashleigh Burroughs in the Burrow.

Apologies

Looking back to the very beginning, in April, 2009, I made a promise to post every week day.  Almost all of the 4,463 of them since then have kept to that standard.

Age and caregiving have caught up with me.  I've been sloppy lately.  The Little Cheese has stopped emailing that my screed hasn't posted today; she understands all too well how hard it is now to fit everything into a day that used to have large gaps of empty spaces.

I'm not berating myself.  What has to be done has to be done and it's really not that difficult at all.  It's the always piece that's tearing at the edges of my life. 

I'm lucky to be taking care of a person I love.  We have the resources, financial and familial, to withstand everything they've thrown at us so far.  I have the brains and the bandwidth to coordinate the pills and appointments and protein intake and all the rest of it.

I stop every day and wonder what those without are doing right now.  It didn't take a masters degree, but it did take two hours and several iterations before I came up with the first medication/dosage/time/purpose/end date chart.  And that was once I figuired out that I couldn't possibly keep it all in my head.  

But I was able to think clearly and sort it all out and now I'm on the 7th version of that chart.  I have answers to all the nurses' questions at my fingertips.  I have little paper cups with hours, am and pm, in purple marker outside and the appropriate medications inside.  When he's taken them he turns the cup over, so that we both know what he's done anytime we want to look.  

I've gotten really good at tempting his tastebuds; G'ma's stuffed cabbage was a big hit last night.  Costco chickens keep me easily fed and provide plenty of other culinary opportunities.  Sometimes is chicken on pasta, sometimes it's chicken salad, sometimes it's shredded chicken on one of the bags of salad that have become staples in my kitchen.  

It's all interesting and amusing and exhausting.  

I'll try to post daily, but sometimes I might have to resort to oldies but goodies.... like tomorrow.

Abdulrazak Gurnah

He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021.  That would be enough to scare me off had Theft not been sitting on the Large Type shelf (so I could read it under improper lighting, ie my living room), in paperback (so it's not too heavy to hold), with an engaging picture on the front cover.  

I'm still working out the deeper meaning(s) behind the title. 

The obvious one is obvious, obviously. (Sorry, I couldn't resist)  

The others have something to do with love and loss and betrayal and mostly hope and confidence and a generally upbeat sense that life has a purpose and a meaning even as reality tries to smother it.

It's an easy read, even if he's left off the quotation marks.  If I were starting out, I'd create a series of family trees to help me remember who did what to whom, and when, because the prose is so inviting that I read so quickly to see what was coming next that the plot got lost in the rhythm.  

It's a glimpse into modern day Africa, something I don't encounter in my everyday life.  Some of the characters are slipping into my thoughts in the few days since I finished it, carrying on the conversations we started when I had to reread a few chapters to pick up the thread once again.

That didn't bother me.  It gave me a chance to admire the verbiage once again.

Happy Birthday, Sister

Today is Sister's last birthday before she enters the decade her brother and I have inhabited for a while.  She's never stopped reminding us of the fact that she's the spring chicken in the family. 

She claims to have stopped enumerating the years after she turned 39.  You're only as old as you feel makes a lot of sense to me.  It's how I've tried to live my life - hanging on (with my fingertips, at times) to the energy and enthusiasm, tempering it with the comforting knowledge and experience garnered over the years.  

 Act as if you are 17 again just makes me anxious.  I have no interest in going back to my teenage years.  I'm happy to have left the angst and uncertainty and insecurities far behind me.  Adulthood has suited me just fine.

Sister, on the other hand, has had a harder time.  I'm sure 17 feels relatively uncomplicated for her.... if anything in her life can be said to be or have been uncomplicated.  She's a survivor, a rationalist, a self-sufficient human being who has a harder time accepting help than anyone I've ever known.  I finally hit her sweet spot with a Whole Foods after knee surgery delivery of ice cream, chocolate syrup, and vodka.

Of course, I only found out about the surgery after the fact.  Did I mention that she doesn't like asking for help?

She's been the most entertaining person I know and the most aggravating.  She's brilliant and can't seem to get out of her own way.  She's demanding, insistent, and usually right when it comes to everything outside her family.  

She's an activist, taking personal credit for the election of Andy Kim to the Senate (not much of an overstatement, actually), displaying anti-FFOTUS signs in her red neighborhood, flooding our siblings WhatsApp chat with gift links to the NYTimes' political screeds.  

She's complicated and annoying and funny and probably the book-smartest of the three of us.  Here's wishing that the world sends her peace and smiles and more world travels.... and that she comes to realize that her 70's might not be as scary as she imagines.

Happy Birthday!

It Hit Home This Month

Gas prices keep going up and up.  I miss the Prince scholars, but I'm not unhappy saving the twelve miles of traffic to get there.  I've been filling up at Costco, whose membership fee has already paid for itself.  Twenty cents a gallon times twelve gallons times twice a month and we're talking real money here.  

Fabletics adds an individualized tariff expense to each item.  I have no choice but to pay it.  Those tariffs were/are illegal and the money will be refunded. To me?  The one who explicitly paid it?  Hardly.  If it goes anywhere at all it will flow straight to the companies.  Will they then replace the money in my account?  Probably not.

Mexican restaurants all over town are suffering as the price of tomatoes rises.  I'm no longer blanching as I put Egglands Best eggs into my grocery cart; $7 feels reasonable these days.  I fill my basket with all the fruits and melons and berries that appeal to me even though the price tags make me wince.

But what stopped me dead in my tracks was opening this month's bills from Blue Cross/Blue Shield for our Senior Security plans.  My monthly premium went up 30%.  TBG's went up 40%.  

It had to be a mistake, right?  Not so, said the kind woman who answered the phone on the first ring.  "What I've been told is it's the overall industry and rising costs."  

No matter what they tell me, I refuse to believe that the cost of supplies associated with the medical profession has risen 40%.  I know that the professionals and paraprofessionals and uncredentialed but essential staff are not looking at paychecks that are 40% fatter. 

Profits over people.  This is what Daddooooo would call out as HIGHWAY ROBBERY.

When he felt that way, he'd stick it to the man by installing yet another illicit, unauthorized, cheating the phone company outlet.  By the time I left for college, I could make a call from every bathroom and almost every closet in our house.

The older I get, the more things seem to spiral out of control, the more I understand the impulse.  

They Heard Me

I complained and something happened. 

One day after I posted about the absence of signs announcing the Democrats' congressional candidate I saw these all over town:

They are big and cheery and say Arizona; see our flag referenced?

The Democrats in my legislative district are encouraging alternative signage. 

I'm open to suggestions for what I should write.