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?