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. 

Oops

The days get away from me, sometimes. 

I'll be here tomorrow. 

Who Is Running Against Him?

Six long months before Election Day, the Republicans have come to town.  

In the median strips along every major artery, at every intersection with a traffic light, the northwest side of Tucson is awash in cardboard.  Mayoral, congressional, town council, gubernatorial wannabes have their names in red and blue gigantic fonts screaming in my face.

One street has Believe in Peace signs in the median.  Those calm me down after being reminded of all the FFOTUS Followers (Andy Bigg, Juan Ciscomani) trying to attract my attention.

Are there Democrats or Independents or Libertarians or Democratic Socialists vying for my gaze?  Nope, not a one.

In their infinite wisdom, the DCCC or DNC or Ken Martin himself chose Joanna Mendoza to run against Ciscomani for my seat in the House.  No one I know has ever heard of her.  In fact, no one I know even knows of her existence.  Who's running against him? is the typical reaction.  In my post about the rally where Mark Kelly introduced her to invested voters I didn't mention her at all.  

I imagine she's qualified beyond being a Marine veteran and a lesbian activist.  She left a bland impression on those of us in the audience.  I see no mention of her when the local rags (can I still call them that if I read them on line?) write about community events.  

In one of the most vulnerable races in the country (the DCCC moved it up from 5th to 4th) the Democrats' candidate is absent.  According to The Sentinel's coverage of a Conservatives for America poll,

Ciscomani was viewed favorably by 32 percent of those surveyed and unfavorably by 36 percent and had a name ID of 83 percent.

Mendoza, a Marine veteran who previously ran unsuccessfully for the Arizona Legislature in 2020, was largely unknown by those who were surveyed, with only 23 percent saying they were familiar with her name. She was viewed favorably by 6 percent and unfavorably by 3 percent.

I'm going to do everything I can to oust the current occupant of that seat.  I just wish the DCCC were doing the same. 

AI Failed Me

I try to avoid the AI results at the top of the Google search.  Anything that has "there may be errors" as a concluding statement is specious enough to make me question to information. Although the algorithm that sends me the links is also an artificial intelligence, somehow it feels less creepy to find the answer from an original source.

But last night it was raining and I was tired and it was Sunday which meant that the garbage cans needed to be at the curb for our Monday pickup, if Memorial Day was a Waste Management holiday.  My pool company takes only Thanksgiving and the week between Christmas and New Years as vacation days.  Was trash collection on the same schedule?

I picked up my phone as TBG was turning off the inside lights, preparing for bed.  Waste Management Memorial Day pickup was my prompt, and AI told me right away that WM didn't really care about honoring the fallen.  My cans needed to be at the curb.  I was obedient, and we dragged them out under cloudy skies.

I woke up this morning feeling smug.  Ours were the only cans along the street.  Everyone else in the neighborhood thought it was a holiday.  I had done the research.  I knew I was correct.  I drove to Amster's, worked out in her home gym, and drove home to find that our cans had no friends.  No one else had dragged their refuse from the garage or backyard enclosure outside.

My confidence was failing.  Before I began this post, I Googled the same prompt on the laptop.  This time, Waste Management Tucson was the first link, appearing before the AI review finished AI'ing itself onto the screen.  A quick click revealed that, indeed, Waste Management does care about those who lost their lives defending our freedom.  Pickup is delayed one day.

All of a sudden, my cans don't feel so proud of themselves.

All of a sudden, I'm feeling foolish for believing the AI answer.  I know better.

Memorial Day

   First posted in 2009.  

I used to march in the Memorial Day parade. I was dressed in my Brownie uniform, and then in my Girl Scout uniform - replete with those embarrassing anklets. I wore them because the troop leader said we couldn't march without them, they were part of our official uniform.  Marching was too cool to pass up. I wore them and bore the scorn.

All the school bands marched too, and the moms on Benjamin Road provided the materials and the labor to make the capes the high school kids wore. There must have been a military presence there, but I didn't pay enough attention to notice. I was marching and I knew that, all over America, other kids were being Americans and marching, too.

I belonged to something bigger than my family, my school, my town.  

Belonging means different things in different places. In Marin, the Memorial Day parade was always good for a controversy or two. Or three. Should the anti-war protesters walk alphabetically in the main march, or have their own march, or walk 50 yards behind the official march? I especially liked this discussion: should weaponry be allowed?

That was fairly disingenuous even for Marin.

There were bands at this parade, too, and with Bobby Weir as the Grand Marshal you know the music was worth hearing, especially at the picnic in the park afterwards. Not exactly your typical VFW-sponsored event, but no one was complaining. It was Memorial Day; there had to be a parade and a picnic and a coming together as Americans.

I've got the flag G'ma bought us for a housewarming present, which replaced the one Dadooooo got us in Chicago.  I'll wear the tie-dyed tank top the Cuters and I made early one July.  I'll remember the fallen and recommit to doing everything I can to make this country worthy of their sacrifice.

We have a long way to go, but I have confidence in the future.

Yawn

I have no energy to comment on the recent rash of rational actions by certain Republicans.  

Caregiving is hard work.  It's a good thing we like each other. 

I'll be back on Monday. 

Grandma's Garden Farewells

Today was the last day of school.  

I gave the kindergarten teachers their end of year, for their personal libraries, gift book.  They each had Caps for Sale; this year they received The Lorax.  One is moving back home to raise her baby-due-in-December closer to her family.  That was a hard goodbye for me.

She's the one on the left. The one on the right left last year.  They were joyous.

The kindergarteners were acting like the first graders they will be.  They waited politely until I arrived at the garden gate, they lined up without prompting to take a turn or three on the umbrella's handle, and they dove right into the storage bin to find what I'd hidden away.  A little mischief is welcomed; invading my personal space demands a conversation.  

I settled them down with white paper plates and markers, then proceeded to give away the painted ceramic pots to any and all who wanted them.  My usual friends stopped by to talk about their summer plans and to hug me.  The hugs were the most important part of the visits.

Some are moving away.  Omaha, Nebraska felt very far to the Garden Leader whose family was relocating.  

Some are going next door to middle school, often without their best friends who've been switched to another school amidst the District's round of school closures.  

There were tears.  There were reassurances - I won't let you feel lonely! I'll defend you! There was excitement about starting a new chapter.  Miss Stella is thrilled that she will exist in a world with scholars taller than she.  

I signed yearbooks and t-shirts and sweaters I'm not sure were parentally approved for Sharpie signatures.  Every plant in the garden has been adopted and is not living in a new home.  Only the tomato bush and the mandarin orange tree remain, both with ripening fruits.  

It's a good thing summer school runs through June.  

And Then There's This

Yesterday's post was full of joy.  Allow me this moment to rant.

*****

If one more person says he's more likely to get hit by a bus than die from what ails him,  I am afraid that violence may ensue.  

As one lovely (really, a kind and decent soul) human followed up with this: After all, you've had more opportunities to be hit by a bus than someone who is 30.  

Hey, we know we're old.  We aren't feeling young-ish right now.  We don't need the reminder.

It's comforting to be told that you don't need to rush to a lawyer and put your affairs in order, but, as another kind and decent soul said after looking at the two of us, that's because you probably already have that taken care of.

If that is to be our fate, then we'll go out as G'ma wished for herself - to be hit by a bus run by a solvent municipality.  I promise to be laughing all the way to the pavement.

Feeling the Love

This is just some of the love coming our way.  

I had forgotten how good it felt to read letters and cards from friends and strangers and strangers who became friends (I'm thinking of you,  Lolly) after my perforation.  The mail carrier has something to put in our mailbox that isn't trying to sell me something. 

Funny, sincere, thoughtful, personal missives arrive almost every day.  It's not only texts and emails from our circle.  We're surrounded by love at the treatment facilities, too.

It's everybody we encounter, from the valet parking ladies with the sparkling smiles and reminders to wait in the shade; through the scheduler who called late in the day to say he wouldn't have the information until the morning, but he didn't want me to go to sleep thinking he'd forgotten about me; to the clinicians and technicians and the people behind desks who smile if I should happen to catch their eye.  

It makes everything a lot easier.

We have one plan.  We are preparing to plan for a second, contemporaneous plan.  While serious, there are relatively benign yet effective plans to treat what ails him.  

I'm not jinxing anything by typing any more, and I'm closing the comments because I feel your love without them.

What I will say that Victor Wembayana is a very tall, very talented, young man, and watching a closely contested, double overtime, playoff game is a fine way to raise one's spirits.

Fauna in the Neighborhood

Two brothers purchased the 12.5 acres across the street, saving us from staring at 152 one and two story, cookie cutter, single family homes.  They have landscaped what was untended overgrowth into a lovely, liveable space.  There are two houses behind the old, rusted, fancy gate with its ironworked mural, the gate that clanked for years until they arrived and dealt with it.

They cleaned up the low lying plants and tree branches that swept the ground, and in doing so removed habitat that had lain undisturbed for the two decades we've lived here.  We would see coyote parents and their young carefully crossing the road, Dad blocking passage and alert for any danger, Mom bringing up the rear of the pup parade, on a regular basis.  

Not so much any more.

There were lots of bunnies munching on my rosemary and lantana and crepe myrtle before the electic saws and power blowers got to work, clearing out their habitat.  My plants are uneaten, and that's a good thing.  But I miss the critters twitching their noses on the rocks outside my window.

The javelina are still roaming the countryside, leaving their footprints behind in the rocky ground cover.  The lizards of all shapes and sizes and colors are everywhere, as are the bats and the wrens and the mourning doves.  

The hawks ride the air currents looking for snacks.  The giant, hooting owl lives in the eucalyptus tree next door.  He's surprised many a visitor with his I'm-right-next-to-you-and-I'm-very-loud notifications of his existence.

And the newest fauna I've discovered is our currrent next door neighbor, an anesthesiologist.  I met her husband, a contractor, a year ago.  It's taken that long for them to renovate and move in and for us to become acquainted.  

For every thing there is a season.... that feels apropos right now.

Garden Leaders

They come in all shapes and sizes, from kindergarten through fifth grade.  They show up and learn and help and sometimes they find treasures.  

One of them found a ripe tomato hidden under the leaves, resting on the soil, just begging to be sliced and eaten and shared with friends.  

They organized the loading of the painted pots onto the playground monitor's three tiered cart (oops.... she thought it was lost and gone forever) and gathered friends to navigate it over the bumpy grass, up and over the edge of the paved walk, up to the door near the staff mailboxes.

I chose the three in the front, who joined me in putting a pot in each cubby, right on top of the cards with flowers on one side and A snapdragon for you from Grandma's Gardeners sticker on the other.

It was a lovely way to spend a sunny morning.  

It's impossible to be sad while being hugged by little ones; I get so much more than I give.  

How Is He Still In Charge?

Taking a break from the medical scene, I'm going to let myself rant a bit about FFOTUS.

The man slurs his words so badly that there is no way to understand the ends of most sentences.  MSM is finally showing photos of him sleeping in meetings on the nightly news.  They aren't pointing out the fact that the Commander in Chief is taking a nap while surrounded by visitors, cabinet members, and Congress people.  I suppose they are relying on the viewer to make the connection.

Cowards, one and all.

His plan for his boring war is No Plan, I have no plan, no plan at all.  Meanwhile, he and Hegseth are pursuing Mark Kelly (once again) for pointing out that we've depleted our military stock to a danger point.  No, Mr. Secretary, that wasn't classified information.  You said it in a hearing. 

I'm not too worried about my senior Senator.  He has $25million in the bank and more coming in every day.  But Jon Ossoff, Sherrod Brown, the governorship of California --- they all have me worried.

Redistricting while elections are being held is absurd.... unless you are a Republican legislator who wants to curry favor with FFOTUS.  The voters in Virginia made their wishes known only to have a court tell them NO.  My County Clerk sent a Important Message urging everyone to check their voter resgistration status asap.   

There was a woman in a 45-47 decorated ball cap sitting at the counter when I picked up our lunch today.  I was tempted to approach her and ask her WHY???? but I kept my cool.  The thing is, I was really interested in her why.  Is she seeing the world through a different lens than I am?  

I drove home thinking about my latest act of political rebellion:

I'm leaving my mark.  It is all I can do.