The Burrow

There's just too much pissiness in the world these days.  Every time I turn to the news - radio or television or newspaper - it's consumed with people being nasty.  I, for one, am tired of it.  Since I am the sole proprietor of The Burrow, I am declaring that today will be a good news day.  Prepare to smile. We're focusing on baseball, which, for some reason unknown to me, TBG or G'ma (the sources I consulted in creating this post), has had two of the best feel-good stories of the summer.  I know, I know... baseball???   The sport with the corked bats and juiced players and $9 beers and $12 hot dogs?  Yes, denizens, I speak of baseball, where making a mistake is only the beginning of the story. Stephen Strasburg is a hot young pitcher for the Washington Nationals.  He's a marquee player; fans buy tickets specifically to see him on the mound.  His shoulder hurt on Tuesday, so the coach benched him and substituted Miguel Batista.  And 40...

You invited me to share your big day with Artess and Elton John at Lake Tahoe, but I was committed to Hollywood and G'ma and the wedding instead.  In the planning and execution of traveling I became consumed with my own issues and forgot about you.  Entirely.  Never crossed my mind.  Vanished into the mushy ether that passes for my brain at times.  Then I woke up to the real world and there you were, not remonstrating, not feeling hurt, not wondering where I was.  Nope, as usual, you were just smiling, watching me go about my business, knowing that I'd come back to you in time. So here I am.  In public, because you are just that special and the world ought to know about you.  I thought about interviewing you, because some of my favorite bloggers do just that with the people they want to share with others.  But I decided to spread the word myself.  Not that you hide your light under a basket.  Hardly.  But I thought that you m...

Is it too much to ask that those who are hired to speak actually be capable of doing so with competence?  TBG studied the cyclists on the Tour de France and I watcged the scenery and our ears were bombarded by announcers with grammatical deficiencies.  "There's a great distance between he and the peleton."    TBG says that his talent was riding quickly uphill, not being a sportscaster.  But still...... ***** Reggie Bush thought that he was above it all, that he was so cool, so talented, so much the man that he didn't have to pay back the money the ex-con had lent to him and his step-father and so the felon went public to get his money back.  Now, kids who thought they'd be playing for the Trojans in The Rose Bowl game are transferring to other programs as USC pays the price for overlooking what was obvious to everyone else.  The NCAA may be trying to herd cats in its attempts to oversee a theoretically amateur athletic organization, but you had to be...

G'ma and I arrived at our hotel at noon on Saturday.  This was the view from our window: Yes, that is Graumann's Chinese Theatre.  Right across Hollywood Boulevard. The stars' stars are there, too, stretching for miles and miles in both directions, Jack Palance and Groucho Marx, actors old and news, some of whom G'ma actually remembered.  We enjoyed watching the tourists (being in town for a wedding rendered us visitors not tourists, I decided) pose for pictures with their favorites.  Since the stars are embedded in the sidewalk, this made for some interesting photographic challenges.  More than once we were forced to skirt a seated-on-the-sidewalk-star-struck fan who was embracing a golden star.   Further up the hills we saw this:  Yes, we were definitely not in Tucson anymore. Inside the hotel, there were even more signs that this was where the serious partying was going to occur: The mini-bar had Jack in two sizes, and enough vodka to...

Getting old has its ups and downs.  Flying with an obviously old person does, too.  This trip, though, was mostly ups. She was able to walk through the Tucson airport with her walker; no need for the wheelchair I'd reserved from Southwest.  I'd packed us into one carry-on and a large purse; G'ma had her own purse for tissues, wallet and lipstick.  It was nice to see her open her wallet and provide her license to the ticket agent.  She's not been asked for id in a long, long time and her smile was contagious.  She struggled to get it out of the plastic compartment, but refused all offers of help.  No on rushed her - "Take your time.  It's fine.  There's no hurry."   I watched her visibly relax as the words of assurance flooded over her personal space.  There was more hustle and bustle than she's comfortable with these days, but the calmness of the TSA agent assuaged her anxiety.  I was grateful.  The agent was non-plussed...

Are you as excited as I am?  Have you caught up on the episodes you missed by watching them On Demand or Netflix or Hulu?  Do you need more?  Well, we here at The Burrow aim to please.  So, for a bonus post, click here for Betty Draper's Guide to Parenting and then look below the clip for the link to Roger's One Liners.  You'll need the laughs after spending 3 minutes watching Betty treat her children like interlopers in her personal space. And think of me, sitting on Douglas, watching and laughing and being as happy as a girl can be with the tv on Sunday night. (Thanks to the Big Cuter for finding these links.  I knew there were reasons I had children!)

My brother is coming to town. He's driving from Maryland to Los Angeles for our cousin's son's wedding this weekend.  We'd talked about this trip, about a convention in Las Vegas which would make the whole thing feel kinda sorta maybe work-related, about how boring it is to drive across Texas, about how long it would take to drive from Tucson to LA and whether he should come here on the way out or the way back, but earlier this week, sitting with G'ma's feet on my lap on her couch in the pod castle, we called him, wondering if he was coming after all. I mean, really, people. The event is Saturday.  And it's a long drive. He didn't pick up the phone this morning, and G'ma and I agreed that it was typical Brother Behavior.  I remembered the afternoon I'd come home early from school.  The house was empty.  My hello's went unanswered.  Little Sister came home when it was dark, and G'ma arrived after work, and only when dinner was on the tab...

Aged Parmesan is complex and surprising, grabbing hold and drawing you in.  I went with the flow and things just got better and better,  revealing newer and more diverse tastes.  I was really liking Aged Parm. ***** The Cheeses have been keeping us up-to-date on his mother's move to Tucson.  Over three years she considered and rejected and thought about and cared and didn't care and then she decided to do it.  And it was done.  There was a house to sell and logistics to be arranged and now she's here so we met for lunch.   Convenient location, easy parking, great service and even better food made Lupita's Cafe the obvious choice.  We got there early, made a 4-top a round 5-top after TBG figured out the slides underneath the square, and there they were, the Cheeses, Big and Little, and his mom, Aged Parm. The woman is delightful.  She's beautifully attired and active and engaged in the world around her.  She's got an upbeat attitu...

It rained last night, but it didn't really help.  Not only are the humans melting into lifeless puddles, but the flora are whimpering, too.  Take a look at what remains of a once vibrant container garden: Honest, I only skipped one day of watering.  But the desert sun is unforgiving, and I've never lived anyplace where the right plant in the right place was a more important piece of advice.   I'm not sure what died in there; Dr. deA gave me a bulb and that may be it.  There's a serious root structure underneath the parched soil; my plan involves cutting back the dead wood, fertilizing the palo verde volunteer which has taken root along the edge, and proceeding with the plan I should have followed in the first place - vincas in all my pots for the summer. Vincas are periwinkle in English, especially when they are of the violet hue.  The ones I find here are variations on pink.  Target had this 1 gallon container on the sale rack.  For...

(For those of you who saw this yesterday, I'm sorry.  Blogger decided that my scheduling of the publication of this masterpiece for July 20th just didn't count. Skim it anyway if you want, there are some changes, as there always are .  It may not be mediated, but it is edited.) ******* Mr. 7 is taking a reading class this summer.  I found the flyer at the UofA Poetry Center and Amster, perfect parent that she is, signed him right up.  Of course,  since I discovered the activity it seemed only fair that I provide the transportation.  What kind of friend alerts a parent to an enrichment program and then leaves her to fend for herself? So, this morning, bright and early and right on time, the whole family knocked on our front door.  Mr. 5 was going to the first day of camp without his brother.  For the first time, ever, in his whole life, he would be the one to scope out the scene.  His big brother will join him at lunchtime, after school....

The gym was too hot.  The sun is relentless.  It shouldn't hurt to bring in the morning paper.  But it does.  The ground is burning a granular pattern into the bottom of my slippers.  I have to remember to wear flip flops outside in the summertime.  Shoes with slipper-like soles can't take the temperatures and my feet are paying the price.  I'm sitting inside in an air conditioned, hermetically sealed environment, and it's only 10:10 on Sunday morning. I'm taking us back to Long Island, Burrow-ites.  It's humid and the sky is blue.  There's a 20-then-30-then-40-foot pin oak tree smack in the middle of the back yard.  It's the biggest backyard in the neighborhood, and at various times it has had a sandbox (square, wood framed, with triangular seats in each corner), a swing set (2 simple swings with thick wood seats, a 2-person push-me-pull-you and a straight slide on the end) and a Marion-the-Librarian-front-porch swing. Every other ya...

Valerie Bertinelli is on the cover of AARP's July/August 2010 edition. She was always Daddooooo's favorite girl on tv, and TBG and I most heartily agreed with him.  The article is typical AARP put a smile on your face fluff, but I can't get past the fact that she's 50.  I know that I am aging, but the iconic characters of my youth should just stay there..... in my basement on the console tv.  I don't remember giving her permission to age. ***** Making reservations for a mini-vacation in August just about fried my brain yesterday afternoon.  I'd been gathering information for a few days - which weekend, how long in a hotel and how long at Roomie's house, which airport worked better - and yesterday it was time to make the plans.  At one point I had 5 different Kayak tabs with 5 different searches open on my screen.  Yes, it's a 17" screen, but it was still crowded.  Planning to meet MTF at the airport required coordinating sites and times and dates....

Yesterday, in a throw-away line, I wrote that I was reading the last Robert B Parker book I'd ever read .  Well, I just finished it, and I'm sad.  I took a long long time to read the last 30 pages or so, which, if you've ever read any of his books you will know takes some doing. He's not big on description; he'll let you know where he is, but that's about it.  In the car (it used to be a Mustang, and it took center stage in some of the stories, but the 'stang was trashed and now his car is just his car) or in his office with Pearl's couch or at police headquarters or Spenser or Susan's apartment, or drinking in the bar at the Ritz or meeting a nefarious character on the Common, but aside from the windows and what can be seen through them, we really have no idea what the spaces look like.  He's just there, and he's Spenser, and I love him. Yes, I do.  If he showed up at the front door I'd send TBG out the back door.  The Little Cuter call...

Our next door neighbors came home early from their vacation.  I knew this because their giant motor home drove past my window, her Honda CRV in tow.  I can't decide how I feel about those things.  Babs and I talked for years about renting one and piling the kids in for a trip to the Black Hills or some other place, remote and without 5-star accommodations to tempt us.  We never got past the talking.  I love the notion of traveling with your house, but doesn't that defeat the purpose of seeing someplace new?  And whatever you'd save in hotel bills, 5-star or not, would go toward feeding the beast.  These were among the issues I was prepared to raise when we met in our driveways the next morning - along with "Why are you in Tucson in July?" - but we were side-tracked by the sight of dozens of bees flying into and out of the downspout over the garage door.  There are several reasons that this bee-less photo was chosen: It demonstrates that, from m...