The Burrow

I have been stressed about this post for the past week.  I have absolutely no suggestions to give.  The whole topic is distasteful to me right now. It started when I realized that stores would be open on Thanksgiving Day... and yes, it counts as the day even if the sun has set.  It got me thinking about shopping in general and about a small item on NPR last week.  It seems that Governor Chris Christie revoked New Jersey's Blue Laws, saying that the post-Sandy recovery required it. And here we have a clear division among the denizens.  Those of you old enough to remember Blue Laws, or who live in New Jersey, know exactly what I mean.  Those of you who have always been able to shop on every day except Christmas (and, until this year, Thanksgiving) are scratching your heads.  Blue Laws, children, are regulations enacted to enforce a strict, religious standard. Can't buy alcohol on Sunday in your neighborhood?  That's a blue law.  New Jersey ...

It started last night with a Hoosier victory over UNC's Tarheels.  Sorry, IntrepidCat, your alma mater was crushed by those guys with the funky striped warm-up pants. That's my IU graduate... or her husband.... just before the game began.  My Hoosier Mama shirt was still in the laundry after last week's game against Georgetown; I wore the IU Mom GO HOOSIERS shirt, instead.  It's only weird if it doesn't work, as they say. The good guys were up by 30 points for most of the second half, and even Dick Vitale wasn't quite as annoying when he was cheering for my team.  He only referenced Bob Knight once, which, given his screed last weekend when IU met Georgetown, was nothing short of remarkable.  I wonder how vociferously he was told to tune it down? Tom Crean is a marvelous steward of the Indiana basketball tradition.  He was as engaged in the last two minutes of the game, coaching guys-who-were-never-going-to-see-nationally-televised-action-ever-aga...

That's my mantra for the season.  I'm applying it to the physical and the emotional pieces of my life.  I wrote about Kaizen after we came home from Canyon Ranch. I didn't think of it until I typed it, but it's obviously the same thing. This is why I love you, denizens.  I think out loud, and you are there to listen.  Without you, I'm a raving lunatic.  With you, I'm a thoughtful blogger.  But, as usual, I digress. I was feeling overwhelmed over the weekend.  I had some post-holiday blues to mix in with the Halloween decorations festooning the edges of the garage, haphazardly piled atop one another, earrings next to plastic pumpkins from Happy Meals gone by.  Thanksgiving was in a box on the kitchen table, awaiting strong, young legs to transport it.  There were boxes and boxes of Christmas and Chanukah stacked higher than my achy hip was willing to lower. I pushed away the random nastiness which was threatening to creep in from the sid...

I must confess - I love my new Smartphone. Every day it reveals another, more intimate, side of itself.  The more I trust it, the more I am rewarded. It's a very thoughtful little machine, my Galaxy S3.  It lets me clean up my Contacts List; I press the chain link icon and I can join one contact to another.  Join... isn't that a lovely word?  Combine implies mashing and smashing while join is like that icon over there, neatly fitting one inside the other, each retaining its own particular charm.   Somehow, it knows to include a picture, even if it appears only on one of the three entries I've found for the same friend. Three entries, you wonder?  Yes, the darling device has imported contacts from Google as well as those on the phone's SIM card, saved from the dearly departed stupid phone it replaced, and from Facebook, too.  For all I know, it's included the DEX or Yellow Pages from my area code.  Like my pictures, they just kind of appea...

An olio, a miscellaneous collection, a good word to know if you do crossword puzzles, and, perhaps, the new name for the Random Thoughts series.  There are so many stories to tell.... ***** It was a little bit of  Love Actually  at Tucson International Airport on Wednesday night.  Grandmas were hugging and being hugged. Girlfriends were standing aside, letting parents and sons embrace, patiently waiting for their own hugs and kisses.  Little ones were asleep on shoulders and in crooks of arms and in strollers. By the time Thursday morning rolled around.... at about ten past midnight.... there was only Big Cuter's plane left to land and the crowd had thinned considerably.  We were hunkered down in front of the tv monitor, which broadcasts from the arrivals hallway, just after the security station. Travellers in the know smile and wave at the camera, much to the delight of their relatives in the lobby. We all wondered why the security guard chose that par...

Shop local. I'm out of fresh ideas on the interwebs. I haven't been in the garden in so long the catalogs are mere teases, tempting me with items I can't appreciate in full.  Since I am feeling the love this year, I'm avoiding things which make me grimace... like thinking about Elmo's muppeteer resigning... and I'm concentrating on the good. So, back to my idea for this Friday's Shopping Secret : Shop Local. The  city of Fresno  says that either $73 of every $100 or 45 cents of every $1 will stay in the local economy if you stay away from the big chains.  I have issues with mathematical analyses so I checked with my boys; they can't have it both ways.  Of course, Big Cuter suggests that it's really $118 out of every $100 but that's more a by-product of lying on Douglas with his Dad than any real math-ness...... but I digress. There are little shops you've driven by a dozen times - go in. There are bakeries and fruit stands and wine ...

..... of sunny freezing Thursdays, waking to the smell of Nannie's turkey in the oven, rolling over on the old bed on the third floor, surrounded by my babies..... ..... of full bellies lying on the couch, begging for relief, as Hough's creamed spinach wound its way through an overloaded digestive tract..... ..... of my first niece, a veg even as a toddler, eating cucumbers for dinner and feeling just fine..... ..... of walks around the neighborhood, wrapped in scarves and hats culled from the front hall closet, surrounded by all ages and temperments, mellowed by tryptophan and love. Thanksgiving was in Cleveland Heights.  My family was too far and too expensive to visit, plus, there were all those arguments which never seemed to end.  TBG's folks put out the welcome mat for us, and we wiped our feet and joined the fun year after year after year.  The drive from Chicago wasn't too onerous, especially as we crooned Over the River and Through the Woods... we reall...

My father-in-law would have turned 100 today.  He'd have been very proud of what he saw. His youngest child, his namesake, the Junior, was teary-eyed, looking at the finally arrived aren't they here yet? absolutely gorgeous wedding pictures. Sergio captured the moments perfectly.  My house has never looked lovelier and my daughter has never looked happier and I wish that TFBG could have been here to enjoy the party.  He'd have been very proud. He was self-reliant and independent and managed his own affairs without interference or consultation.  His retirement planning ran through A to Z and ended, on graph paper, in pencil, each letter occupying its own space and nothing more, with PP.  He shared them with TBG, but only as a curiosity.  He would own the result as he owned the preparation. Ownership was something he took seriously.  He had the same woolen bathrobe for his entire adult life.  His shoes were works of wonder; treed eve...

It's happening to me once again.  I have no idea what day it is.  I am certainly confused about the season.  I spent our first winter in Marin wearing hiking boots, woolen socks, corduroy shorts and a polar fleece vest over a long sleeved t-shirt or sweater.  My winter coat was a yellow, unlined, floor-length cotton duster which was only snapped up tight when I wanted to protect what was underneath from the raindrops.  It was never cold enough to warrant a scarf or a hat or gloves; when I wore them, it was a fashion statement rather than a concession to frigid temperatures. A friend suggested that I choose colors for each season, and rotate my closet accordingly.  The weather was pretty much the same year round, once you crossed the Golden Gate Bridge.  Woolen sweaters were relegated to the storage closets there, as they are here.  Pale yellow is reserved for April through August; dark brown for November til Valentine's Day. Or so it ha...

Tucson's built in the caldera of a volcano.  It's ringed by mountain ranges, growth beginning in the middle of the hole and spreading out as far as the mountains allowed.  The original presidio is in the center of downtown, the dead were buried further north, just east of Main Street.  Then, civilization began to encroach.  Development was moving in the direction of all those bodies, and the survivors were told to dig 'em up.  Evergreen Cemetery was created further north and west, and plots would be available for the displaced remains.  Some were moved.  Some were not.  Homeowners in the Dunbar and Spring neighborhoods are still digging up caskets and clothes and bones.  Were the bodies buried with all their clothes victims of contagious disease?  Was burial the safest method of disposal for things they'd touched?  The answers are unknown, but the history is commemorated by signage in the roundabouts. I visit...

I know a lot of talented women.  I am crafty at heart but lousy at execution; I've never knit anything that fit the person for whom it was intended. I have good handwriting, but calligraphy escapes me.  I am envious of those whose brains create items their hands can concoct.  I invite you to meet three women who fit in that category. Mei-Mei was featured last year, but her stuff warrants another look.  She spent some time in the hospital a while back, and came home with a suitcase filled with those comfy socks with the sticky patches on the soles. Wanting to give back to the medical community which tried to fix her problems, she made upcycled toys for the hospitalized children, and then she went to Etsy and began to market her wares . She made me a Lisbeth Salander doll, to celebrate my triumph over adversity. She'll make you a custom piece, too. Just tell her I told you she would. Know somebody who's going in for a knee replacement?  How about thi...

This is a good week.  Nothing extra dotting my calendar, no meetings I'm obliged to attend, no urgent errands to run or needs to be met.  Tana French wrote that "only teenagers or adults who think like teenagers find that boring is a bad thing.  The rest of us know that it is a gift from the gods." I couldn't have said it better. ***** I participated in a webinar with  Alan Mathios, Dean of the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University this morning.  Webinar is a weird word, especially when it includes the use of a telephone for oral communication.  I've been playing with the words for an hour or so and can't come up with anything more mellifluous, though, so I'll stop judging and move on. As an aside, it's very cool to have the Dean recognize my name and hope to see me in Arizona.  I felt a little bit special. ***** Thomas the Wonder Dog kept SIR and Little Cuter up all night at the Emergency Vet last weekend.  It's awful when t...

What kind did I buy?  The kind Big Cuter told me to buy. I am too old for this.  We had rotary phones in every room in the house; Daddooooo would have a bad day and come home and run phone lines to the closets, to the other side of the bedrooms, to the basement.  Since this was frowned upon illegal considered stealing by Ma Bell, it fed his need "to get back at the man."  The rest of the family waited for the police to come and cart him away. Once the lines were installed, using the device was a no-brainer.... or so I thought.  The Cuters, when faced with their first look at this phone were flummoxed. Their little fingers went into the appropriate holes, but turning the dial all the way to the curved metal stopper was not at all intuitive for them. "This is hard!" I repeated the same thing when I first saw the Galaxy S3. At least on the old phones, it was pretty obvious how to answer and hang up.  No so much on my new one. Big Cuter called me...

That's the size of the hole in my heart right how. Frank and Jackie, who live next door to G'ma's house on Long Island, went outside the night of Superstorm Sandy and watched the giant pin oak twirling around and around in the wind.  Like a windmill, like a whiligig, like a top, like a big scary living thing that was about to crash onto their kitchen, the tree my parents planted on my brother's first birthday in 1955 was behaving badly. That tree was base in so many games of Hide and Seek and Red Rover and Mother, May I? that it exists on its own, as a character in my memory. Its trunk served as home plate for whiffle ball, and was the goal in the games of Association in which Daddooooo tried to interest us.  Those dark lines outside the ripped away lawn are not gopher tunnels, nor garden soil, nor uneven patches of grass.  They are the roots of the tree, the foundation that held it up for nearly sixty years.  They are gnarly.  I always knew exact...