The Burrow

I need color in my life.  I need expressions of opinion emblazoned on street corners. I need some San Francisco and I need it now.  So, while my brain reels and my hip aches, my mind and I are puttin' some flowers in our hair. We're hanging in The Haight.  Years ago,  G'ma and Daddoooo stayed at this hotel, at the entrance to Golden Gate Park, with The Haight up behind them.    "It was different," was as judgmental as they got. I'd have to agree.  we've got nothing like this in Tucson. Who needs neon, anyway? I love that the temporary fence on the right has decorations, too.  For a moment, from the back seat of our Zip Car, those two under the OPEN sign looked real. Are there words in there?  Action figures?  The aftermath of an explosion? Some of it was creepy, but there was a line outside this pancake house in spite of the ghoul on the wall. The political graffiti was inspiring.  This wom...

There were protests in front of my Senator's offices on Saturday - here in Tucson and up in Phoenix.  I planned to attend.  I really and truly did.  I debated driving to the State Capitol and joining my voice with others right there in the heart of the decision making process.  HB 2455 is on the Governor's desk right now.  It guts local gun buy back programs, requiring all turned in weapons to be resold to the public.   States Rights  have taken on a whole new meaning here in Arizona; this bill trumps local control and gives the state the right to dictate to municipalities.  Don't worry if it's confusing to you.  Just imagine the brain whiplash we residents face every day. I wanted to be there to lend my voice; something was holding me back. I told myself it was the long drive, the desire to spend the day with high school friends who were reuining by a pool in Scottsdale, the fact that no one could tell me if there would be security.... and...

A friend screeched.  Her mother-in-law had been driving her crazy, but this morning, in the shower, the events of the past week or so smacked her right in the face - her razor was wet, and her MIL's fingerprints were all over it. "Freakin' G-to the-R-to-the OSS!"  We all have our boundaries.  The razor snatching wouldn't have bothered me; I'd have changed the blade and gone on with my day.  But my fences aren't her fences, and she's over the top annoyed. I'm not judging; I'm sympathizing. One of the first boundaries I set when we were married was the sanctity of my toothbrush.  Yes, we shared bodily fluids in many ways, but not that way.  Not with my teeth, with my paste, with my bristles.  No way.  No how.  Never. My new husband shrugged his shoulders and agreed.  He thought I was strange, but it wasn't worth an argument.  That's the way it's been for the last 37 years or so; I'm odd and he brushes it off.  It works fo...

(If you are one of the nine people who read this yesterday before I realized that it wasn't supposed to be posted until today, I'm sorry.  If you click here , you can ready my rant on Senator Jeff Flake, which ran after this post yesterday.Sorry....) I won my Kindle Fire.  I'd never considered buying one.  I'd railed about it here and in private.  I like books, real, hold in my hand, turn the pages myself, paper books.  I used the infernal machine for game playing and minor-web-searches on the couch, but never for reading.  Reading demanded covers, a binding, print on a page.  Reading was not pixels. After I conquered my addiction to the gaming feature, I deleted them from the device's memory and began using it to read Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak series while my boys watched football over Big Cuter's winter vacation.  There was no need to run to the library or the bookstore; with a little bit of pressure and heat from my finger, the next inst...

Jeff Flake and his wife shared the stage with Gabby Giffords and her husband.  It was the anniversary of the day we were shot.  The mall at the University was transformed into an outdoor cathedral.  The symphony was there.  Calexico was there.  The survivors and the family members were there.  We were united in grief and resolve and remembering.  After the ceremonies, TBG and I went back on stage, so that he could thank Mark Kelly for the kindnesses he'd shown us in the hospital, all those months ago.  Right then, it didn't seem like much time had passed at all.  It was recent.  It was real. While the guys were talking, I was taking pictures.  Mrs. Flake and Ms. Giffords were trying to get a picture of themselves by holding a cell phone at arms length.  You know that shot; you've probably taken dozens of them, yourself.  They were happy to accept my offer of help, and that was how I came to take several pictures of two c...

Lauren Bacall has been in my head all day. It's a Billie Holliday tune I first heard in this Hoagy Carmichael rendition in To Have and Have Not , probably my all-time favorite Bogey and Bacall film.  The words of the song (a man who's done her wrong) don't have anything to do with my funk..... or do they?  I'll let you decide after you finish this. The events of last week blew up in my head last night.  For no reason on God's green earth, I decided to be furious with my boys for talking about the NBA on our usual, Sunday night, phone call.  I could feel the rage boiling up inside.  Little bits and pieces emerged first; head shaking, muttering, mumbling got no response.  I made my feelings known, fury was unleashed, anger unfurled, accusations hurled.  I was outside looking in, as my mouth was spewing vitriol. Such is life with PTSD.  It appears randomly, set off by loud noises or skinny white boys in hoodies, or with a definite cause, l...

I needed a break from all the sadness, all the disappointment, all the horror. I opened Sports Illustrated and saw a picture of a man in a wheelchair, with bloody bones hanging below his kneecaps.  I'm sure I was meant to concentrate on the heroes pushing him and staunching his bleeding, but those missing limbs are imprinted on my brain, two days later, as I type to you. The barely-30-something EMT from West, Texas, is living in my head, too.  He "lost everything - "friends, home, everything" - in an explosion in a place with no zoning. Honestly, would you put a middle school or a care home within spitting distance of a fertilizer factory? The town's volunteer fire fighters ran toward the burning building.... and then it exploded, taking them with it. My first cousin is a volunteer firefighter, has been since he was a teenager.  He tells me that I am a hero for taking three bullets and surviving.  I always counter with "But you run into burn...

It's hard to write about the mundane.  The world is going through one of those what's next  moments, and my posts on what I've planted and what I've seen and what I've read just don't seem to rise to the occasion. So, I'd like to ask you to take the time you'd usually spend reading The Burrow and contact your Senators . Applaud them, chastise them, make your voices heard. If you want a script, click here . Thanks.  I won't take up any more of your time. How they voted on Wednesday: Yeas (54) Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del. Sen. William "Mo" Cowan, D-Mass. Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D...

Patricia Maisch, my hero once again, said it best  .... and the Capitol police escorted her out of the gallery for saying it. "Shame on you!" she hollered from her seat, looking down on the Senators who closed the door on sensible background check legislation, legislation that is supported by 90% of the American populace. In some sense, this is probably the most energizing event that could have come our way. My phone, my email, my Facebook are lit up with outrage. Big Cuter says that " Patty really needs to be the poster hero to disprove the nonsensical NRA jingle that "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun". I'm pretty sure this was the case of a "good grandmother with her gumption stopping a bad guy with a gun". But that's trying to find the silver lining in what is a very dark cloud.  I overheard this today, and, though it's crass, I can only hope it's true:   "If the image of twenty, dead,...

Every city has its oddities.  San Francisco has bison They live in Golden Gate Park, just beyond the windmill.  Yes, there's a windmill... actually, there are two windmills... at the ocean end of Golden Gate Park. It's a wonderfully San Francisco kind of place.  Look at that map.  Those are road, and lakes, and polo fields. There are swales for picknicking and trails for running. There are trees to be admired and blossoms to be smelled. Even the weeds made me smile. Sitting on a bench, watching the world go by, with this as the backdrop,  we took pictures of all sorts of different kinds of humans, with their cameras, making memories for them to take home. We watched doggies drink from their own sized fountain and watched TBG wash bird poop off his leg. We were amazed by the bubbles these people were creating. I, of course, have plans to replicate this. I paid close attention to their technique.  No ...