The Burrow

Traveling to Chicago from Tucson is easy, for the most part.  Tucson International Airport (you can fly to Mexico) is teeny and I didn't have to worry about parking because TBG dropped me off at the door.  I checked my bag, for free, at the Southwest counter; there was no line and I was through security ten minutes after I left my sweetie at the sliding glass doors.  The TSA agents were friendly, and I must have been walking very well because no one offered me a loaner cane to help me step through the x-ray machine. And then, I saw her.  A slim, black, woman with a maternity TSA uniform. I was not allowed to photograph her, for security reasons, I guess, but that couldn't spoil my joy.  There was a tie in the back of the blouse, to allow for her ever expanding girth. Her pants were stretchy. TSA provided it all. I am so in love with my government right now. What a change from 1951, when G'ma was forced to resign from the NYC Public School system because I wa...

Yesterday's post merely scratched the surface. I didn't tell you about the swag (Stuff We All Get) or the hotel or the travels or Chicago.   I didn't tell you about nearly falling down the escalator or Lourds. Don't worry, all that and more is coming in this post. Since you, denizens, are the reason for The Burrow, it seems only fitting that you share in the joy of the largest blogging conference in America.  If you couldn't be there with me, I'll have to bring you along by the written word. That picture shows the stuff we got on the first day. Moo Cards  offered freebies if you pre-ordered in time. I used the opportunity to spread the word about getting involved. I now have the ability to provide immediate assistance when my companion is at a loss; the card shows how easy it is to make our voices heard.  The cards come in a reusable, sturdy, little, white box (it's in the front on the left with the blue wrapper) which fits neatly in my p...

(I had serious formatting issues with this post.  I tried and tried to fix them.  I nearly threw Nellie the Netbook through the window. In the end, Little Cuter reminded me that you read my content and don't judge my presentation.  Please remember that as the formatting takes on a life of its own below) ***** #BlogHer'13     was held at #McCormickPlace in #Chicago this year, and Little Cuter and I were in attendance.  It was a remarkable weekend of networking and learning and being inspired.   #BlogHer's founders were there Jory des Jardins, Elisa Camahort Page, Lisa Stone as were a host of celebrities. Little Cuter and I were front and center for #ReeDrummond, # PioneerWoman . Have you seen her on #The FoodNetwork? Neither have I. I'm not a #cook, nor a #homeschooler, nor married to an Oklahoma cowboy. I don't live on a ranch, nor am I renovating an old building in the center of my cute but dying little town. ...

Nerthus is there already.  Little Cuter and I are making our plans for dinner.  I'm remembering to put a canvas tote bag in my giant suitcase so that I can carry around the swag I collect.  BlogHer'13  is at McCormick Place in Chicago, and I am on my way. Chicago is one of the few place to which I can fly without changing planes.  Luckily, my friends and my family are there, too, as are the Art Institute and the lakefront and the library building on Michigan Avenue.  There's deep dish pizza and flaming saganaki and the world's biggest and best margaritas.   Someday, I'll see Shakespeare on Navy Pier ; perhaps I can organize an outing to Comedy of Errors which is opening on Friday night on the pier's South Lawn.  Of course, Not Kathy and Dr. K live right above the Pritzker Pavillion, and the music there might be tempting, too. It Happened One Night  is being shown outside, at Belmont Harbor, on Tuesday.  I have an early appoint...

Don't try to make me do it.  You won't win. Neither my body nor my mind is in the mood to exercise today.  I just don't wanna. I've been regular, six or seven days each and every week, with professionals and on my own, taking care of the body that survived bullets and surgeries and bed rest.  I am proud of that body, my body, the one that's sitting like a lump in this chair, watching its fingers type to you.  It's got remarkable bones that didn't need to be replaced and a resiliency that surprises me every time i get back up on the reformer and do the leg-and-foot-work once again. It's always willing to do what I tell it to do...  or at least to try.  "Can you do this?" the instructor might ask.  My answer is always the same.  "Let's try it and see what happens."  I've been operating under the premise that the worst that can happen has already landed on my doorstep. The surgeon promised that no one, no activity, no pulling...

My hearing aids were lost for a while. They'd been annoying me on our last visit to San Francisco, which I put down to the head cold I'd been battling. The air pressure, the internal swelling, the itchiness I couldn't shake all led me to take them out on the plane home and put them someplace safe. As usual, putting them someplace safe meant that I couldn't find them when I got home.  I searched everywhere. I stuck my hands into pockets of my suitcase that had not been touched since the lint in my palm was a full sheet of paper.   I remembered worrying, as I hid them, that the plastic tubing would be crushed by the space they were occupying. I just couldn't remember where that space was. I opened travel cases.  I poured out the contents of my dop kits - the one with the wet stuff and the one with the dry stuff.  I went back to the garage and dumped the suitcase out all over again. I opened the hidden compartments in my wallet, though there was no way that...

A yellow bird With a yellow bill Was perched upon My windowsill I lured him in With a piece of bread And then I smashed His fucking head. .. That's what this book is all about.  You're going along peacefully, wondering what's coming next and then KABOOM there's shrapnel and fear and confusion.  Most of all, there's confusion. Kevin Powers opens his spare novel with that traditional U.S. Army marching cadence.   It jolted me. Literally, my head shot up, my eyes widened, TBG wondered what was going on. I shook my head, reread the lines in march time, and found myself getting smaller. My shoulders were hugging my neck. My arms were pressed into my sides.  My head shook from side to side, trying to remove the image from my brain  and then my eyes went to the second part of the frontispiece: To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetfull of evils past, is a mercifull provision in nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evi...

Any thoughts I might have entertained on the subject were called into question on January 11, 2008.  Not that I ever gave it much thought.  It had touched my family, but we'd managed to ignore it. I worked along the edges, but never did more than dip a toe in the water. It was an issue for the other .  It wasn't my concern.... right up until the point when it was completely my concern. A mentally ill young man killed my little friend; I confront the aftermath every day of my life.  Bullets shattered a sunny, Saturday morning, along with my hip and my sense of safety and security. Who is that young man over there, muttering to himself?  Why is that woman staring blankly at the sky?  I see danger around every corner.... might they be mad? And if they are?  Do I walk past without saying anything?  Do I mutter and turn my head?  Do I complain to the woman behind me in line?  I watch that happen, and I wonder if, perhaps, there isn't a be...

...Eliminate the negative..... that's where I'm going to try to go today.  I've got Jiminy Cricket on my shoulder, zip-a-dee-doo-da'ing away.  Yes, I'm mixing everything up but that's what's going on and the only way to make sense of it is to look on the bright side.  After all, the sun came up and G'ma and I were here to see it, even if she is sleeping on someone else's sheets. With everything swirling around me, I'm bemused by the fact that the pod-castle has misplaced G'ma's sheets. I don't want them "circulating around the house," as one caregiver described it.  I want them in her closet or on her bed.  I don't think that's an unreasonable request, and neither did any of the worker bees to whom I mentioned it.  Still, the pretty pink and white flowery ones - not ours - remain tucked in neatly beneath her comforter. I want Big Cuter's Marimekko cars and trucks sheets folded on the shelf and Little Cuter...

We wait all year for Monsoon. The clouds are big and puffy, the sky is bluer than blue, then the clouds are massive and black and the wind blows and the rain pours down from darkened skies.  It makes for beautiful sunsets; TBG and I have taken to watching the sunset from the patio. It's been too hot to do it until last week; now the milder temperatures are balanced by the increased humidity. No one from any other part of the country would think that it is sticky here right now.  Tucsonans, a different breed entirely, are melting.  We are weather wimps, and proud of it. ***** Do you have a regular group of people who run/walk/take out the dogs in your neighborhood?  Sitting at a front window, typing to you every day, I have become accustomed to the grey-haired-guy-with-the-two-pugs; to the runner-with-the-leash-around-his-waist, attached to two Springer spaniels; the teen who wears black socks and long shorts; the octogenarian with her wooden walking sticks. Rec...

It's been seven weeks since the phone rang with the news that G'ma had fallen and couldn't get up. The story just continues to make waves in our lives.  Usually, they are gentle swells.  Yesterday, I was in the middle of a tsunami. The original home health care company discharged her.  They didn't tell me.  They just did it.  Apparently, when there are no skilled nursing needs, they cancel the connection.  The fact that her physical therapy was still an issue to be addressed didn't register on their radar.  She was done.  That was the reason the PT never returned to the pod-castle.  She wasn't on the list. I didn't bother arguing with them.  If they don't want the case (and the dollars that come with it) they don't need it.  Her primary care physician (PCP.... because he reappears in this saga and I don't want to type it all out over and over again) was happy to send a referral to another agency.  They were happy to send a ...

Trayvon and George are everywhere.  ESPN offered no respite; Stephen A Smith was bloviating again this morning, this time about justice and Florida's Stand Your Ground law, and attitude and hoodies.  The Arizona Daily Star devoted the main story on the front page to the aftermath of the trial.  Facebook is consumed with outrage.  I can't escape.  I'll dive in, instead. No one knows what really  happened.  No one ever does.  Eyewitnesses are unreliable, especially when one of them is dead and the other doesn't testify.  People came running, but it was dark, they were frightened, they couldn't really see or hear.  The 911 call is muddy; did George say punk or coon?   As Diane Rheem wondered aloud this morning, how could those two words be confused? There was blood where it should have been and none where it might have been and who was on top was the question of the week.  There were a lot of blonde women making pronouncements...

The best advice I can offer is this: try to avoid situations which will require you to throw one. TBG and I are attending the Pilates Diva's this afternoon.  It's been a little over two years since we held ours. I've been antsy all day.   It's odd, since there aren't any similarities, on the surface, at least.  True, we were both victims of young-ish, white, men, but unless you are one of those who is recasting the George Zimmerman affair, I don't think that's relevant. Mental illness and irresponsible gun solutions are behind my injuries; The Pilates Diva's guy nodded off behind the wheel.  I find her story to be much more likely to alter my way of life than I've found my own to be.  She was behind her husband on their tandem bike when the SUV proved, once again, that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. TBG hasn't gotten back on his own road bike since he was forced into an uncovered drainage hole and turned his face...

She's the girl at climbing camp.   Not the only girl, the girl. She sat next to someone else at lunch. He was devastated. Acorns not falling far from oaks, this son of two lawyers made a list. The title is my favorite part: do . Not "to do," which would put it out in the future somewhere. Not "what i can do to make her like me," which drowns in its own verbiage.   do. He starts out by taking matters into his own hands - he will choose to sit beside her. How often have I waited to see what life would bring, rather than making the decision my own? This is a confident young man, and it shows. He will excel, because success is very attractive,  and he will be sure that she notices, since he'll be in her line. While they are waiting and chatting, he'll give her his undivided attention, while behaving like a gentleman. Resisting the urge to mess around is tough when you're a tween. She must be a very special youn...

In one of his former lives, I am certain that my father had gills.  The water was never too cold, the air never too chilly, the surf never too high to keep him out of the water. He'd shallow dive off the poolside, avoiding diving boards because the impact jarred his ear canals.  He'd point his fingers and his toes and create a straight arrow with his body and whoooosh across the bottom of the pool.  He was as likely to come up underneath me as he was to arrive beside me.  Swimming with him was always an adventure. He'd burst from below, shaking his head and exhaling.  If there was water in his mouth, those around him were sprayed.  He thought it was funny; I did, too, until I turned 8.  Still, he was having such a good time, it felt churlish to berate him; I hid my shame by pretending that I didn't know him.  Once I became a parent, though, I could hardly wait for him to arise and spray my children.  They found him delightful and I, safel...

I found the professional organizer' s  Things To Do   pad right where she left it, in the mesh container. I've done none of the things on the list, proving my theory that most problems, if left alone, resolve themselves over time.  It also proved the organizer's theory - she really didn't want me to put anything in that box.  She predicted that I would ignore its contents, and I did.  The box and the article from the NYTimes Book Review, and notes from a Cornell Leadership Seminar, and an accessory for electronics we no longer own hadn't moved. The chaos was created around it.   One problem which cannot resolve itself if left alone is a messy desk.  Patty tried to dust around it, but I quickly disabused her of the notion that anyone would notice.  It was an eyesore, an embarrassment, an area to be avoided.... which was really a shame because the library is a beautiful room with a welcoming vibe...when it's not overwhelmed by the tornado that i...