The Burrow

I am tired of living in a messy space.  Little Cuter didn't even go into the library when she was last here; it's too overwhelmingly, oppressively cluttered.  My usual excuses (no attic, no basement, no crawl space, little closet space) worked for the first ten years we lived here, but they are a tired bunch of losers at this point.  I must resolve to fix this. There must be a reason that my eye is drawn to postings on this topic; my soul must be seeking clarity and harmony and a oneness with the inner calm residing beneath the chaos.  That's what they promise, anyway.  Apparently, surrounding myself with things that bring me joy will keep the crap from accumulating on my desk. Would that that were so.  I seem to love everything I see, here amidst the clutter. The stack of family photos, awaiting replacement once the holiday decors are put away; my Kindle, my current crochet project, my address book, a crossword puzzle, a book to send to FlapJilly.......

Some resolutions are keepers.  And so, once again, I will examine the concept of patience. It is too much to ask that I resolve to become more patient.   Resolutions should target the possible , as TBG phrased it when constructing the sentence was more than I could manage.  Target the possible, not ask for the impossible.  I know myself all too well - becoming  more patient would be frustrating and impossible. I have held this resolution for over a decade; it comes into play most often in check out lines.  I stand behind women (and it's always women) who take each item out of the cart separately, placing each item with care and concern on the conveyor belt, watching each item as it is rung up and flung into a plastic sack (because she never ever ever carries a reusable bag of her own), and then, when the cashier smiles and tells her the total, she takes her purse off her shoulder and begins to look for her checkbook (and it's always a checkbook).  ...

To get them out of the way, first. I never thought about them very much before one catapulted me into the limelight.  After all, short Jewish girls from New York don't get shot..... do they ? Until my body intersected with bullets, I knew no one who had ever been shot.  Since my perforation, though, my world is peopled with such individuals. We are old and young and every color of the rainbow and every variation of belief system and we all believe the same thing - some people should not be wielding weaponry. We come to that conclusion from a variety of political perspectives.  There are liberal Jews and Conservative Christians who agree that being excluded from the military for mental health reasons should be sufficient evidence that one's right to bear arms should be abridged.  After all, if an organization created to use weapons of death decides that you should not be around those weapons, even within the confines of their institution, why should the res...

It was really really really cold. Big Cuter and I covered the plants on Christmas night, and the sheets were still there tonight, Sunday, as TBG and I took out the recycling and the trash.  I love my sweaters, the few which have survived years of closet purging, and that's a good thing.  I had many opportunities to wear them this week. When it's warmer in Illinois than it is in Arizona, it's time to consider that global climate change may just be a reality. ***** New thoughts were considered. Big Cuter brought us Slate's notion that a chubby, white, bearded man as the icon of the season excludes most of the population.  Why should Santa be another instance of reinforcing I'm different ? Of course, the article suggests replacing the fellow in red with a penguin...... and I'm sorry, but that just doesn't work for me. ***** Social justice made an appearance. Let Santa give your kids the modest gifts; tag the expensive ones From Mom and Dad.   Not ...

By now, this is an annual tradition. Sing well, denizens, and keep shining your light. I give you, today, my all-time favorite Xmas carol,  courtesy of Walt Kelly and Pogo.  Sing loudly and lustily to the tune of  Deck the Halls..... Deck us all with Boston Charlie, Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo! Nora's freezin' on the trolley, Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo! Don't we know archaic barrel Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou? Trolley Molly don't love Harold, Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo! Bark us all bow-wows of folly, Polly wolly cracker 'n' too-da-loo! Donkey Bonny brays a carol, Antelope Cantaloupe, 'lope with you! Hunky Dory's pop is lolly gaggin' on the wagon, Willy, folly go through! Chollie's collie barks at Barrow, Harum scarum five alarm bung-a-loo! Dunk us all in bowls of barley, Hinky dinky dink an' polly voo! Chilly Filly's name is Chollie, Chollie Filly's jolly chilly view halloo! ...

And I am up at 6:20am to go to the eye doctor. Sometimes, being a Jewish girl helps on Christmas Eve.  I have no childhood memories of my own to honor. So I go to have dilated pupils, see Star Wars, and play with Amster and the kids and my big kid. Happy Happy. Merry Merry.

Hillary's looking motherly.  Trump is looking angry.  Ted Cruz is looking creepy. My tree is looking lovely.  My son on the couch is a delightful sight.  My husband's smile as he watches me elf-ing warms the cockles of my heart. And so, with my last gift wrapped and delivered, I'm taking the night off. Have a lovely day, denizens.  Keep searching for the light; I do believe it is all around us. ***** If you want to read some more, click on over to where Big Cuter and I were, 5 years ago yesterday, listening to the Tuvan Throat Singers.

I drove up to Mesa/Gateway Airport this morning, picking up Big Cuter and meeting TBG at the Premium Outlet Mall near home for lunch four hours later.  It was peaceful in the car, listening to Pandora's Holiday Jazz channel and cruise controlling along at 6 miles above the speed limit. The three cars racing one another outside Casa Grande were sitting sheepishly on the side of the road several miles after they zoomed past me.  The cavalcade of motorcycles flying giant American flags, flashing lights, accompanying a big white hearse and official cars with blinking Mars Bars on their roofs speeding by us in the other direction caused all of us to slow down, just a touch. With those two exceptions, everyone was staying to the right, passing on the left, obeying the somewhat-expanded speed limit.  The sun was overhead, there was no breeze to speak of, and my boy was behind the wheel. It was a lovely, lovely, morning. We shopped for TBG, I did some last minute gift gra...

These ornaments need hangers. I could unfurl paperclips  (in homage to Daddooooo's ingenuity) and, perhaps, I will. For now, I am dealing with this: The remnants of my elfing to date.   I am finished, having done as much as I can do. I will pack up the Hanukkah stuff, but I will leave the rest for any elves who might wander through between now and Thursday night. I will take TBG to the outlet stores tomorrow;  he will choose athletic wear which I will then purchase and wrap. He'll lift and spin in perfect comfort, having chosen exactly what he wanted. He'll do the same for me at my favorite local boutique , sitting in the same comfy chair he occupies each year,  selecting an I'd-never-buy-it-for-myself-sweater  that I surprise myself by wearing everywhere for the next year. There's not a lot of surprise, and that's just fine with us. ***** For Megan: This is the 27 year old paper plate angel made by Little Cute...

If you go to the  Jean Knows Cars Facebook page , you'll see that she is offering  four one-day Disney Park passes  to the winner of the Tell Me A Road Trip story contest. I know Jean.  This is not a scam. There are a couple of interesting stories already written; why not add yours? The deadline is MONDAY DEC 21.

Megan asked for pictures ,  and so pictures she shall have. There are still ornaments to be placed. Each has a story,  from the California Colleagues who keep us up-to-date on the White House collection, to the couple who were married Christmas weekend, several decades ago. We've lost track of them, but their gift-to-guests ornament reminds me of a lovely Chicago winter evening at the Three Arts Club in Chicago.  The boxes are back in the garage and the floor is swept. I'm taking a minimalist approach to the back of the tree this year. It received lights but no ornaments.   I only see three-quarters of the decor, and I don't store anything I don't want to see. I put up everything I have, each one with a memory. They made me replace Little Cuter's paper plate angel tree topper after 27 years of service.  Santa's more where I am right now, I think. There's a definite dearth of wise men following any star I can find. ...

There's one last round of brownies to be mailed. There will be several trips around town to distribute the love locally. I'm making small bags to hand out to the pool guys and the mail carriers and the FedEx and UPS people. Everything I own smells of chocolate. There are worse fates. It was chilly as I went around town yesterday afternoon. The sun came out (finally) and it stopped raining (finally) and it was time to buy my tree (finally). I stopped in at WallyWorld first, because they always have the best prices on Christmas trees. They were sold out. Apparently, last year they were stuck with too many trees on December 26 th , so this year the manager ordered only 140 of them. They were gone on Tuesday. I had a small grinch attack, laughing with the salesman at myself. I went to the locally owned family farm tree lot, which, it turns out, isn't exactly local. The trees and the salesman were from Oregon. This company has lots all over town, a...

We're in transition around here. FlapJilly and her parents flew back to their lives in the much-warmer-than-it-was-here-in-the-desert-this-weekend northern climes. Hanukkah's blue and white and silver decorations have been returned to their box in the garage. The red and green candles came out.  A tree was purchased.  Eight pans of brownies were baked, packed and mailed.   I need a moment to clear my head.  I need to decide whether to take on the Republicans.  I need to decide whether to discuss ground troops in a land war in the Middle East. I would like to revel in the season, as so many Facebook friends do, by avoiding the real world for a few days of peace and joy. I'm entitled to some confusion, I think.  After all, the still-to-be-born baby Jesus and his parents were on their way to be counted - Oh, no! Big Government! - two thousand and some years ago right now. I have to think that Mary and Joseph would rather have been nesting ...

The pro-gun forces have a new tactic - let's arm everyone.  Instead of decrying lists and bans and gun-free-zones, they are in favor of guns everywhere.  After all, you never know when the bullets might start flying; it's best to be prepared. The fact is that the lone armed good guy when I was shot kept his sidearm holstered, choosing a plastic lawn chair as his weapon.  Afraid of being identified as a shooter by first responders, afraid of hitting an innocent, this well-trained, long time gun owner never fired a shot. Yes, I saw the news clip  from February, 2014, applauding the mother who repelled 3 young men, returning home invaders who had been terrorizing her neighborhood for months, by warning them and then firing her small assault weapon - a gift from her husband after the thugs first visit, two weeks earlier. They were captured soon after.  I'm glad she and her children are safe; I wonder why the police were so quick to nab the perpetrators after mo...

All eight candles are lit.  The oil has lasted all through the holiday.. albeit in the form of colorful candles.  The mystery has been remembered, the story told, the blessings sung and the love flowed. I admit it.  I was ensorceled . The giggles and the smiles multiplied and flowed like the miraculous oil, her little hand grasping my bent finger as we toddled..... as long as Mommy was on the other side. It's quite the love affair those two have going on, and, as happy as the oil makers there, in those days, in that time, my heart swells with joy as I watch our little one attach herself like human velcro to my little one's leg. I was in awe of the whole experience.  My human had created a human, a human who can ask for more and crackers and milk and water and, believe it or not, for night-night when she's tired.  It's even more delightful because she is as pleased with herself as we are with her. She's shaking G'ma's honeymoon maraca, dancing and squea...

Oh, my. I must apologize. I have kept my Grandma SO ensorceled that she is unable to write to you. Oh, dear. Please, forgive us.

It was cloudy, but the rain held off. The zoo takes about an hour, and there were only two other families there. We could get up close and personal with the animals.  which sometimes was a terrifying experience.  We spent a lot of time watching the long tongues of the giraffes.  Wearing a sweater created by G'ma for Little Cuter, the great granddaughter enjoyed the flamingos and the elephants and wasn't that impressed with the bears or the rhino. The grandparents just walked along and smiled.

Sometimes the best presents don't need wrapping paper.

We're on the downward slope.  There are more days behind us than waiting ahead, and the candles are stark reminders. It's the middle, and the special here-we-go-again feeling is starting to fray around the edges. TBG and I are waiting til half time to light candles. Light candles.  There ought to be a the  in the middle, but that's not how my Grandma said it. It's like a glazel tay ... my Zaydeh's tea in a glass mug, sipped through a sugar cube held between his teeth.  I never make a cup of hot tea without calling it a glazel tay  in my head.  The drink starts to work its magic before it ever passes my lips; my grandfather is sitting beside me. But, I digress.  That's not unusual this year.  The holidays are mostly about memories.  Is that a function of age?  Is it that my kids are adults and my grandkid is blessedly unaware of the importance of gifts? Big Cuter and I shopped together for essentials-which-were-his-holiday-gi...

Half the menorah is filled. It looks vaguely unbalanced, and I am tempted to put the candles in pairs on either side of the shamash .  I like the image it conjures for me, that of the oil slithering down from the tip of the flame through the body of the beadle and out into the other receptacles, out into the world, spreading a message of hope and accomplishment and miracles and light. As the political scene begins to unravel, as xenophobia becomes the new black, as a contender for the Presidency of the United States can suggest badges and banning and be taken seriously, I come back to these lights. I'm gonna let it shine, this little light of mine.  Let it shine.  Let it shine.  Let it shine. I've been repeating that to myself all day, as I cringe through Facebook and the local paper and Slate and The Huffington Post.  By moving Trump and his antics from the front page to the entertainment section, The Huff Post made a statement that I wish other news ou...

Two menorahs ( menorot if you are being technical, but I'd lose nine tenths of my readers with that one).  Three candles on the right side of each candelabra... or, to be precise,  the right side if you are on the living room side of the ledge.  From the hallway side, it's the left.   This seems to be a theme. The candles were refusing to stand upright; would it be too much to ask for some standardization between receptacles and Chanukah tapers?  I come to this conclusion, albeit in this era of anti-big-government-and-regulation, after spending much too much time, in two separate hours of the day, encouraging the damn things to assume the position the candelabra was suggesting but not really insisting upon.  Nor was it helping the situation; the holes are uneven in both diameter and surfaces. That little vial of oil didn't have these issues.  It just sat there, glowing, neither diminishing nor growing, just doing its job while the Jews did t...

Two candles, and the shamash.  Nested next to one another, commemorating the hours that small vial of oil continued to shine brightly. I've been holding that image in the front of my brain today.  There's so much to do, so much I want to do, so much that's going to happen, and I'm only one small person trying to tackle it all.  Little Cuter is in the same predicament; although she is marginally larger than I am, her responsibilities are more pressing. No one is paying me to show up at 8am, no one expects me to sing her to sleep, no one has any call on my time at all, really.  And yet, the Brownie List beckons, the Stroll and Roll looms, and the stack of library books tempts.  My responsibilities trumped my desire to curl up in the sunshine with Kay Scarpetta.  I cancelled Pilates, I begged off Mah Jongg.  I sat at the dining room table and packed and labeled and stickered to my heart's content; then TBG played Rudolph to my elf and drove the big ba...

Two candles.  The shamash,  the beadle, the one who lights the others and stands over them, and another, over there on the left, or the right, or the middle if you've got a round menorah and I laugh at myself every year. My father would be proud that I am lighting the candles at all.  I imagine him agreeing with the choice I made tonight: I started on the left, TBG started on the right. Big Cuter called several times during the day, discussing football with his father, but as the sun set and the first star came out he called to say Happy Hanukkah ... and to wonder which side of the menorah....  it's the magnetic menorah he has on his refrigerator all year long, but which, for 8 days, is more than just wallpaper. It is significant, its magnetic flame should be properly placed. Daddooooo is grinning from ear to ear right now. . No matter that this is an historical holiday, not a canonical Biblical one.  Purim and Queen Esther made the cut, but Matithias an...

I wish the talking heads would stop saying the names of the shooters. I know that their ethnic sounds are code for Radical Muslim Terrorists, or whatever the hell else the Republican candidates are worried about, but to the lonely white-boy-with-a-hoodie and a grudge and a gun, the notoriety must feel pretty sexy. I wish there wasn't the presumption that He was in charge and that She was merely his wife.   The talking heads are repeating his name  and his wife  instead of calling them The Shooters and leaving it at that.  By separating them into individuals, it's hard not to conjure up a little bit of sexism in the assumption that it was all his idea.  Women can be evil-doers, too.   Yes, I agree, this is a strange thought to be having. But the fact of the matter is that there is nothing new to say.  I can only follow my mind as it wanders on the edge of the abyss. Did you know about  Prayer Shaming? The New York Daily News  splash...

It's the best description I can conjure up for what she's doing. She's battled breast cancer.  Twice.  She had ugly-scar-leaving surgeries.  She is terrified by the prospect of dealing with it again.  So, she's chosen ignorance over knowledge. She knows the disease can return.  She knows the odds are stacked against her.  She has decided not to care. I get it.  Completely.  Without reservations or explanations, I understand what she's doing, and why. There's something about staring death in the face, about watching someone else pass over to where ever it is that souls travel, about being with those who've died with dignity and without fear (cf. G'ma), about coming close to the precipice and then, mercifully, retreating, that changes you.  She feels it jsut the same way that I do. We aren't scared.  We aren't particularly surprised that more crap can fall on our heads.  It won't be surprising or unsettling or unexpected, al...

I haven't written about my rehab in quite a while.  As the changes become more gradual, as the impairments become less intrusive,  I notice it less and less. When Scarlet wonders if my boots are comfy for walking, I am reminded that this is the first year in five years which has seen me wearing boots everyday.  When I scoot out of the Uuvula  without raising the steering wheel or moving the seat back or thinking too hard about the transition, I often find myself smiling. It's the subtle things that being perforated took from me which impacted my life on a daily basis. They poked my heart, reminding me of Christina-Taylor's loss and Gabby's infirmities and my own achy ass. As the twinges become less frequent, January 8th becomes less relevant. It doesn't become less painful to think about.  It doesn't heal the permanent hole in my heart.  It doesn't lessen the terror that skinny-white-boys-in-hoodies create in my soul.  It doesn't let me sit comfo...

All those trophies the kids got because Mom and Dad paid the league's registration fees..... All those tests re-graded because there was a game on Friday night...... All those assemblies where Feeling Good About Yourself was the theme...... All those kudos for achievement on the field without regard to behavior in the real world..... All that emphasis on the story, not the spelling or the grammar..... All the understanding and the individual differences and the emotional learning...... If it's not tempered by realistic expectations and consequences when the boundaries are crossed ..... You get Johnny Manziel.