The Burrow

I've known her for 2 years today. She once was small enough to fit in one forearm. Now, she's a big girl, with big girl ideas and emotions. She says Please and Thank You and I Love You, Grandma. I need nothing more. Happy 2nd Birthday, FlapJilly!!

Big Cuter called with 3 reactions to President Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention: Four More Years.... sadly, not possible. "Don't Boo.... VOTE!" When people like that  give endorsements like that , it should be taken seriously. **** * TBG is quite impressed with the men on stage -- for their devotion to the strong women in their lives.  These are my guys.  These are the kinds of men I want as role models for FlapJilly.  These guys would be my friends. ***** I really like the men in my life.

The first speaker I heard was Cory Booker. I loved his biography, United , I was impressed that an old and dear friend has supported him for decades, and he sealed the deal when he wiped his sweaty bald pate without skipping a beat last night. He quoted Maya Angelou, and reminded the audience that they knew the words. There were echoes in the arena as those who did recited them along with him. He was powerful and thoughtful and I really had to laugh at The Donald's tweet: If Cory Booker is the future of the Democratic Party, they have no future! I know more about Cory than he knows about himself. I wonder how much The Donald thinks he knows about me? ***** Anastasia Somoza was delightful and thrilled and excited and happy and everything a twenty-something thrust into the spotlight should be. She was the neatest antithesis to The Donald's mocking of the NY Times reporter who also lives with Cerebral Palsy.   But my favorite part of her speechifying and question answeri...

The Democrats have started - and I'm too hot to concentrate.   Paul Manafort's lobbying on behalf of dictators  kept me riveted to Slate this morning, but I'm too hot to put my outrage into words.  My car needs a bath, my plants need more water, the dishwasher is full - and I'm too hot to move. I'm also too hot to think.  So, I will share my new favorite photo, taken by my most talented daughter , and return tomorrow with pithy analysis and deep thoughts. Can you feel the love?

I've gone every year since I got shot. I spoke on a panel one year.  I saw bloggers whose words I knew but whose faces were mysterious creations of my own imagination, until I ran into them across a table, or in an elevator, or over the buffet line. I've gone with Little Cuter and on my own.  I've used it as an excuse to see old friends, sharing languid lunches by the Pacific Ocean or in the MOMA Cafe.  I've collected more swag than any woman my age should care about (and yet I do). I've shared champagne with strangers as we listened and cried and shared moments so real, so fragile, so honestly shared from the podium that the air in the room took on its own dimension.  It was filled with hope and enthusiasm and encouragement and intelligence - always with intelligence. Over the years, the Main Attractions were just that - Main Attractions.  Sheryl Sandberg borrowed Little Cuter's pen.  Indra Nouri shared my table.  Martha Stewart talked about eve...

After watching the drama over substance of the Republican Convention; after listening to the President of Estonia tell NPR that a Trump decision to withhold support if a NATO ally were invaded meant " the end of NATO itself, NATO, around which the world has been organized since 1949;" after driving behind 20-somethings texting while bumbling along in the fast lane; after Monsoon rains quashed my plans to test my knee in the pool; after all of that, I couldn't summon any positive energy at all. Then, I read Intrepid Cat's Facebook post, and my world took on a sunnier hue.  I'm copying it in its entirety, and following her lead this weekend.  I'm ready for snacks... served by old people...... of which I am certainly one.  I know what a pokestop is, but the gym and leveling up and the Snorlax are beyond my interest in Pokeman Go... because I am an old person. Reasons to give blood: 1. We have not developed better alternatives to donated blood. 2. I know peopl...

Was it playing offense so that Mr. 11 could learn to take a charge? Was it the impossible-for-me-but-I'll-try-it-nonetheless piece in Pilates? Is it the loosening of my psoas?  The increased mass of my gluteus minimus? I don't know.  All I know is that my left knee, my good knee, is swollen to the size of a small grapefruit.  It is tender to the touch, although much less tender than two days ago when it hurt so much I wasn't hungry for dinner. This is one of those times when I'm glad I share my space with someone who's experienced these kinds of injuries before.  He's gentle and soothing and fetches me ice packs and the adjustable cane and anything I want from the kitchen once my leg and I are comfortably ensconced on Douglas, pillows supporting the damaged limb. He's also brutally honest.   "Once it happens, it will happen again," is among the more encouraging tidbits he's shared.   "We're getting older; our bodies are more ...

Did Mrs. Trump write her own speech? Did she listen to former First Ladies' speeches and incorporate their words into hers? Did President Obama do the same sort of thing in 2008 ? Does it matter? I don't know.  I don't care.  I just want this all to be over.  I am tired of judging a candidate by his wife and his children and Scott Baio 's tweets. Then, again, CNN has been running  The Race to the White House  and I'm not sure I'd have been happier in 1828 or 1948.

As our very mature Mr. 13 reminded us, school begins in 3 weeks.   The roads in Tucson are empty as families squeeze in the last trip of the summer.   I needed some quality time with my favorite young Tucsonans before Middle School swallows them.  It started with breakfast. and continued through lunch.   Costco pizza got him through until dinner. I'd forgotten how much growing boys can eat.   It's not that we didn't work up an appetite.  Ninety minutes at LA Fitness where I knew I shouldn't have stepped out onto the basketball court let alone tried to help him learn how to take a charge.  I'm icing my knee as I type this.  I hurt, but I'm smiling.   This is a delightful 11 year old boy.  He's right on the cusp, clinging to boyhood as his brother thrashes his way through puberty, taking no prisoners along the way.  And so, while Mr. 13 was allowed to have the perfect day - alone, in his underwear, ...

My regular medications have been on automatic refill with BCBSAZ for years.  They called and emailed to let me know when a refill was on its way; just as I began to worry that I was running out, BCBSAZ reassured me that all was well.  They allowed me to cancel the refill with one click.  If the doctor's office was tardy in replying to their request for a new prescription, they let me know. And so, because the system wasn't broken, they decided to fix it. I was vaguely aware of the change, but managed to switch one of my prescriptions during a phone call requesting my assistance with contacting the doctor for an updated 'scrip.  It took some time, but the woman was lovely and the pills, I hope, are on their way.  I didn't need more of the other medication for two months.  I said I'd wait to deal with it. And so, when I received a lovely letter from the new provider, OPTUMRx, with this optimistic greeting: I decided to renew the other prescription. ...

There is no reason that any of the information contained within this post should be used as a reason to vote for or against anyone.  Family members can't be controlled.  Candidates shouldn't be saddled with the baggage of others, no matter how closely they are related. That said, this is a great story.  And it's one of those that can be told with just the facts. Chris Christie was the U.S. Attorney who, in 2004, prosecuted Charles Kushner.  There was no question of Kushner's innocence; he pleaded guilty to 18 felonies, including illegal campaign contributions and tax evasion and witness tampering.  He received the maximum sentence.  The witness tampering is especially delicious. Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce a cooperating witness.  That witness was his sister's husband. Juicy, yes, but why is it relevant? Only because Charles Kushner's son, Jared, is married to Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka. Only because Jared Kushner is described al...

Ruth Bader Ginsburg.... Notorious RBG.... Cornellian.... Supreme Court Justice.... and, according to the presumptive Republican nominee, a woman whose mind is shot . Hillary Rodham Clinton.... Democratic nominee (no one seems to feel the need to include presumptive).... Wellesley and Yale alumna....  Secretary of State, First Lady, Senator... and the woman whose Google search with her name and shrill  brings up 281,000 results. What is wrong with these females, anyhow?  Why can't they keep their opinions to themselves?  Did they never learn manners? I am so fed up with this line of argument.  I find myself screeching at my car radio.  I really thought we were past this. If shrill doesn't define Donald Trump, I don't know what does, but words like bluster and pompous are used to describe him.  Shrill is a girl word  in the way that Mr. 13 explained that " slut can't be for a boy, Mom, because it's a girl word."   Perhaps a female pr...

Every time I think about either one of them being in the Oval Office, I get a little nauseous.  But, like P. J. O'Rourke , I think that she is #WrongWithinNormalParameters  and so I'm #Settling4Hillary . She is evil, but so much less evil than he is, that I will hold my nose and vote for her, much as I voted for Ralph Nader and John Anderson :  because the process matters.  None of the John Anderson or Ralph Nader opponents terrified me, so I could afford to let my ballot convey my outrage. 2016 is different. Trump is an impossible choice for me; his divisiveness, his misogyny, his refusal to take responsibility for his own actions stop me before I even consider the fact that he's not proposed a single real plan. Building a great wall, standing shoulder to shoulder with the NRA (haven't heard him renewing his pledge to change their thinking on Can't Fly/Can't Buy), replacing ObamaCare with something better.   He won't say what he's going to do on for...

Do you feel anxious when you bring your car into the dealership for a minor service? Do you wonder what else they might find lurking under the hood? Do you hide your valuables in the trunk so as not to tempt the technician? Do you vacuum the inside before you enter the service bay to show that you treat your vehicle with proper respect? I do. We've owned 40 some cars in 40 some years of marriage. Some people travel, some buy art, some buy cars. TBG is firmly in the latter category, and I've been the benficiary of his love through Porsches and Ferraris and Lotuses and BMW's and more parts of the Honda inventory than most people can name. Some I've bought myself, some I've been surprised to open the garage door and find a new car sitting where something else lived when I left. In each instance, I was introduced to the Service Department; he worked, I did household chores, but he wanted to be certain that I was treated with respect. “This is th...

We all watched Little Cuter play soccer, we loved the Women's World Cup teams, but that was the extent of our soccer madness.   Yet, when Portugal won the European Cup on Sunday afternoon, I knew that they were playing without Ronaldo, the premier player in the world (unless you like Messi), who had hoped to win in his 4th and final attempt to bring a major championship home. This knowledge crept into my brain without my active participation.  I've watched none of the games, though I've sat on the couch reading a book while TBG was enthralled... or napping.  I haven't listened to the sports talk shows since the Cavaliers made his heart sing, and I know we haven't talked about soccer over dinner or folded laundry. I can't remember the name of the tree with the pink flowers in my front yard, but I have Futbol! information at the ready.  I find this to be sad and funny and startling and amusing all at the same time.

That title resonates with women of my generation. Everyone knew someone who had one and was willing to share. The book introduced us to ourselves, with mirrors and contortions and sympathy and understanding. This was before full frontal nudity was a cable tv standard.  This was when  I Am Curious Yellow 's foreign film cachet combined with a flaccid phallus drew college students to campus movie theaters, only to leave long hours later, wondering why they'd spent the time. I was thinking about all this as I waited to ask my massage therapist a question.   "Where exactly does my psoas connect to the front of my hip?" I want to place my rubber therapy ball correctly when I'm doing my homework, and I couldn't be sure I was there. There  is up close and personal to parts you don't normally touch in public.   There  is why I switched to a female therapist.   There  is where she was moving my fingers so I could be sure I was feeling the right spo...

Mid-afternoon in the grocery store. Not Whole Foods or Sprouts or anyplace special, just my regular old grocery store on a sunny afternoon. There's no shade, so I park as close to the air conditioning as space allows. The local glossy magazine ran an article about the dangers of going outside when the temperatures are in triple digits. Hikers are dropping like foolish flies, taking off for 6 miles in the desert without water, bodies found by frantic rescue teams. I'm taking no chances. Feeling very self-righteous about taking care of my heart and not over-heating my blood, I cross the asphalt, sipping from my water bottle, admiring the blue skies with high white puffy clouds, watching the cars but not paying much attention to the people around me. I heard him before I saw him. A dark braid halfway down his back rested in a sweaty pool on his plaid shirt. His grey shorts came to the pad of his knee walker, his right knee and right hand connected him to his transportatio...

I am going to climb the Sears Tower. I know, I know, it isn't called Sears Tower anymore, but I worried that opening with the startling announcement that I was going to climb to the top of the Willis Tower would leave you flummoxed, wondering what it was, where it was, and why you should care.   There are 103 flights of stairs to the Sky Deck.  That's 2,109 steps. I just got a little teary, thinking of maneuvering myself from the couch to the front door, every one of those 5 steps an exercise in mind over matter, in will over strength, in desire over capability.   I found an appropriate 8 week training schedule on-line, after discarding those that included jogging and running up stadium steps. I can do so much more today than I could six months ago, and that can be said for the last five years of six month intervals.  Deep tissue massage combined with Pilates  got me here; strength training with weights in the gym combined with intervals on an inclined t...

I spent the day housecleaning at The Burrow. I wonder what you think. Is the new look distracting or peaceful?  Does  Click Here For More  make you nutty or do you like seeing lots of posts all at once?  Does the new font make it easier to read, or are my words fading into the background?  Did you notice that I'm posting at 12am instead of 6am?  Do you care? Comments, please.  I really want to know.

Happy Fourth of July! Today's the day the Second Continental Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson and tweaked for two days by delegates from the thirteen united States of America. It was signed by most of the States on August 2, after the rough draft had been written cleanly on parchment. I love the fact that we celebrate an act of government, rather than a piece of paper. I love contemplating the bravery of those treasonous men... for treason it surely was... and the ideas behind the words they were endorsing. So, take a moment and read the letter to the world, sent by the colonists in 1776.  And if you are spending time with relatives-of-a-differing-political-persuasion, and the overhead fireworks aren't sparkly enough.  try the italicized paragraph below as a conversation starter.   You can thank me later. ***** The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

Those were the topics I was told to avoid.  Those were the topics Miss Vicky reminded us to avoid.  And yet, onward we plunged, fortified by the alcoholic beverages we were toting at 3 in the afternoon.  A margarita with Amaretto, a beer in a pilsner stein, and one red wine of indeterminate vintage fueled the far ranging discussion of ethics and would you go there?  and how can they say that?  and though we weren't all on the same page, we were in the same chapter. There's not a good choice.  #Settling4Hillary.  How could anyone be so ignorant, so unaware, so incurious?  We've known each other for more than a decade.  We've hiked and we've bowled and we've dined and vacationed and shared friends and friendships and I'm always interested to hear what they have to say, what they've been up to, where they're going next.  The conversation flows smoothly and gently, with jibs and jabs as appropriate. No one has ever walked away until this...