The Burrow

They are not our problems. We keep telling ourselves that, but it doesn't help.  We have all these ideas.  We have years of experience.  We've been there, done that, or some variation thereof, and we could help. But, we can't. They are not our problems.  The kids own them and take responsibility for them and are doing what they deem right and it is so so so so hard to sit back and watch, instead of swooping in and saving the day. Not that we are capable of saving the day.... but at least we could try. No matter how old they are, children are still a piece of your heart walking around, unprotected.

I'd never heard the term until this weekend.  Alt-Right was everywhere and I was flummoxed. Everyone knew about it but me.  The talking heads speak to TBG all day long; how had the phrase not osmosed into my brain? I investigated the situation on-line, read Bannon's screeds and his history, and found myself awash in mainstream media trying to find the least offensive synonyms for racist, homophobic, xenophobic rants.  I thought that Alt-Right was another synonym. Big Cuter disabused me of that notion.  Alt-Right is what the people who used to keep their beliefs under a rock have taken to calling themselves.  I guess I've been living in a bubble of people who think, but the words and the ?logic? are awful. I refuse to provide links because nobody else should have that nonsense running around in their brain. It's not that these are new ideas.  There has always been an ugly current in America - from the Salem Witch Trials to burning crosses to No Dogs N...

What have we come to when this is on the shelf at Costco: How can there be anything but organic water? Or, perhaps, I am mis-parsing and the organic relates to the coconuts? Still, how can water be anything but a beverage? Or is it because it has coconut it qualifies as a beverage, where without the coconut it would be.... drinkable? It's things like these that keep me questioning on a Saturday morning, waiting to pay for my lime flavored sparkling natural mineral water....  which, apparently, assumes I know enough about water to recognize it as a beverage.

GRIN 's legwork and Body Works Pilates 's teachers and Balanced Body 's equipment have given the girls' Sports Fitness Class at Amphi Middle School  professional Fletcher Pilates  instruction, within the curriculum. That may not seem like much, but I am here to tell you that it is a monumental achievement.  Without the support of the school's administrative staff, without their determination that the program would succeed, without their fearlessness in the face of insurmountable (to me, anyway) obstacles, they tweaked and poked and prodded and together we came up with a solution that worked for everyone. It's been going on since April 13, 2012 .  That's 9 semesters of work, 9 semesters of girls who've gained strength and control, noticed by their Coach and classroom teacher, verified by those who've gone before them.  We've done research and measurements on physical and psychological dimensions over the years, and now, with the help of the f...

The Cuters are in limbo.  Big Cuter is waiting to hear about a job that would make him happy on all levels.  Little Cuter and SIR are squatting in his parents' home, searching for child care, tending to friends at funerals, and feeling unanchored.  Fast Eddie and JannyLou have returned from Colorado with laundry and errands and chores galore. Amster is gearing up for two trials, back to back, as her boys adjust to Middle School. I am in the middle of it all, watching and wondering and unable to help anyone with anything. My life goes on, basically unchanged.  My new session of Humanities Seminars  doesn't begin for several weeks.  Until then, there is nothing new for me.  This, more than anything, connects me to the passage of time.  There is no reason to buy new pens and pencils and notebooks.  There is no rearranging of activities.  There is just more of the same old same old.... and I'm stuck. It's August.  I should be on t...

Today, as I'm writing this, I'm remembering sitting around the pool at a lovely little motel just a mile or so from my parents' home with TBG and Daddooooo and Nannie and Grandpaw.  Daddooooo looked at the leaves on the trees.... looked at them turning over, showing their undersides.... looked at them predicting the rain that would fall all night lonog.... looking and not saying anything. He didn't want to spoil my wedding day before the weather did. Of course, my sister and my mother woke me at 6am to inform me that it had been raining, that it was raining, that it looked like it would never stop raining, and what was I going to do?   Go back to sleep  came to mind.  The drama was more important than the facts.  What could I do? TBG called at 7, wondering if I were still going to show up, even in the rain.  My oft repeated plan was to elope if the heavens opened, but that seemed like more trouble than it was worth, especially that early in the m...

Remember the pizza delivery saga? This is the restaurant, next to the pet groomers, in the shopping center across from my gym. It's 1.4 miles from my front door; an easy bike ride when I was so inclined. Once, my chain fell off as I was climbing the long hill up to that corner. I pushed my bike into OVB and they reattached it with a smile and no charge. I had my first Tucson mammogram and Dexa scan in the suite of offices to the right of the Dance Studio.  An old Cali friend's high school friend owns the Family Swim School next door.  I checked it out when Little Cuter was pregnant with FlapJilly.  It's overrun with munchkins in diapers and bikinis and their frazzled parental units.  It's a smile on steroids.  I'm not sure how Short Term Parking works for an event space, but Stargaze seems to think it works for them.  The rest of the parking lot is huge and usually empty; I suppose they considered that when installing the sign. And ...

and I'm not there to help. I packed no boxes.  I taped nothing closed.  I held no fragile objects as bubble wrap surrounded them. I did nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  I made sure that the plastic container with the clothes I leave at their house held everything I'd left behind, but I didn't do anything more than push it back into the closet when I was done. Okay, I'll give myself some credit - I took our toiletries out of the bathroom and placed them in the sealed plastic container, leaving one less set of drawers for them to empty.  It doesn't seem like much, does it? SIR is a master packer, and my efforts would, no doubt, have required supervision and a great deal of angst on his part.  He's much neater than I am; last year's Christmas presents sat in their beautiful white Crate and Barrel shipping box so that he could admire the precision with which I had placed the gifts.  He was amazed... wondered that I, the Queen of Disarray, could have ...

I have to break my promise.  I can't do what I said I was going to do.  My goals must be reset.  I'm having a hard time with it all. 7 weeks ago, playing basketball with Mr. 11, I was coerced onto the basketball court.  It's hard to stay on the sidelines when the world's most adorable middle schooler is  importuning from the free throw line.   Please..... Please.... Oh, PLEASE.....  I couldn't resist him. Passing was fine, but then he wanted me to teach him to take a charge.  This involved swinging my butt into his belly.... and swinging my lower half is not something I've done a lot of in the past 5 years.  Needless to say, I swung, he took the charge and slid across the court, and my knee, swollen and achy, reminded me every day following that my bball days are long gone. I've rested.   I've iced. I've compressed.  I've elevated.   I took a week off from everything.  I've been very very very careful in the ...

The Conservative talking head listed the NSA hack, Aetna pulling out of health care exchanges, and something else monumental and potentially lethal to Hillary Clinton, all of which have been lost in the uproar over Donald Trump's new campaign staff.  A pollster and a media mogul with a Goldman Sachs heritage folded over his naval career will be running things from now on, if anyone can be said to be running things on the Trump side of the campaign. All this because The Donald has "been very unhappy over the past few weeks," according to MSNBC.  Everyone wants him to change.  Everyone wants him to be someone he is not.  Everyone wants to find depths in the shallows, sincerity in the sophistry, calm amidst the storm.  Everyone keeps trying, but The Donald knows in his heart what they do not - that he is who he is. Looking for that which does not exist is quixotic, by definition.  In that sense, Trump is saner than the Republicans who want him to represent...

is that his books are impossible to put down.  I started Bullseye this morning and finished it this evening, after Pilates and hosting the Happy Ladies Club for cards and eating a meal or three along the way. Now, the heavens have exploded and the cable's gone out twice as lightning wreaks havoc with signals electronic and fiber optic. I've been absorbed in a plot involving a political assassination, Vladimir Putin, and a walking tour of New York City.  Maybe that's why I lost all four hands this afternoon... and lost is a kind description of the drubbing I took.  My mind was with Michael Bennett and the various snipers dying by his side. I'm sorry.  I have no thoughts other than wondering if I should take my camera outside and try to capture the lightning.  It was vertical and flashing on JannyLou's new driveway when I began to type and now it's right over our roof.  I'll be back tomorrow, with more than weather related drivel to consider.   ...

Not of Zeus and Hera but of  Katie Ledecky and Maya Dirado and Alyson Felix and Bernard Lagat's little sister.  Of Mo Farah toying with his opponents over 10,000 meters and of Usain Bolt cruising past Justin (is he off the juice?) Gatlin. The American gymnasts, all colors of the rainbow, and 41 year old  Uzbekistan gymnast Oksana Chusovitina; Ryan Lochte, swimming with and against Michael Phelps; the '49'ers Michael Carter's daughter, Michelle, thanking her dad for teaching her everything he knew and for believing in her.... these are my Olympic thoughts. ***** I can recognize the parents and grandparents who raised these babies to fantabulous adulthood.  Aly Raisman's mother's face as her daughter completed her final routine spoke to me - all those hours driving and waiting and watching and paying and praying and now.... over. Their offspring may be doing the competing, but the grown-ups have some skin in the game, too. ***** Millennials carp at NBC...

There hasn't been a picture post of flora in The Burrow for a while.   Here's a summer edition, for those who need a break from Olympics and politics. I know that I needed one. ***** It's hard for me to imagine anything blooming in triple digits, but these roses put on another show. The osteospurmum decided that the heat was perfect for its purple flowers. The ones in the shade are doing nothing.   This fellow, though, is blooming its heart out for me.  The wild gomphreda is taking over the tended look of the big pots with its long stalks. They blow in the wind, waving and bowing and coming back upright with the slightest breeze. They are fun to watch, but their wild nature is in stark contrast to the more well-behaved vinca. I planted them looking for height; I got more than I bargained for.  That became quite clear when I stood back and looked at the smaller pot. The gomphreda are taking over the pathway to the pool. TBG is ...

It's early August and the kids are back at school.  I think school should start after Labor Day, but my opinion was irrelevent,  even when I was President of the School Board. And so, today, Moms and Dads and grandparents  and uncles stood in line  and sat at the tables  and perched papers on their laps  as they registered their youngsters for school.   Some of the scholars were independent enough to seek their own answers. Some needed a strong grip on Mom's hand to get through the front door. Can you see the sticker on her right shoulder? Gramma Suzi brought them, as always, to brighten a scary morning. The grown-ups got them, too. That way, when they missed their kids they could rub the sticker and feel the love. Funny, the magic works for kids missing their moms, too. A quick rub, and all is well..... at least, that's what I promised them. The wait was long, especially when there were a ...

Thomas Friedman told the Trump kids that they should be ashamed of their dad. I liked that. It's the same logic that makes me want to spend 5 minutes alone with my shooter, holding him by his shoulders and shaking his silly little frame and yelling at him.  I think I'd feel much better after that. I don't know if the 5 Trumpkins will feel that way after talking to The Donald about inciting to riot.... or about sticking to the script. ***** Did you see Mr. Trump on the campaign trail today?  Bombast without screeching is really boring.  Spare yourself the trouble of listening to him; just pick up any of his outrageous remarks and read them in a monotone while staring down at an imaginary podium, on which rests a speech you really don't want to give. I think the man is truly hoist by his own petard.  Did you know that a petard is a bomb?  Bomb... bombast... am I reaching? ***** Yesterday's post (well, Tuesday's post, to be precise) engendered controvers...

I can't wait until tomorrow morning to post this.  It must be said, and it must be said NOW. ***** It caused me to gasp aloud, cover my mouth, and shriek inside my skull.  The Republican nominee for President of the United States sent me crashing into tears and sweats and No No No No ringing in my ears.  Susan Collins is right; the man shows no empathy. At a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, this morning, he said this: If she gets to pick her judges...... nothing you can do, folks. (Pause. Tilt of the head.  Quick glance at the podium as he turns to the front and finishes: Although the 2nd Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know. Trump's people can spin that six ways from Sunday, but they can't take away my gasp.  They can blather on about the power of unification  but my heart and my brain and my fight-or-flight reflexes were all in agreement - he was wondering if those with guns might use them against a sitting President of the U...

GRIN , the not-for-profit foundation I started after Christina-Taylor was murdered and I was shot at Gabby Giffords' Congress On Your Corner event, is intertwined with the Amphi School District.  It was CTG's school district, it's the district which invited me to judge children's photographs, it's the district to which I pay taxes and which educates the people who will populate the world I inhabit. I have a vested interest in its success.  I'm going to need the doctors and lawyers and plumbers and electricians and clerks they are teaching.  If they don't do well - on both sides of the equation - my quality of life will suffer.  That's the practical reason, but not the most important one. The average salary in the District is $38,662; it took a state wide election to give them a raise.  They buy their own crayons and stickers and markers and books for the classroom library.  They come early, they stay late, they act as nutritionist and fashion consult...

The Opening Ceremony was done on the cheap, as the talking heads kept reminding us.  There weren't many props.  The most controversial one was a replica of Alberto Santos Dumont's plane - the first manned flight, according to Brazil. There's a bit of a brouhaha about that among those who care, but it's their party. I say, let them have it. ***** The show's designers explained the philosophical underpinnings of each segment; never have politics been so colorful. It's hard to smile while watching slavery, depicted with heavy square blocks for shoes and long wooden yokes balanced on shoulders with hands spread wide. But this is Rio, where thousands live in favelas with little sanitation while millions of dollars built one use arenas on the beach, below. ***** NBC couldn't seem to decide on the best camera angle; all that shifting around was vaguely nauseating. There were shimmery metallic sheets glimmering and twisting and making shapes and while I ...

When BlogHer merged with SheKnowsMedia a little more than a year ago, the changes were subtle but meaningful.  As time goes by, they become more overt and meaningful in an entirely different way.  I'm not altogether pleased.  And, although no one asked my opinion on the subject, I'm offering it here, anyway. After the merge, my ad revenue checks began coming regularly, and with more data on the stub.  $25 every quarter isn't much, but it makes me happy and so, by extension, I was happy with SheKnowMedia.  The ad choices were more varied and the payouts (marginally) larger.  Last year's BlogHer conference was splashier and more vibrant and, perhaps, a little more Hollywood .  Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop website (like me? buy what I like!) wasn't that interesting to me, but Black Lives Matter and Ana DuVernay more than made up it.   But today, when I should be checking into the Marriott in L.A. for BlogHer'16, I am typing away at my desk in my own...

She's in the middle of a bidding war for her services.  Two departments in the same institution want to hire her.  At the end of each interview, she was asked to hold off on accepting the other offer until  a competing bid could be presented.  It's a lovely place to be. We were kvelling about how wonderful she is, about the fabulous future in either situation, about how proud of her I am.  And then I wondered how she would manage to juggle the two.  What would she say to an offer that would give the others time to respond? Mom, I'll use my go-to response, the party line: "I have to talk to my husband before I make a final decision." I was stunned.  That was not a response that had occurred to me. Mom, we're a team, a partnership, and we're in this together.  I'd never make a big decision like this without talking to SIR, and he would do the same with me. How times have changed. Forty years ago, I, too, needed a job so that my family c...

I spent the day watching Lady Jane's oxygen saturation level fluctuate.  She had her second knee replacement and I was her Person. I answered questions and reminded her to use the breathing device to clear her lungs.  I texted her out-of-town children with regular updates, and took copious notes when the doctors spoke.  That's what a Person does. I was in the hospital for 11 days, and someone was always there with me.  My job was to heal.  Taking care of business was the responsibility of my Person. And so, after early morning Pilates so that my body would be prepared for sitting on vaguely comfortable furniture, I drove through the driving rain, left the car with the Valet Parking/Free people, and settled in. I left at 5, when another Person arrived.  There were many hugs and many thanks and much love in that room.  Lady Jane said it best: There's nothing like girlfriends.

I commented every time she posted a picture of her toddler daughter sauntering through the neighborhood, clad in a t-shirt and a diaper and pink cowboy boots: PANTS!!! WHERE ARE HER PANTS!!!! Her replies were always a variation on the same theme: Pants are vastly over-rated, especially when you are 2. ***** In Miss Adelaide's honor, perhaps, FlapJilly, my very favorite little poy-son, develop( ed ) a bad, bad cold. She and her parents spent the weekend inside, having home repair adventures and playing with helium filled birthday balloons on looooong strings. Apparently, my granddaughter spent the entire weekend wearing butterfly panties.... and nothing else. Toddler Wisdom:  Pants are unnecessary accouterments and shall not be tolerated. ***** The talking and tweeting and posting people are all agog over the existence of nude photos of Mrs. Trump.  As I understand it, these were professional photos for a now defunct French men's magazine.  She's pretty naked ...

I was hobbling.  There was probably a moment of trauma, but Pilates and basketball with Mr. 11 and a new massage technique all vied for the honor.  I iced and elevated and tried not to aggravate it and, little by little, the swelling went down and my mobility increased. I was on the mend.  I wasn't perfect, but I was making progress.  Driving still led to swelling, but I managed to get all the way to the Arizona Daily Star's offices at the opposite end of Tucson with only minor discomfort.  I parked away from the front door, under a shady tree, and strolled through the parking lot and the paper's lobby.  I didn't need to sit on the comfy couch; my knee didn't hurt at all.  I examined the linotype machine and the pictures on the wall and then Brenda Starr came and escorted me to her class. She leads budding journalists on a summer writing adventure.  They are young and eager and have PRESS badges on lanyards around their necks.  I was ther...