The Burrow

Two cars, two houses, two jobs apiece.... it's been a busy four years for Little Cuter and SIR.  Today finds them emptying a storage unit or two into their newest abode.  The big pieces come tomorrow, courtesy of big strong men who don't mind carrying heavy objects , according to my daughter.  For today, their bed and FlapJilly's room will come together quite nicely. Does the kid know?  She's been counting down the days, just the way she counted down the days until Daddy came home.   Home has been a fluid concept for these three this summer.  He lived with his parents after starting his new job; the girls manned the home front.  They sold their house and moved in with his parents for a little while that stretched into a longer while and now they are on their own. The house has that new smell, fresh carpet and flooring and cabinetry combining to provide a clean palette for the new owners.  The bedrooms are sunny and bright. The yard is big enou...

It has been raining in spurts, but it's always been cloudy.  My thoughts haven't led to tears, but I've been revisiting sadness all day.  It's nice to have the weather cooperating; misery loves miserable company  was a lesson I learned in Psych 101. All the Happy Ladies card players yesterday were newer than I to Tucson.  They were, for the most part, newer than 2011, arriving after I was perforated, well beyond my 15 minutes of fame.   WHAT! You met the President and First Lady?!?!?   So, out came the album with the Pete Souza photos of recovering me and the Obamas. No matter how many times they told me that I looked great, I went beyond and behind that and was right back in the hospital room at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, crying onto Michelle Obama's embroidered cardigan sweater.  It's a lovely memory, for the most part.  Yesterday was the least part, though. For some reason, the memory of that afternoon was cast in the shadow of the sorro...

I have anecdotal evidence that the debate influenced at least one voter. Princess Myrtle reports an acquaintance shifting from Trump to Clinton, after watching Donald (if Hillary can call him that then so can I) last night. At least someone was paying attention. ***** At cards today, a Happy Lady remarked that Hillary left the Cabinet because she was ill.  She said it with certainty, the way you'd talk about the weather.  When confronted with the notion that the Secretary of State left because it was time for her to run for President, when we wondered about the nature of the supposed illness, when we asked where she'd heard about it, she was stunned. It had never occurred to her that this was not a fact.  She likes us and she trusts us so she didn't dismiss us out of hand.  Instead, she listened and saw the merit of our argument.  She's already disgusted with Donald, but she feels a lot better about Hillary right now. ***** This is a change election. I...

It's right there next to love and hope, according to my Humanities Seminar 's professor, Dr. Albrecht Classen . Humans, he said, " destroy ourselves and keep on going.  Why?  The human spirit!" That's love and hope and happiness all rolled up into one lovely package, tied with a ribbon of all of us.   "We are looking for light." It was cold and drizzling this morning.  Monday during the school year brings out many more cars than Thursdays in the summertime; my commute to class took the same amount of time, but there were many more idiots annoying me.  The parking lot was filled, not just the prime spaces, but the ones in the middle of the middle, too. The wind at my back hurried me across the street just a little bit faster than I'd anticipated. But, I had hope.  I was on my way to a favorite professor talking about interesting works I'd never have found, let alone read, on my own.  There were fourteen chairs arranged in a semi-circle aro...

At dinner last week,  Fast Eddie's response to TBG's " How are your symptoms?" elicited a delighted belly laugh and a big, big smile. "Once the doctor told me I was cancer free, I was so happy that nothing really bothered me for a long time.  Oh, this hurts or that's awkward?  So what!  I am cancer free!" JannyLou and I exchanged a loving, knowing look.  We'd had that conversation many times; talking about life with a reverence and respect that, perhaps, was somewhat lacking before we both didn't die. We looked at her husband as I talked and she nodded.   "Isn't this just the best place to be?  You've faced it, you're okay, and it's not as scary as it used to be. Every day is a good day, right? " He stopped.  All four of us took a moment.  And then we smiled, bright, beaming, up to the eyebrows smiles as the reality sunk in.  The sun came up and we were here to see it.  By definition, that's a good day.  Any...

The air smells of creosote, after 10 minutes of sunshine and heavy rain. The roses are in full Fall bloom, surprising me as they have every year with these bonus flowers. Though smaller than their counterparts in the Spring, they are unexpected and, somehow, more precious. I have Ann Patchett's new book awaiting me, and a tub slowly filling with epsom salts in which I can recline and read. I have nothing more to add to the world today. The sun came up and I was here to see it; by definition, it's a good day.

It's all about the love. It has been since the first time I saw them together, in Little Cuter's dorm room, at the end of her freshman hear. . She'd packed up most of her stuff, but there were stray bobby pins and scrunchies and papers lying on the floor, ready to be picked up and stowed away. SIR stood in the middle of the room, holding 5 suitcases, patiently smiling at my girl as she scurried abound, picking up the detritus of her first year away from home.   “ You probably want to put those down,” I said. “ This could take a while.” “ I know. And it's okay,” he said, gazing at my girl the way a mommy wants a young man to gaze at her daughter. He was easy, glad to be in her aura, not at all put upon by the fact that she wasn't ready to leave. He was there because he wanted to be. His sister invited Little Cuter to Indiana the next year, to join in her wedding festivities. “Mom,” she laughed as she called me from the Ladies' Room, “ever...

He rearranged the mirrors and the position of the driver's seat.  He reorganized the air vents and reset the thermostat on the air conditioner.  I didn't have a problem with any of that. He pushed the green ECON button and The Uv moved sprightly down the road as he chauffeured Fast Eddie and JannyLou and me to dinner.   Did we lock the car?  He says he asked me why I didn't do it from the remote key.  I remember telling him that I'd pushed the button on the door. After a lovely dinner and scintillating conversation, we returned to the parking lot to find the Uv's lights blazing into the night.  I leave the selection wand on AUTO; the lights come on when it's necessary and turn off with the engine.  I was confused.  I walked on ahead, sat behind the wheel, and realized that the accessories were all running, the car was "on" and the battery was dead. Hmmmmmm..... did I mention that he drove my car? We called AAA, returned to the restaurant...

Scarlett and I sat for more than three hours this weekend.  With two intermissions and three acts which built upon one another until the whole thing came toppling down... or rising up... or burst into a zillion crisis pieces... the performance ended with a gasp from the audience and then.... silence. Absolute silence preceded thunderous applause.  Though the applause must have been gratifying for the cast and crew, the silence was more telling... and spoke louder than the clapping of our hands. Matthew Bowdren's directorial debut left us stunned, speechless, moved, hollowed out, and aching for more. Loss and abandonment, denial and greed and the consequences of living a lie.... The Rogue Theater's subject matter never leaves us laughing. We are thoughtful, introspective, wrung out, and shaky; our smiles are for the excellence of the production and do not reflect the angst we've experienced from our seats.  Someone must have written a worthwhile comedy, don't you th...

YarnBomber  is coming to Tucson. Stephen Duneier, the YarnBomber, is a true polymath.  This, from his website, is what he does when he's not covering the mountains around Santa Barbara with yarn: He  teaches  Decision Analysis and Behavioral Investing in the College of Engineering at the University of California,  publishes  independent research,  coaches  the world's most experienced and successful institutional investors through  Bija Advisors,  and  give talks around the world on macroeconomic related topics, as well as how to improve performance through a more mindful approach to decision making. He also does a special motivational talk just for K-12 students entitled, "Bija: Seeds of Dreams" All that, and he had time on Saturday night to Skype with Tucsonans at TedX's gathering of collaborative fiber artists... part of the Dreamer creative team....  even if we didn't know we were worthy of such a designation unti...

No, it's not an interwebs meme.  It's a used by yours truly, totally free, delightfully easy way to end those calls from Nancy-at-Customer-Service-There-is-nothing-wrong-with-your-account-I-want-to-sell-you. Never again. I don't know if it works on cell phones (it looks like there might be a charge, but I didn't investigate any further), but I'm guessing that many denizens still have a land line. When you can answer your land line, go to  www.nomorobo.com . It takes less than 5 minutes.  Your phone will ring once. And then, whenever a telemarketer, a Medicare Specialist, an IRS scammer or any other robocaller tries to disturb you, you'll hear one ring, and then silence.  And the absence of that second ring is quite satisfying. You can thank me in Comments.

Cards with the Happy Ladies Club.  It's Hand and Foot, a variation of Canasta that requires some but not total concentration.  With six decks in the draw pile, counting cards becomes an exercise in frustration.  So, we chat and we prompt one another when it's her turn, or when she's forgotten to discard, and then we go back to chatting. If there are two tables, the conversation can often be loud  If there are six at one table, the game lasts forever.  It doesn't matter.  There are no toads in this group, there's no one I consciously avoid sitting beside, we all have our strengths and weaknesses but we're basically a congenial crowd. And so, when Colin Kaepernick's kneeling during the National Anthem came up in conversation, there was no cause for alarm.  The Mainer was appalled, insulted on behalf of the military, thought it was a terrible idea.  I smiled and said I totally disagreed with her, that I thought it was a meaningful gesture that ha...

You know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you?  Mrs. Clinton called out the racist, xenophobic, White Nationalist rhetoric of Donald Trump and his admirers for what it is: deplorable. It is deplorable that the Republican candidate for the Presidency of the United States, a person who will represent you and me to the rest of the world, can refer to a sitting United States Senator as Pocahontas and not be laughed off the stage. "Sir, that is unacceptable language.  Racial slurs do not befit a candidate for the Presidency.  No, do not try to justify yourself by bringing up a survey response from years ago...  that is not the point.  You are pandering to the basest, lowest, most cowardly instincts among us.   That is deplorable, Sir." If only I were in charge of everything. I deplore the fact that David Duke sees Donald Trump as a standard bearer.  I don't care if Mr. Trump wants his support or not; the fact is, he has it.  The Donal...

Scarlett and I took advantage of Second SundAZe @ TMA 's free admission last weekend. I'm embarrassed to admit that it was my first time inside the museum's galleries.  I've been to the Art Fair on the grounds, but I'd never ventured inside.  Free of charge, I was willing to take the chance. OK, I'm a snob. I grew up with MOMA and The Met and grew to adulthood with The Art Institute of Chicago.  I admit it.  I'm a snob. But the Oriental rugs on special exhibit held my interest, and the folk art was as irreverent as folk art usually is, and the permanent collection had a few gems, too.  There was weirdness and there were pieces that made us uncomfortable, and isn't that what a good museum ought to provide?   It was, in the end, a lovely afternoon.   We started with the rugs, not only because they were at the top of the Guggenheim-like ramping of the museum.  They were hung with protective metal clasps, and were left loose against t...

Far from my New York friends, who watched the towers fall, and whose memories are seared with images they'd rather not have. Far from my girls, in new places, having new adventures, and without Google Earth I wouldn't be able to imagine them. Far from serious culture, after spending the afternoon at Tucson's lovely-not-MOMA Museum of Art. Far from the green hills of Marin, where September hiking and Fall flowers were one and the same for me. Far from the Saturdays and Sundays spent driving little girls to soccer games, listening to Car Talk and Gilbert and Sullivan on the radio. Far from my parents' annual wrangling over whether or not to buy tickets for the High Holy Day services (and some things are fine to be far from, it's true). Far from studying for my first test of the semester, from completing my first paper, from turning in my first project. Life has gone on and I am here, with a pack rat nest on one side and a bunny warren on the other side, ...

I wrote this 8 months and 3 days after CTG and I intersected with bullets. I miss her. ***** Remember when we spent the afternoon taking pictures of the flower pot in my courtyard?  You started out directing the shoot but quickly assumed control over both the creative and technical sides of the equation.  My role was to keep my shadow out of your light..... and to explain, once again, just how to press the button half-way down to focus and then shift the camera for visual interest.  You held your finger down and tried to look at me at the same time that you were re-framing the shot and it was all I could do not to laugh. "Like this?" Yes, sweetheart, just like that.  Just exactly and perfectly like that.   Remember when you and your brother and I were at the Chinese buffet restaurant and I said that you could eat whatever you wanted and promised not to rat you out to your parents?  We discussed, seriously and thoughtfully, the question of...

There was an explosion in the garden. It doesn't happen all that often; when it does, gardeners are rewarded. The trees are greener. The crepe myrtle put out a few new blooms. The stink bugs were washed off the rosemary and all but the most tenacious of the cochneal scale  (the white spots, which are used as a red dye) were rinsed off the Opuntiai' s paddles. And, in the containers, the roses came out for one last hurrah and the ignored basket was able to recoup some of its losses. The people may have been grumpy , but the flora are very grateful for that long, slow, steady soaking.

Apparently, there was a big storm in Texas that decided to visit Arizona this week.  It was beautifully cloudy yesterday, with all sorts of fantastic animal shapes in the sky.  I drove through a drizzle or two, but when I pulled into the garage The Uv was still shiny after her Monday car wash. The same cannot be said of her today.  It's been a steady, light rain since I peeked out the blinds this morning, a little after 7am.  Debating whether to go back to sleep or go to the gym, I shlumped out to the living room, looking for my spouse.  Curled up in his cozy bathrobe on the couch, I heard him snoring gently to ESPN. And then, I saw it. He'd left me the long end, the stretch-out-your-legs end, the end molded to a lovely indentation which perfectly conforms to the lower half of my body, the end he usually claims.  I grabbed Joseph Finder's Guilty Minds , put TBG's feet in my lap, opened to my bookmark, and dove in. 250 pages later, he woke up. We'd...

Despite the fact that her mother and I have spent the past few nights not sleeping, worrying about how FlapJilly would react to spending the whole day at school instead of at home with her personal nanny, the little one surprised us all. SIR dropped her off this morning.  He opened the door, and she yelped with delight. YAY, Pre-School! she cried as s he ran into the room.  She didn't blink an eye when her Daddy left. How dare she take it so easily when her maternal units have been stressed to the max about it? TBG had the answer: "Just look at the picture you took of Little Cuter on the First Day of School" It's that same wide open  attitude, embracing the world and all its adventures, that put  YAY PRESCHOOL!! on my granddaughter's lips. If only her mom and I could have been as relaxed about it as the kid was.

I have proof. In the time it took me to hang the rest of the not-in-the-dryer basket this blouse  went from damp to dry. I came inside, wrote the verbiage for this post, and came back to add this picture because in the time it took me to write the rest of this for you, it, too, could be hung, dry, in my closet. I may have to water my containers twice a day, I may have to contend with pack rats nesting behind my pool's heater, I may never get to wear all my wonderful winter clothes, but the truest truism of all is Kartographer I've just given you the proof.

Recycled   and Updated Happy Labor Day!   ***** My  Zaydeh  was a paperhanger. So was his son, my uncle. They belonged to the Paperhanger's Union. When he retired, my Zaydeh got a lapel pin and a photograph of himself and the also-retiring Union Rep. The Union Rep got a pension and health insurance. No one knows if he got a copy of the photograph, too. It was that kind of complicated relationship to Labor, with a capital L, that dominated my growing up years. Daddooooo's father owned a business. G'ma's father was a worker. That dynamic influenced their relationship in the same way that her parents' accented speech and his parents' religious devotion were there, bruising the edges of what must once have been love but wasn't anymore. On the one hand, I sat on my Zaydeh's shoulders as he bounced me around the living room, singing  Zum Gali Gali , a Zionist work song.  When I needed a biography for a book report in second grade, his daughter, my mo...

G'ma's slow decline into demntia was fodder for many posts here in The Burrow.  I wrote about our adventures, I wrote about her slippage, I wrote about my emotions.  What I didn't write about was what it was like before we decided that she was losing her mind. That's what it was like - her mind was being lost, one detail, one competence, one ability at a time.  Often, the whole thing didn't disappear at once.  Take the last game of Clue we played.  The Cuters, G'ma, and I were sitting at the game table in our big house in Marin.  Little Cuter was trying to explain the rules to her grandmother, trying not to giggle as her grandmother's pinky dipped between her lips, as her head sank further and further to the right, as her eyebrows and forehead wriggled and wrinkled, as her shoulders shrugged. We laughed and laughed and laughed that night, teasing G'ma about her inability to remember the rules, or which token was hers, or if it were her turn or not. ...

Amster is in trial this week.  It's a tough case to win, but she's got her exhibits and her opening and her questions and her outfits all in a row.  I went to watch some of it today, and managed not to transfer any angst from my experiences across the street in Federal Court.... or so I thought. But I was antsy on the drive home, and I was antsy while hugging TBG, and I'm antsy now.  Am I flashing back to memories I've hidden, or am I just having a bad day?  The not knowing is almost worse than the clenching in my stomach and around my heart. ***** I went through security behind two women who were unable to find the object which caused the scrutinizing agent some concern.  The detritus from their purses was strewn over the conveyor belt as the agent loomed over them, glaring. Their hands were shaking.  Whatever they were seeking wasn't in range of their fingertips, and all they could say was Where can it be? I left before they found it. ***** The ...