The Burrow

Yesterday was the first time since 2009 that I’ve forgotten to post my thoughts for your consideration. TBG and I are visiting FlapJilly and her parents and other grandparents and her cousins and, I must be honest and admit that I totally forgot to write to you. Mea culpa.  Mea maxim culpa. FlapJilly is all consuming, from  hide and seek that got Grandma in the coat closet with my legs stuck above the boots and umbrellas to stuffing her mouth full of delicious and gigantic grapes. She is delightful company, but the company is impossible to ignore. She’s charming and demanding and right  now she is refusing to go to sleep. She’s overstimulated and overtired and overindulged by her maternal grandparental units, and, perhaps, we’ve aggravated the situation. There is a minuscule amount of guilt on our parts, we must admit. There is something delightfully decadent about making her happy. Can you blame me for falling into her orbit and out of yours?

There are apologies, and then there are apologies. Mark Halperin , author, talking head, 52 year old Harvard graduate,   says that he understands   from these accounts that my behavior was inappropriate and caused others pain. For that, I am deeply sorry and I apologize.   I'm sorry for the women in his life if it took five others to bring to his attention that which they have been watching forever.  I'm bothered by the men in his life who watched and said nothing.  And I'm annoyed that time will pass and he'll be back after his mea culpas have been swallowed up by the next sexy story.   Bush the Elder, former President, groped two women at a photo shoot.  His spokesman released this statement: At age 93, President Bush has been confined to a wheelchair for roughly five years, so his arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures. To try to put people at ease, the president routinely tells the same joke — and ...

Joseph was kicking a sturdy red bucket.  They were determined kicks, fueled by the furious expression on his face.  He never came close to hitting anyone; his kicks were precise and focused.  He was looking for an escape valve for something that was boiling inside; the girls and I decided that he must have had a bad morning at home. I'm a little off center myself, now that our President has declared Jeff Flake's take down a personal victory, now that no other Republicans have backed him up or disputed the President's story of his victory lap at lunch.  There's a Bannon backed candidate for his seat; the mainstream alternative seems to be my own personal Congresswoman, Martha McSally, who is a Rubber Stamp Republican , voting with the President 95.9% of the time even though Trump lost our District by 4.9%.  I twist and turn and get no place.  I wonder if Joseph has a red bucket I could borrow.

I had another post planned for today, but evens go ahead of me and here I am, once again, bemoaning the sorry state of American politics. Jeff Flake, my junior Senator, is trading in complicity for..... hmmmmm..... a run for the Presidency in 2020?  His remarks on the Senate floor are worth reading in full , but here are some of the pieces I liked the best: I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret, because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics, regret because of the indecency of our discourse, regret because of the coarseness of our leadership, regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by our – all of our – complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs. It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end. Well, you don't hear that every day. He called them all out for being complicit; it's every bit as powerful as SNL's Ivanka Trump perfume ad,...

The license for Sedona's TEDx project is held by a friend of Seret and Mr. DreamyCakes.  They were flying in from Chicago.  Sedona is a lovely drive from Tucson.  I missed my friends.  The decision to attend was an easy one. It was a good decision.  There were allusions to avenues of thought I'd never considered before.  There was laughter and there was sorrow and there were gasps of surprise, of outrage, of disbelief.  The speakers were seated in the audience, were available at dinner before and lunch during and dinner afterwards.  They were out on the patio, wandering around, eager to engage the audience.  It was communal and stimulating and very, very real. There were young women out to change the world. Zoe Wild, a former Buddhist nun, a whirlwind, an unstoppable force for good in the world. entranced us with tales from the coast of Lesbos, where she and her team braved frigid waters and darkness and rocks to guide boats carrying re...

The executive editor of the New York Times calls outing Bill O'Reilly and Harvey Weinstein the newspaper's biggest stories of his tenure, the ones of which he is most proud.  I can't decide if I'm okay with that.  Certainly, the stories needed to be told.  Convincing the accusers to speak publicly was a coup others had tried and failed to accomplish, according to Rachel Maddow.  But the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, igniting all sorts of things .... the end of a war, the end of a Presidency.  I'm not sure that men will stop behaving badly. In the meantime, if I have to watch their female announcers wearing cocktail dresses cut down to here with hemlines up to there, then I want ESPN's male announcers to stand beside them in black leather pants, shirtless.  I'm looking for equal opportunity exploitation. 

OFA asked me to shepherd a group to Congresswoman McSally's office this morning.  We were a small but vocal band of three retirees, each with a story to tell.  OFA does provide fact sheets with talking points; our voices amplified them with a personal point of view. Bill talked about gun safety and DACA and his experiences in the field.  JannyLou talked about insuring a loved one with Type 1 Diabetes before and after the Affordable Care Act.  The Congresswoman's staffer nodded and sighed and took notes.  He was properly sympathetic and bemused by a system that forces long time partners to skip marriage in case health care costs should bankrupt their family.  He heard what they were saying.  I asked him if he'd visited the Gabe Zimmerman room in Congress, the one dedicated to Gabby's staffer who was killed on January 8, 2011.  After all, Gabe was employed in the same capacity, meeting with constituents, before he was murdered by a Glock wielded...

Forget Jeff Sessions rewriting history. Forget Donald Trump and his $25,000 unfulfilled promise. Forget the Cubbie's dismal hitting and Gordon Hayward's shattered ankle. Instead, look at this face. Aren't you smiling?

You have to ease into the vortex, even though it comes upon you rather suddenly.  One minute you're climbing through Coconino National Forest, filling your eyes with thick green conifers.  Then the road bends and this is there: I was naughty.  I couldn't help myself.  I had no side-seat driver. I took my own pictures while piloting thousands of pounds of metal. Like I said, I couldn't help myself. It helped that everyone else on the road at that moment was also slowing down to oohhhh and ahhhh. The red is from iron ore. Sometimes it's orange. Some of the tops have been sheered off by glaciers but most of the formations resemble sand castles, dribbled over time. Parked in one of the many Scenic View pullouts, I found myself counting the layers. I was looking at a picture of deep time, imagining ancient creatures crushed within the walls.   Sedona does that to you.

Three moms rented a house for themselves and those they love.  I drove from Sedona to Flagstaff one night to join them. There were a lot of them and they were paying for the space so I came prepared to sleep on a couch, happy for their company.  I had my pillow and sleeping bag and a camping mat just in case all the couches were taken.  Oh, no.  That was most certainly not happening.  A not-very-happy-but-extremely-gracious young man gave up his bedroom.  The moms dismissed my protestations with that look you give your teenager when she is, unbelievably, stating an absurdity.  Each one of them would have slept on the floor before allowing me to do so, no matter how well equipped I happened to be. And as I stood there, surrounded by their love and their caring, I felt old.  I walked in with the enthusiasm of a college kid on a weekend adventure, couch surfing and hanging out in pj's with my friends.  They saw a grandma, someone they ...

I'm having issues.  It was only 525 miles round trip, but the air was different and the company was different and I was, for a day or two, different, too. Re-entry is jarring.  I have dozens of emails; I'm ignoring them all.  The refrigerator is empty; I really don't care.  I walked around the backyard, watering and deadheading and reorganizing networks of vines, but the effort was desultory at best.  I read Langston Hughes essays and tried to ignore the tv; I hadn't heard one all weekend.  I avoided all electronics, with one exception.  The Cubbies were invited into my cocoon, via phone apps.  Tomorrow is a full day, and the week to follow even fuller.  Tonight, I'm going to pretend that I'm still on vacation.

I'm taking myself on a mini-vacation.  People invited me, and I said yes.  Seret and Mr. DreamyCakes, have flown to Sedona.  Amster and her girlfriends and their assorted relatives of all ages from a variety of relationships have rented a big house in Flagstaff.  They all wanted me.  I had no reason to say no. Packing is making me smile.  This is an opportunity to wear my fall clothes.  I'm tossing a light jacket into the car.  I can wear my cowboy boots.  The problem is restricting myself to just enough; my inclination is to take everything (I've just mentally added another pair of cowboy boots). I'll be gone for 50 hours; the planning has taken three times that.  I'm printing out the driving directions just in case I lose my cell signal.  Somewhere I have a map; I'll be perusing my route tonight as I watch the Cubbies.  Since Lucy (myMapQuest voice who has  a lot of 'splaining to do ) has taken to muting herself ...

I had to chastise the salesclerk at the framing store - there were Christmas decorations on display.  It was October 1st.  They were tempting and pretty and completely unacceptable.  Fall had barely ended.  Halloween hadn't even come out of the closet.  What was the great rush?  Along with the assault in the stores, I am finding similar angst in my mailbox every day. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Medical Center beguiles me with lined note pads.  St. Jude's had return address labels delivered.  A home for orphaned Lakota Sioux children has been sending me dream catchers for years; I'm waiting for its arrival in the usual over-sized, over-stuffed envelope full of cards with religious messages (a friend brings them to her church) and stickers and labels and larger pads than the doctors in New York City provide. We had to move from California to stop Little Cuter's never ending gifts from the ASPCA. She sent them $1 when she was 8 or 9; they spent 50 t...

were the words really said at all? We felt like that tree in the forest, falling to the ground, wondering if anyone was hearing the sound.  The local president of NOW, the leaders of LUCHA, the OFA usual suspects, and I were gathered in the courtyard of the YWCA yesterday morning, ready to present our words and our passion to the media assembled before us.   Unfortunately, nobody came. That didn't stop us.  We spoke, a video recording was made, photos were taken.  Uploading and sharing and registering the event took place on a variety of platforms.  It was all very 21st century.  It happened, even though no one was there to hear it. For the record, here's what I said: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. For what legitimate purpose does one need dozens of assault rifles? You can't buy large quantities of fertilizer without triggering an alert. You can't buy Sudafed without the purchase being recorded. An assault rifle is at lea...

Brenda Starr's great aunt kept a journal. Some of her writing is in English; much of it is in swirls and lines and dashes that her great niece described with delighted hand motions. The aunt was a legal secretary in the early 1900's, which meant she took shorthand.  Can any of you translate from steno pad to iPad?  There are stories in there, just waiting to unfold, if only we could read them. ***** G'ma printed.  She claimed her cursive was unintelligible, and was no faster than her printing.  There was always trouble when I presented my first she was ill  note from home to the teacher; it was obvious to everyone but my mother that printing was for children, not adults.  But comparing her hand printed notes to the chicken scratch that passed for communications from my father, I am very happy that she stuck to the legible. ***** Mr. 12 is in the last cohort of students who was taught cursive writing.  I wonder how his successors in the upscale scho...

I fell asleep last night wondering where my grandmother purchased her groceries.  I knew her neighborhood; G'ma grew up in the house I visited as a grandchild. I remember taking the bus with my grandparents, riding the El with them, walking the neighborhood, but never buying toilet paper or oatmeal or tea bags.  I don't remember seeing a purveyor of those goods.  At the delicatessen, around the corner on Linden Boulevard, the bell rang startlingly loud when you opened the door.  That didn't distract us from the pickle barrel and the giant wedges of french fries, the most delicious taste ever.  Brother and I, feeling quite adult, walked down 93rd Street all by ourselves.  We ordered at the counter and carried our bounty home, oil staining the small brown paper bags holding the fries.  Pride and grease were a delectable combination.  dailyfoodandwine.com The bakery a few doors down tempted me, too.  Not with the breads and the ...

I cannot live in this space forever.  I have to find a way to put the fear and the anger and the grey cloud back in the box at the back of my brain, the one so rudely wrenched open Monday night by another fool with a gun. I found myself telling the story of That Day to two acquaintances at the gym today.  I can't remember the last time that happened.  We were all outraged. It was strangely comforting to share; I forgot what it was like to be at the center of Tucson Love.  I've been traveling under the radar, ever since Little Cuter told me that she was doing the same.  It's harder for me now that I have a distinguishing physical characteristic (aka my limp), but unless I'm pressed for details I talk about a seriously unfortunate incident  and leave it at that. As my heart is mending, once again, my body is improving.  Structural Integration has reconfigured my body's relationship to gravity (at least that's what she says is happening).  ...

I'm trying to put it back in its box in the back of my brain.  I'm not being very successful. So, I am directing you to the Op Ed piece I wrote for our local paper , The Arizona Daily Star, which was published in today's paper. I'll be back tomorrow, I hope.

Little Cuter is angry.  She has tools to deal with the anger, but she doesn't like being in that place. The kid put wherever you go, whatever you do, always bring your own sunshine   on her Senior Page.  She brings joy to everyone, everyplace, everywhere.  It's been a hard and gloomy week. Big Cuter called several times yesterday, checking that his maternal unit wasn't tripping over her frown.  I want to make sure that this doesn't take anything else away from you , he said, remembering that since the shooting in Aurora TBG and I are reluctant to go to a movie theater.  I know how much you loved going to the movies; I don't want you to lose anything else. TBG is disgusted.  Congress, the NRA, gun manufacturers, Trump.... he's grinding his teeth and trying to keep from exploding.  I've been the recipient of hugs and sideways glances and admonitions to take care of myself; he's right back there in the Emergency Room, waiting for word.  ...

It's 24 hours after the massacre in Las Vegas.   I can't write any more today; I couldn't wait to publish yesterday's second post, and now I'm empty.   Tonight I'm going to try to sleep without dreaming.

Little Cuter's text message.  TBG's words before I joined him on the couch.  Hockey Mom via Facebook.  I barely had the shades up and the sleep out of my eyes before I was shivering. Don't watch the coverage.  Drive carefully.  Pay attention to the world around you today.  Don't forget to say I Love You.  Everyone has a suggestion. Everytown's Survivor Network (can you believe that we need such a thing?) is there if I need them; they reminded me on Facebook and Gmail. Before I could revel in the pictures of FlapJilly's weekend with Maga and Papa I had to wrench myself back from the brink. I think I'm fine, most of the time.  But right now I'm hearing sirens which haven't blared for nearly 7 years.  I'm holding the hand of a dying child, begging her not to leave me, watching the light go out of her eyes.  I'm on a Medevac helicopter and then I'm in and out of consciousness, asking for Christina, knowing that she's dead. I don...

"Are you okay?" I hear it every few days or so, when I wobble or lean or grab a chair back to steady myself as I stand up.  I'm much stronger than I used to be, but my actions often belie my inner sense of self.  I  know that merely getting up from a chair onto two feet evenly supporting my weight is a major accomplishment; I congratulate myself (quite often) on achieving the upright position. I know that it's impressive.  The naive observer does not share my confidence.  Without knowing my story, the kind woman at the table next to mine sees a grey haired, impaired, elder.... and she offers a smile and some help if I need it.  She sees me as broken.  I see myself as strong - strong enough to walk across a parking lot, strong enough to lift flats of water into and out of the Costco cart, strong enough to wander through the Lincoln Park Zoo with FlapJilly.  She watches me lurch across the restaurant to the cashier and doesn't know that once the...