The Burrow

Fall leaves and a four year old.

My girls gutted a pumpkin today. My guy attacked his. SIR was a true artist. And I needed a template.

Amster was updating me on her kids' achievements: their grades are solid, their friends are good people, they are respectful. There are issues, but no one is doing drugs or abusing other humans. “ Congratulations!” said I, and then began to wonder why. I flashed back to tenth grade. There was a reception in the high school cafeteria to celebrate the newest National Honor Society inductees. Standing beside my parents,  I listened to grown up after grown up congratulating my folks on a job well done. I remember the outfit I was wearing.  I remember clutching my new NHS pin in my hand. I remember being really annoyed. “ Why are they my congratulating my parents? I did all the work/” Sure, they fed me and clothed me and made sure I had a quiet place to study and all the materials I needed to complete any project thrown my way. Sure, they set high standards and took an interest in my assignments. But I'd have done the work anyway. That's the kind...

There were lots and lots of 5 and 6 year olds in Grandma's Garden today. Twenty minutes later, they were followed by a few fewer, but still a lot, of 7 and 8 year olds.  Keeping that many kids amused at one time while still maintaining the sanctity of the growing space was a challenge.  Had I remembered to bring the old clothes, we could have made a scarecrow.  Had I remembered........ And so, I brought out the chalk.  and this is what happened on the garden's inner wall.  Of course, the chalk was pretty big for little hands. and the little hands got very dirty. So did their clothes.  And then they began to cover their palms with chalk,  some finding that leaning on their artwork led to coating the edges,  some going all out over two hands,  all of them sharing their silliness. And the silliness got sillier. They didn't all do it to themselves.  But they were all very proud of themselves.....

I always had a knot in my stomach.  I always saw the dark side of the story.  I worried.  I often had a hard time getting out of my own way; my irritation took over more often than I liked.  I didn't notice that as extreme or unusual, it was what it was.  It was who I felt I was. In 2001, it all came crashing down on me.  My college freshman was coming home for Thanksgiving.  I should have been over the moon, thrilled, singing Pirates of Penzance  at the top of my lungs.  Instead, I was flat.  Ahedonic.  Lacking in affect.  Absent highs and lows.  Stuck in a corner of myself that showed no exit signs.   I mentioned it to my gynecologist. It might have been related to oncoming menopause, but my slumped shoulders and stories about sleeping the day away concerned her.  She sent me straight to a psychiatrist.   It was lovely.  One hour all about ME.  She listened, she questioned, s...

As a reward for being born, Big Cuter received maroon overalls with bright pink piping from a fashion-forward colleague of mine.  She was mildly concerned about the pink stripe; TBG and I were not concerned.  The only problem was finding socks to match.  I carried my baby into the upscale boutique around the corner, hoping to match the pink. He's a boy , said the sale clerk. Yes, and the stripe is pink. He's a boy, she repeated, and so it went, around and around until I finally had to gently mention that if wearing pink socks at 2 months of age was going to have an impact on my baby's gender identity then I already had more problems than I could imagine.  I bought a pair of pink socks, put them on his feet in the store (to make a statement), and left. Fast forward 16 months to Thanksgiving.  Picking gifts from the Sears Catalog for Nannie to purchase for Christmas, I circled an anatomically correct plastic boy doll.  When Big Cuter took him out of t...

The School Social Worker asked me about the garden's rules.   "So, only 6 kids in at a time?  Or is it 8?  And only certain ones can use the tools?  And what's the story with the badges?" We laughed, I at my obliviousness, she with delight as she recounted the story.  Apparently, one of Grandma's Garden Leaders is now in charge when I'm not there.  Apparently, she has a lot of rules.  Apparently, she is quite intent on enforcing them, and apparently the rest of the Prince Scholars are willing to let her do so.  She's the one who organized the digging that provided the bathtub sized hole for our Dwarf Mandarin Orange tree.  I worried about it; when I arrived on planting day I found that she had created a solution.  She consulted with experts (her father) when the going got tough.  She recruited volunteers, trained them, guided them, and got all the tools cleaned up and back in the storage bench.  There's no reason to pun...

I spent a semester in the UofA's Humanities Seminars discussing the concepts of bravery and courage.  Is one external and one internal?  Is one judged by others and the other judged by your psyche?  Does physical peril have to be involved?  Does near-certain death factor in?  How about the timing?  If it falls in your lap are you brave if you deal with it?  Does choice have a place in the equation? We read The Song of Roland; was he brave or courageous or foolhardy to blow his horn and bring down the wrath of the attackers?  We read Beowolf.  Is it admirable to eat your foes? The dictionary isn't much help in picking apart the distinctions.  Merriam-Webster calls it  the ability to do something that frightens one .  Wikipedia, the people's collective hive mind,  says it's the  mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. Then what's brave?  The Google search ...

We've been waiting all year for our dwarf Mandarin Orange tree to arrive at Rillito Nursery. Of course, it arrived last week, when the kids were on Fall Break.  It spent 10 days in foster  care at the garden center before we officially adopted it today. First and most important was preparing the soil.  The kindergarten and first grade scholars carried native soil from all corners of the garden  and combined it with Happy Frog planting mix. There was much conversation about how dirty they were getting, but Grandma was not amused. Their fingers were dirty but their palms were clean.  They were not getting down to the bottom of the pile.  And so we moved back and put our hands on the ground and crept our fingers forward and there we were, underneath it all.  By the time the whistle blew, the planting mix was ready. This one, Garden Leader Extraordinaire, organized the Club and created a hole exactly where it ought to be, while you weren...

They were everywhere.  Kids had them on the playground, unless the teacher had already confiscated them.  They lined the checkout counters at the grocery store and the car wash and the hardware store.  They came to dinner with the grown-ups, a means of keeping the kids occupied, obviating the need to include them in the conversation.  They were a fad. The Cuters went through a variety of collectibles - round discs and printed cards, saved in plastic sleeves held in three ring binders.  Some were used in a tiddly-winks like game, but most just sat there, being looked at.  The cards were often disgusting, in a fourth grade blood-and-guts way.  As long as it was just yucky, I let it go.  There was no sense in judging a fad that would vanish before permanent psychological damage could be done. Hula Hoops were a fad when I was very young.  Bubba and Zayde and I went to John's Bargain Store on East 93rd Street in Brooklyn and we each bought one...

The young woman behind the counter was waiting for me today . "I didn't get to the website you gave me, but I have the next few days off and I'm on it." VoteSaveAmerica.com will be there when she's ready, I assured her. "There are a lot of people running, and a lot of propositions."  She did not look thrilled. "Pick an issue you care about and google it with a candidate's name.  That's a good place to start." A smile lit her face; this was within her wheelhouse. I gave her some stickers, for herself, her friends, and their cars.  She agreed that it was her generation's responsibility to care for their future.  She was grinning as we talked about rallying her friends to go to the polls. I left with a big smile on my face. Now, I'm off to write postcards to get out the vote for Stacey Abrams, my own small contribution to counter the voter suppression tactics of her opponent.  I'm still showing off the felt #In...

Scarlet and I spent a truly surreal afternoon together.  Really.  Though he denied any connection to the movement, Jean Cocteau appears in every scholarly explication of surrealism that I found this evening.  He inspired it, he created it, he reveled in it - whatever he called it.  And today, celebrating European Art Cinema Day , Scarlet and I joined him in fantasy, watching his black and white masterpiece, La Belle et La Bete. The Loft' s Program Director had much too much fun making fun of Disney's animated remake in his opening remarks.  I'm not sure as he is that Cocteau's candelabras, muscular men's arms protruding from the walls, moving with Beauty as she runs through their shadows, are any less creepy or amusing than 1991's dancing and singing torchiers.  Yes, along with a magic mirror and a transporter-equipped, jewel encrusted, right hand glove, there were living body parts in usually inanimate objects.  We got used to the arms pretty quic...

"You get the Humana plan from AARP.  Everyone does." That was the advice TBG got when he turned 65.  From everyone.  That was the advice I got, too, two years later.  So that's what we got.  And it was good. We have simple needs.  The plan met them.  And it had a fabulous feature - Silver Sneakers. Do you know Silver Sneakers?  You give your name and address and the staff at any affiliated gym looks you up on the computer and gives you a access to the facility.  For free.  And there are lots of affiliates.  LA Fitness.  The Y.  The Fit Stop 5 minutes from Little Cuter's house kept me sane while awaiting Giblet's arrival. Silver Sneakers let me follow my yogi to Planet Fitness one Sunday morning.  All at no cost, with minimal paperwork and a welcoming attitude from everyone, every time.  I'm using it just the way it was intended - it gets me moving in situations where I might otherwise not. And so, b...

"Why is Thomas orange?"   SIR was concerned. The big people were relaxing on the couch, watching videos on the phone, on the iPad, on the television, after a hard day at work and pre-K.  The dog, with his now orange fur, strolled by.  The parents wondered. "Orange?  Why is he orange?" "He must have gotten into something in the garden." "Pollen?"  "Sure, it could be pollen.  Let me look." And then, without lifting her eyes from the screen in her lap, not missing a beat, came FlapJilly, participating in the conversation as a fully fledged member of the team. "Guys.  Guys.  I spilled my mac and cheese on him." Being a Big Sister has propelled my grandbaby into Big Girlhood.   She's learning about the planets, because pre-K has a curriculum that includes such things.  She announced that Saturn is her favorite among them, " because it has rings, just like me!"   She's riding her two wheeler ...

Scarlet and I went to the movies today, wending our way through parking lot construction to   The Loft .  Our membership renewals came with 4 free passes; we each used one to gain admission to Love, Gilda . It looked like it would be a private showing until the lights went down.  By the time the previews were finished there were two other women sitting at opposite ends of the theater, and a gentleman down in front.  Theater One, the biggest, renovated auditorium, was ours for the enjoying. Until the jackhammers started. Gilda had a miscarriage, and the pounding was intermittent. Gilda went through chemotherapy, and the pounding got louder. After ten minutes or so, I went out to the lobby, seeking redress.  I told the ticket seller that the movie was becoming unwatchable, what with the construction going on right outside.  He nodded.  I went back to my seat to see the end; I'd already invested an hour or more in the film and I was bound a...

I've been avoiding the news since Susan Collins. It's really been quite lovely. It helps that the temperatures have been in the low 80's, that the rains have cleared the air of pollen and dust, at that the clouds, fueled by tropical storms and hurricanes near and far, have led to spectacular sunsets.  And the pool is still warm enough for laps. The risk of triple digits has passed, so I feel safe putting plants directly in the soil.  I'm going to risk planting another rock rose bush to supplement the ones the javelina had for brunch one Tuesday last year.  I'm going to amend the soil in some small areas of the garden, the dead zones where nothing has grown (and I've tried everything) for the 49 seasons we've lived here.  If the soil won't come to me, I'll bring myself to the soil.  I will not be defeated.  The yarn storage has gotten totally out of hand; I'm on Pintrest looking for suggestions.  I have the world's widest array of pl...

I used to go all out.  I carved pumpkins, I painted pumpkins, I stacked pumpkins on bales of hay next to scarecrows, I piled plush pumpkins beside plastic pumpkins overlooking ghost candlesticks.  Amsters kids helped me decorate, and then went home to complain to their mother that she didn't have enough stuff to celebrate the season. Year after year, I stuffed those scarecrows myself, with help from whatever child happened to be available.  When the Cuters were both in college, TBG and I rented a house next to a young family.  Shyly, their third grader asked if she could help.  Her enthusiasm for the project outside prompted me to continue decorating inside, even if only TBG and I were there to enjoy it. We were in transit; renting while searching the country for our forever home.  Almost everything was in packing boxes; I laughed at myself when I saw that the holiday decor was in the front of the storage garage.  The movers must have known that I'...

I'm emotionally exhausted. I've emailed Jeff Flake twice today, and I'll go into the office in person tomorrow.  I don't want to think about voices being unheard, about bad behavior - in the hearing room, not 36 year old allegations if you must disbelieve her - and that bad behavior being rewarded, about a frustratingly limited FBI investigation that wasn't much of an investigation at all.  I didn't want to think about it this afternoon, and I don't want to think about it tonight. So let me share the loveliness of Grandma's Gardeners, who, upon hearing that the irrigation system was the victim of institutional interference (there's a leak somewhere in the middle school field and the water's turned off until it's repaired), happily built a bucket brigade from the water fountain in the cafeteria  to Grandma's Garden., where, under the supervision of my newest Garden Leader they carefully watered the surviving plants. The wat...

Judge Kavanaugh's 10 year old wanted to pray for the woman .  He said that he was proud of her for that, though his behavior didn't reflect it.  A lot of wisdom from children, he went on. Today, Garden Club at Prince proved the last part. A womanly 5th grader, matured earlier than her peers and carrying more weight than looked optimal, was hanging out with me as her classmates carried cups and watering cans from the cafeteria to the garden. She made one run, and that was enough.  We agreed that irrigation without water is less than wonderful, and then she began to talk about bullying. I'm not sure why, but she did. She told me that bullies have bad home lives and that's why they act the way they do  She told me that bullies won't grow up to be successful, to be rich, because they have bad attitude.  Sweating and wiping our faces on our shirt sleeves, we pondered the mysteries of why, as I directed the hand irrigation behind her.  It was a moment. ...

" Remember there was a time where you could not be a nominee and potentially lie to Congress and be voted in to a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court." I heard this just after putting dinner in the oven.  In Tucson, 84 and drizzling counts as pot roast weather; I had three hours to develop a post that would counteract the gloom outside.  I failed.  I kept coming back to the heartache I saw on Ashley Parker's face as she was describing the disintegration (okay, a girl can hope) of Brett Kavanaugh's nomination. She looked like I felt. Hollowed out.  ***** The good men I know who are trying to reach out are uncertain of the reception their overtures will receive.  They are worrying about striking the right tone, not wanting to offend.  Welcome to our world, we reply.  Welcome to our world. ***** My first real job interview included " They grow them will brass ones back in New York, don't they?" I smiled and agreed. Coming to know him later,...

Did you have lunch today?  Yeah, I made a hamburger. I'm hungry now.  Do you want soup? And grilled cheese? We have ciabatta and a good tomato.  I'm on it. It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon.  The rain had finally stopped, the air smelled of creosote, and it was 4pm.  Not my usual dinner time.  Not by two or three hours. G'ma and Daddooooo spent 6 long weeks in Florida, researching it as a retirement option.  Along with the absence of anyone under the age of 100, it was The Early Bird Special that put the death knell to their becoming Floridians.  "What do you do with the rest of the night?"  G'ma wondered whenever the topic came up.  What's the opposite of I have become my mother?  

That's what I asked the 20-something behind the counter, after I placed my order.  With a big smile, she nodded and said YES! I leaned over and asked the girl beside her.  She, too, was registered.  The boy to their left just wasn't sure if he'd ever registered, or why he would bother.  I went into my "All those girls you don't get  pregnant?  That's because birth control is legal, now.  I bet you care about that, right?"  spiel, and he laughed and agreed that he did.  His colleague was flummoxed.  What did voting have to do with that?  And anyway, didn't we just have an election?  Is there one in this state?  Why?  The President is in for 4 years, and it hasn't been 4 years... has it? I smiled.  I nodded.  I tried not to think about what she hadn't been taught in school.  I explained about the House and the Senate and why they might be important in the overall scheme of things.  I wondere...