The Burrow

Mark Kelly for Senate was really a lot of fun. For one thing, while everyone was standing, unable to see unless they were in the front few rows or were exceptionally tall or were hoisted on their Daddy's shoulders, TBG were comfortably ensconced on folding chairs in the front row, inside the VIP rope.  No feet at all in front of us was Luz de Luna with attitude and joy and music. Oh, the music. The standing room only crowd began filling the plaza at 2pm.  They kept coming for the better part of an hour, becoming pleasantly restless as the minutes ticked by.  Usually, a long wait is something TBG and I studiously avoid.  But there was a free concert going on right in front of us and the violin bows were crashing into one another in an obviously ongoing battle for supremacy, and the sun was shining and I was there to enjoy it.   I  took great delight in the superfast recitation of  I Am My Own Grandpa  by the so...

When I was a little girl I loved my birthdays.   As I grew older, they became less important. Yesterday, you made them special for me, again. I love my birthday cards, and all the words inside and out and on the back (yes, I looked). Thank you for the compliments; one is never too old to be told that she is beautiful.  I'm so very happy that my presence makes you smile, cheers you up, makes you glad to see me. You know that you do all that for me, too, don't you? You are all beautiful, inside and out. You all make Prince a very special school.. You are kind and generous and helpful. You are thoughtful and compassionate and silly. You are eager learners and willing sharers of knowledge. You make me feel loved as soon as I come through the door. I loved my Hallway Serenade, Kindergarten Style. There's nothing like a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday to Me to put a smile on my face. Your classroom cards are fantastic, as is your penman...

I always refer to my Perforation Family, a very extended family at this point, as members of The Club That No One Wants To Join.  Like any club, though, there are perks to the membership.  In my case, it's access to a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate.  He called, we were thrilled, offered all the help we could imagine, and then Gmail brought me the news that I could bypass the long lines at his Kick Off Event by going to the Friends and Family Entrance on 5th Street.  So, to 5th Street we went, TBG and I  We parked in the underground garage and rode up in the elevator with Ruben Moreno , the mariachi maestro who serenaded us as we toured the outdoor memorial at the hospital. There was much hugging, as there always is when we see one another around town.   Eight years.... yesterday.....the Friends and Family part was starting early. We passed through a gate keeper or two and found ourselves wandering around the fairly em...

Sitting on the side of this month's Spirit Assembly, watching Prince Scholars of the Month pose for pictures with their Mustang Mascot on Crazy Hair Day, I noticed a shoelace emergency.  One of my most fidgety kindergarteners, sitting at my feet in the very front row, had straggly laces, knotted laces, laces which were invulnerable to my every effort to tie them.  Luckily, my cape's capacious pockets hold a plenitude of shoelaces, donated to  GRIN  via Facebook's Giving Tuesday event.   Yes, I carry shoelaces in my pockets. It's what I do.   Unfortunately, I did not carry a pair of scissors.  I raced (in my fashion) across to the cafeteria lady, begged her help, and was able to return the shoes before the next round of photos.  He really wanted to pull out the old laces, so I left him some easy ends.  The friend looking over his shoulder got in on the act, as well.    So did his teacher. A short le...

I first published this in 2011.   It remains one of my favorite rants. I remember when THIS was the most aggravating thing our government did. Sigh. ***** Mary Ball Washington gave birth to a boy child on February 22, 1732. Unlike many of the stories surrounding this man (think cherry trees and coins across the Potomac and standing up in an open boat as it crossed the Delaware) this is an indisputable fact. Mary was not in labor on the third Monday of February.  She produced her child on a specific day - the 22nd day of February.  His birthday didn't move around with the vagaries of the federal holiday calendar. Nancy Hanks Lincoln met her second son, Abraham, 209 years ago today.  Like Mrs. Washington before her, she was not in labor on an indeterminate day sometime in the middle of the month.  It occurred on a certain day, a day formerly commemorated by school children and mail carriers alike. Alas and alack, these fine gentlemen have been confl...

It Happened TBG's pass didn't work at the gym this morning.  Our relationship with Silver Sneakers has been officially severed.  No one is paying my membership fees. $22 per month for an all-USA-access pass to LA Fitness seems reasonable.  I'm committed to regular exercise.  TBG lives most of his away-from-home-life in the gym.  I went through the internet sign-up procedure for whatever the United Health Care AARP Medicare Supplement calls their subsidy program.... twice.... once for me, once, after a bit of a kerfuffle with the software, for TBG. It was a lot more work and a lot more money than Silver Sneakers was.  They required no sign-up procedure; I produced my identification, the club looked me up in an on-line data base, and in I went.  Platinum Fitness, Fit Stop, LA Fitness.... they all were glad to see me. I worry about my less enthusiastic-about-the-whole-exercise-thing friends.  When it was free, and available everywhere, excuse...

Today’s post was published yesterday afternoon. Oops. I have no new thoughts to share this morning. Oops.

I woke up to find that I had not published yesterday's post.  Rereading it, I started today the way yesterday ended - fearing for the safety of a Federal Judge.  Deducing that this was not a productive stance, I resolved to think happy thoughts, and sat down to write this post. I saw the snow on Mt. Lemmon, my thoughts wandered to Daddooooo pulling all 3 kids on sleds tied one to the other, and I was smiling until I looked down and saw a swarm of black bugs crawling over the river rocks in the courtyard. Where are the lizards when you need them?  Aren't those migrating birds the least bit hungry?  Granted, it's only 46 0  today, but there's a free buffet climbing the concrete plinth of my southern column and I wish you would take advantage of the situation.  Like, now. It's like watching a train wreck - it's awful and I can't tear my eyes away from it.  We've had a lot of intermittent rain over the last few weeks; the ground cover is covered with...

Bloomberg Opinion  made me smile with this headline: Democrats Are Putting Gun Control Front and Center The party has recruited Mark Kelly, who has made the fight against firearms his top issue, to run for the Senate in Republican-leaning Arizona . Then Facebook made me wonder if this could be true: Roger Stone Posts and Deletes Photo of Judge With Crosshairs I followed the link to Time , which I deem a reputable news source, and found the original article along with this comment, toward the end: some wondered aloud whether the image constituted threatening a federal judge. Some wondered?????  Threatening????? The last time I heard about crosshairs on an important person's face a federal judge ended up dead, and the Congresswoman who was targeted took a bullet to the brain.  I'd say that Judge Amy Berman Jackson has every reason to feel threatened. I hope she is not naive enough to assume that she is not. Been there.  Done that....

If you are going to see the Live Action Short Oscar Nominees, this is a SPOILER ALERT! ***** Unfortunately, on Saturday, six of us saw the Live Action Short Films nominated for this year's Oscar. We probably should have paid attention to more than the starting time.  We should have examined the subject matter.. The nominees tell the stories of: A child alone and in danger A tween and quicksand Unrequited love and dying Ten year old child killers Children, guns, racism  Four of them didn't end well.  The fifth was just melancholy, bordering on maudlin.  Bathos came to mind. After the first one, told from the mother's perspective, The Doula and I found ourselves looking at one another, palms upraised, wondering "Why?"   By the time the toddler was kidnapped by the bigger kids, my head was spending an inordinate amount of time in my hands.  When, at the end, in a bizarre case of mistaken identity, a son shot the father he adored, we could ...

It was controlled chaos. There was collaboration and independent work. Grandma brought scrapbooking tools for making round edges with hearts, odd edged scissors,  stickers, and magic markers of varying viability. Some were immediately enthusiastic and some took a little more convincing. And, in the end,  it was all about love.

It was Tuesday and the Scholars were surprised to see me. There was a lot of work to be done to ready the garden for the Open House for donors. Although some were disappointed by the emphasis on  work ,  after a little bit of cheer-leading the empty pots were filled with aloe  and random seeds harvested from those spilled on the bench.  The hanging garden received a careful hand watering. And there was raking.  Lots and lots of rakiing. There was also mischief. The rules are few and simple. 1.Don't climb on and don't fall off  the rocks. 2. All tools must stay below your shoulders. Sometimes you just have to stare at Grandma and see how far she'll let you go. Big smiles and giggles go a long way toward mitigating my wrath, specially when my heart is soothed by a kid who found a quiet place to dig with a pint sized trowel. Grandma's Garden is a good place for that. Wednesday was warm and partly cloudy,...

Find the video. This is a man who believes in science, in facts . This is a Navy pilot, the Commander of the Space Shuttle, and, because his wife showed him how to use public policy for the common good, his is a powerful voice for responsible gun violence prevention legislation.   Also, he is very well behaved. He likes his brother and his brother likes him.  He's friends with the rich and famous (Nancy Sinatra congratulated him on Twitter) and his friends from college. His wife's family likes him. My family and friends like him.  We all saw him on the worst days of his life.  He always had something for us: a smile, a phone number, a space geek conversation.  He's a real guy, the same person in the video as in his living room.   He's running to wrest the Participation Trophy from our appointed-by-the-Governor Senator, Martha McSally.  It is true that McSally is not my favorite human, true that I probably would have sup...

Amy Klobuchar stood in the snow. Mayor Pete discussed his book from a chair in a gigantic South Bend lobby. Elizabeth Warren stood on a stage with a gazillion flags behind her. Howard Schultz is on a book tour, too, as people wonder if buying a venti latte is also making a political statement. A lot of people are running to be POTUS.  It's a plethora of riches. ***** Democratic Socialism is being defined in the newspapers.  Racism is roiling Virginia's governance.  Gun Safety Legislation is being passed in State Houses across the land.  Nogales wants the Feds to take down the newly-installed concertina wire; the Feds say S orry, Charlie . I'm quite confused. ***** Legislators known for their negotiating skills were tasked with finding a way to keep our government open.  Between funding a see-through-steel-barrier (see-through-steel being my favorite Trump-ism these days) and limiting the number of ICE's detention beds, we're really between a rock a...

Subject: warning shot Keeping this short... we know you're busy. We are still 22 months away from the 2020 elections, but Chuck Schumer is already recruiting a new political puppet to throw their hat in the ring and run against Martha McSally next year. Schumer's PAC has even started running television ads against Martha. Washington liberals are dying to get rid of her because they know she'll never back down to their radical agenda. This is a warning shot Friend — the fight to de-fend this seat has officially begun. ***** This assaulted me in my inbox last week.   I ignored it.  It reappeared this morning, forwarded by my Junior Senator herself.  Aside from the obvious grammatical mistakes, the content was no better than the subject. This is what I emailed in response: A WARNING SHOT???? Senator, you are the most tone deaf individual I have ever encountered.   A WARNING SHOT???? You rose to prominence in the seat held by Congresswoman Gab...

A lot goes into the creation of a garden space. Logistics is a big part of it. The hanging garden required soil.  I required help getting it into and out of my car. The salesclerk at Home Depot put the bags in the trunk.  A young woman in a UofA sweatshirt took pity on me in the school parking lot, re-parked her car, and wheeled the bags I'd dumped onto my dolly all the way into the lobby.  Perhaps, in a pre-perforated lifetime, I might have managed it myself.  This week, not so much. The rest was up to the Garden Club. Balancing the load by hand seemed simpler than moving the bags themselves. Pushing required three or four hands.  Making the curve around the empty planter led to a mini-disaster.  Having learned their lesson around the planter, the Garden Club used momentum and a lifting motion on the bags to make the turn toward the garden itself.  With the end in sight, their gazes were uplifted.  The girls got the h...

I was born at French Hospital in NYC. Daddooooo had issues with the nuns. He wanted to be certain that, if it came to a choice between saving the mother or the baby, that the Catholic hospital would choose the soul he knew (G'ma) rather than the soul they’d created (me). “I can always make another baby, but I know and love my wife.” ***** Though they had both taken LaMaze classes, Daddooooo was not allowed in the delivery room. When he first saw me, around 2am, I opened my eyes and looked at him, straight on, connecting to a part of himself that I’m not sure he knew was there. He patted my head, welcomed me to the world, and went home to sleep. ***** Mary Johnson was the baby nurse for all 3 of their children. She was tall and white and wore a uniform; I remember her wondering why Brother and I had the pots and pans out on the kitchen floor early on the morning that our sister was born. ***** Apparently, I loved Mr.Kelly, a stuffed clown with a ceramic face. When ...