The Burrow

We're surprised that it's cool outside, often neglecting a jacket as we head to the gym in the early morning hours.  Once the sun has been up for a while, we can sit outside and read; it will take many more degrees before swimming is plausible.  There's really no excuse - I ought to be walking outside. ***** The roses are pruned back to leaf-less-ness, the canes nicely shaped into an outward-facing bush.  Both Katie at  Rillito Nursery  and Dr. Google agree that it's hard to cut too much.  Apparently, roses are quite hardy.  ***** While pruning, my garden guy and I discussed that orange faced menace  (his words) and impeachment.  While the details escaped him, the major facts were at his fingertips.  No amount of Presidential obfuscation clouded his conclusion that the guy's a crook, has been his whole business career, this is no different.   It was the clearest description of this transactional presidency as I'd heard in a wh...

I thought it was pretty simple:: Take a plastic cup (no, it didn't matter if you took a red on e or a blue one) Use the big Sharpie to write your name on the cup Make sure Grandma Suzi pokes a hole in the bottom of your cup Fill your cup with soil from a yellow bag Come back and I'll give you an onion or 3 seeds I thought it was pretty obvious: The cups were big and bright 20 oz ribbed plastic If your name isn't on the cup, how will you know it is yours? The hole is either there, or not There were two, bright yellow, 50 qt bags in the garden... and it's not that big a space FILL.... not Put a Little Bit You are not done until you have planted something I'll grant that the hole in the bottom of the cup was counter-intuitive when they were supposed to fill it up, but the hole was made by a small, pointed pruner, not a lot of soil would bleed through, and the water would make its way out of the cup so the plant didn't moulder and die from drown...

My Brother participates in life.  He's an enthusiastic and keen observer of the world around him.  He makes me laugh and I love him.  Today, I'm sharing him with you.  Enjoy! ***** It was a nice day, so I put on my hat and went downtown to see what this country is all about. This crowd was much smaller than the first anti-Trump Women’s March. This group was very ruly, walking slowly along Constitution Ave toward the Capitol.   In 2017, the unruly Womens’ Marchers ignored their assigned parade route, meandered along both Constitution and Independence Avenues, trampled the grass on the mall, and stood in long lines for the hundreds of porta-potties. I arrived after the President addressed the crowd.  Heavy security (the Secret Service has their own magnetometers) meant an hours long wait to get through the checkpoints if you wanted to pay homage.  Anyway it’s better viewing on tv. If you haven’t noticed, there is a religious war goin...

The news got worse as the day went on.  More girls and moms and dads gone in a flash.  TBG was obsessed; I tried to avoid it.  That quickly became impossible; it was on the national news as well as the sports news and on the radio and all over the inter-webs.  I saw nothing about the civil suit he settled when he was 25 and accused by a 19 year old hotel employee of rape.  A WaPo reporter was put on paid leave for tweeting about it; I suppose it was too soon to look at the whole picture.  But I wasn't focused on Kobe the superstar.  I was stuck on his family, one sister gone and three without their daddy.  I couldn't get Payton Chester out of my mind, nor Alyssa Altobelli, 8th graders... just on the cusp.... full of life.... riding to an away game with the coach.... a scene that, perhaps without the helicopter, is familiar to lots of us.   I was stuck with all those families who now exist in a Before and After world. The professiona...

I've seen almost every episode of Law'n Order aired before 2011; I knew what was coming when I stopped in front of the television.  I don't know why I stayed, why I watched, but I did.  A perfectly lovely moment doing just what they should have been doing became a woman cradling a shot and dying loved one's head and saying exactly. what. I. said. to Christina-Taylor. I knew it was coming;  I didn't know it would leave me sobbing.  But there I was,  hanging onto to TBG, having all the feelings that are usually locked up in a box in my head pouring out of my eyes onto the front of his sweatshirt. I was fine once the feelings were aired out and wiped off and the lip replaced, gently, on the box.  And then, today, Kobe Bryant and his 13 year old daughter died.  The lid is going to need a new latch pretty soon.

TBG and I were obsessed with the run up to Impeachment.  We watched everything, hearing over and over again the same (to our ears) wonderful arguments. The President obstructed, and there was proof. The President broke the spirit of the law, and there was proof. The GAO says the President broke the law, and there was proof. Then the Articles were walked over to the Senate and my will was snapped. I cannot listen to Jay Sekulow.  I cannot spend waking hours watching grown ups willfully misconstrue the facts. I feel terrible.  Adam Schiff is brilliant, but I've been catching him in the car on NPR, not sitting down for a binge civics lesson. Am I a bad citizen? 

They like to dig. They like to make pies and cakes and piles,  but mostly they like to dig.   It makes them happy. They use the plastic trowels and the plastic shovel without complaining. Today, they were satisfied with the slow but steady pace the rain-softened soil allowed, working together to loosen the soil between our trees.  There were issues regarding the redistribution of the dislocated soil. Some were brought to my attention with a great sense of urgency.  Some were resolved by talking it through.  And some were more possessive of their soil than others. Digging. I have to come up with a creative use for digging. And you thought you had problems?

On the theory that I am more likely to keep it if I announce it, here is my Resolution for 2020: I will look for ways to de-clutter my life.  I will try to give away that which will give others joy. I'm not going all Marie Kondo  on my life, and there is one obvious reason why.  The woman can manage to keep her book collection to "30 at any one time" .  That's a non-starter for me. What I can manage to accomplish, I think, is getting rid of that which is no longer useful, necessary, important, applicable, attractive, interesting, or likely to be touched again in my lifetime.  Having all those descriptors helps when do I want this any more? is too big a question to answer. Some items are easy.  Those jeans haven't gotten past my hips in years; what makes me think that any amount of diet and exercise will make it happen in the future?  Gravity is not letting go of my abdomen any faster now than it was when last I wore them.  I weigh about the...

At least, for the moment, my tank is empty.  I've had my fill of shouting at the wind. I've been angry and anguished and articulate on the phone and in the ether.  I've enlisted others in the fight and reached out to long lost friends who might be eager to raise their voices alongside mine. I've gone upstream as far as I can.  I've been through my address book.  I refined my written response and my talking points until I had to stop because they no longer made sense. I went to sleep upset and I woke up the same way.  I have very little hope.  The issue requires some reading (an article or the whole Report) and writing (which could be cut-and-paste) and putting your name out there on an issue that is bound to be contentious, if not down-right hostile.  As usual, I acted before I thought about the ramifications of my screed.  Though edited for clarity and tightness, the current version is just as furious as its predecessors.  I'm stil...

I did not know that today is the only Federal Holiday specifically promoting the idea of service to the community. I find it odd that I, of all people, missed out on this important bit of information.  Doesn't it seem like the kind of thing that would be right up my alley?  Getting people together to do a good deed - that's what floats my boat.  How did this slip past me? I ought to go to the Tucson Village Farm , since it was their article in the paper that alerted me to the call to service.  I could drop off the extra diapers and wipes at the Diaper Bank after I leave the snacks the kids didn't eat when they visited at the ICS Food Bank .  I worked with TBG to go through his closet this weekend; I could drop off his discards at the Amphi Clothing Ban k. I could paint at Ben's Bells , doing good while soothing my soul.  I know I'll take a few moments to think about the man himself.  Flawed, certainly.  But brave and literate and ...

For those of you who are shoveling and freezing, I offer this second bloom of the rose bush which lives outside our bedroom window. I'm sure you all have good reasons to live where it's too cold to walk outside and smell the roses.  I hope this helps to ease the pain.

Yesterday,  I said I was done with the news.  Today, I couldn't get enough of it. I'm fickle.  I admit it.  Feel free to judge; I've been laughing at myself all day. It seems that the tabloid pieces of this impeachment are annoyingly tempting to my feeble psyche.  I'm enthralled by Lev Parnas's hair styling and the giant buttons on Nancy Pelosi's suit.  I'm wading deep into the weeds of Firtash and Shokin, just so I can be appalled. It's humiliating, but it's true, and truths are part of what I promise you every day.  Is it coincicental that the House Intelligence Committee released the unclassified documents showing a direct link between ou President and Lev Parnas on the same day that the Clerk of the House led a parade of legislators to the floor of the Senate to present two Articles of Impeachment Against Donald John Trump. I have no reason to speak to any of those officials. They have no reason to speak to me. Why would ..(officials)...

I could justify it starting at Thanksgiving and through the first weekend of the new year.  Why would I let the talking heads detract from the joy of the season? I kept track of the major events; I followed the machinations as they became facts. Other than that, I found it very easy to ignore the babbling, the what if 's, the commentary devolving into the subjunctive.  I was surrounded by brownies and ribbons and lists of those I love; I was perfectly happy to believe in Nancy Pelosi's judgment and move on from there.  And then my family arrived and the tv was rarely on and the newspapers piled up and I hardly listened to NPR. Before I knew it, we were almost at war with Iran, and then we weren't; the Democrats were dropping like flies and spending and raising crazy amounts of money; the Astros didn't deserve to win the World Series, and maybe the Red Sox didn't either. I don't want to know about it.  I don't want to dwell in that space.  I really enjo...

Rillito Nursery donated it, the Prince Mustangs carried it across the playground, Garden Club watered it, and, last week, at long last, we planted it. This is how it happened. It took all of us, using all the plastic tools, and 2 days of digging,  until we were able to be proud of this small dent in the earth.  Obviously, drastic measures were necessary. Grandma brought her pointy shovel from home and, after the littlest gardeners left, brought it out to the garden. Great progress was made.by rhose who could be trusted with an adult tool, those who understood the limitations of the pink and blue trowels, those who appreciated the capabilities of my shovel.  Even so, I didn't take my eyes off them for a second.  The shovel went deep and the shovel went wide, and the hole grew and grew. The loosened soil was collected in the green barrow and mixed with the Happy Frog amendment,   creating a nutritious backfill for the roo...

Actually, we stumbled over that and settled on laughing as I said "We've been friend for a long time." We fell into one another's arms the way you do with a woman you used to see several times a week, in and around town, at meetings and doing good deeds with our daughters, at parties and on girls' nights out in the city. We all left Marin when our kids finished school there; since then we've kept in touch on the interwebs. But she was traveling with her husband and their son, for business, and they'd be in Tucson on Thursday.  A plan was made. I saw her sitting at the table in the lobby where wares are hawked.  I noticed and disregarded the customers. I pushed aside a folding chair, and listened to her describing us as old????? friends....ugh. as we hugged, and looked at one another, and hugged and smiled and got teary all at the same time. Our girls are mothers themselves, now.  We, of course, haven't changed a bit.  We were so very glad to se...

And what did I do with my aching heart and my weary soul on the anniversary of my perforation? I did what I have done every year - I spent fifteen minutes around 10:10am weeping, then I went to Prince Elementary School. I stood on the playground, spread my arms wide, and announced, to no one in particular, Grandma needs a hug. Thus proving, once again, that it is impossible to be sad when surrounded by little ones. 

(I posted the first version of this post on January 9, 2014; I'm using it 6 years later, once again, as a Day After entry. If it moves you, go out of your way to thank someone who keeps you safe.) ***** In the telling and retelling of the story of my perforation, there is one question that is always asked:  "Did it hurt?" My answer is always the same: "Not until the paramedic said, 'Hang on, Ma'am, this is really gonna hurt,'  just before he plunged a needle into my knee." This is the story of how I we met again, exactly three years later. photo by The Firefighter There have been anniversary celebrations and commemorations and speeches and films and discussions and bell ringings and flag raisings and I can't imagine that any of them were as moving as the simple event outside the Pima County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday morning. TBG and I arrived a few minutes before 10am.  There was a shiny (is there really any other ...

It doesn't have any other name.  It doesn't make the list of mass shootings on the chyrons.  It was a big deal and then not so much of one and every now and then it comes around again. 1/8/19 ***** It feels like yesterday and it feels like history and it's always a fact. It's with me, the prickly pieces usually resting in their box in the back corner of my mind, the consequences tickling the edges of my consciousness, the background noise of my life. I'd do it again.  I'm not sorry we went.  I wish it had never happened. 1/8/18 ***** I look fit and put-together.... and I know that CTG will still have comments. I love that about her; it makes her who she is: a perfect little girl who is quite pleased with herself, with the world, with life in general.  She wants everyone to be just as happy as she is.... and that seems to include accessories these days, at least for this 9 year old. 1/8/15 ***** I stand on a platform held up by the souls of those lost a...

Do you think it is cold in here because there are fewer bodies warming it up? I asked TBG yesterday. ***** Every time I turn a corner, wondering who's on the couch or in the refrigerator or trying not to fall into the pool, I'm heart-tugged as I remember that there's no one here but the two of us. The quiet is lovely.  Being back on a regular exercise routine has calmed my limp.  But that's it.  I've thought about it all day and those are the only two benefits I can see. There are no random hugs, no slobbery kisses, nobody shorter than I am.  I have to do my own cooking and empty my own dishwasher.  Groceries no longer magically appear.  All of that happened under my adoring gaze, without my lifting a finger, as those who run their own homes moved easily into taking care of mine. I had fun polishing the counters and swiffering the floors, but mostly I enjoyed watching others work. ***** FlapJilly set the table, keeping track of how many place sett...

In all my years of blogging, I"ve been diligent about posting.  The only time I missed a day was when bullets perforated my self..... up until last week, when fun just got in the way. We celebrated the new year until 2am... a new indoor/outdoor record for TBG and me.  The grown ups sat outside, drinking the champagne that had been saber-ed open as the year turned, sharing family stories.  Wrapped in blankets against the cooling night air, I watched the ones I love fall in love with one another all over again.  Their faces watching their faces...... it doesn't get better than that. I reveled, I kvelled, I watched the grown-ups who are my family remember and tease and giggle as the past came to life, sometimes immediately and once, from Big Cuter, several conversations after the question had been answered by the rest of us.  No one cared; we went back to where he was without a moment's hesitation.....well, after laughing, gently, at Big Cuter being Big Cuter...