The Burrow

I post about unions every Labor Day.  The first paragraph of the post sets the tone: 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. *****  The New York Times  ran a lengthy op ed  last week, wondering  Why Do We Pay So Many People So Little Money .  It's a long piece, well referenced, from varying viewpoints. It made clear economic arguments which, to me, are often abstruse and obtuse and arcane. It's worth reading, if only to see that no one thinks what is going on right now is sustainable for much longer. ***** Gig workers aren't employees so Uber doesn't pay into the tax system which supports the social safety net, putting the burden on those of us who do pay taxes. Investors in Uber are ...

If you don't want to read it, I understand.  My feelings won't be hurt.  Not one little bit.  But this has been boiling up in my head all week long.  I look at it from different angles, trying to find a way out. I attempt to put myself in their shoes.... and I start to hyperventilate. Masks.  I'm in a dither over masks.  Maybe it's the way I was raised.  G'ma lost one of the few friends she had when the woman absolutely refused to fasten her seatbelt.  G'ma's car didn't move until everyone was buckled up  That was the rule.  It was smart, it was the law, and She Said So.  There was no argument.  Her friend wouldn't get in the car if she had to wear a seat belt, and that was that. To say that the incident made a lasting impression on me would be the understatement of the  pandemic.  You go to the wall for your principles.  There are consequences.  Deal with it. That science would take a back seat to...

FlapJilly is quite proud of the fact that she conducts her entire Getting Ready for Bed Routine independently. Showering (a big step up from a bath), brushing her teeth, putting on lotion.... she's on top of the whole thing. Mama has to set the water temperature, though, and that's where we went today on our daily FaceTime visit.  Giblet followed us, because he is obsessed with his sister.  While the women in his life worked on adjusting the flow, he climbed the step stool and demonstrated his dexterity with FlapJilly's electric toothbrush over the sink. It was an adorable background to catching up with our little girl, who's a short order cook for three hungry family members, when she's not being a full-time professional at the University of Notre Dame, a housekeeper, a gardener, or an excellent parent.   Giblet was wandering around the bathroom as Little Cuter sat on the floor in the hall outside the door and FlapJilly continued to wash every body part thoroug...

Thank you for your comments on yesterday's post.  Thank you for so many, many reasons. It always amuses me when the trivial posts attract attention.  Little Cuter told me today that it doesn't always have to be profound , and that made me feel better. But, more than that, it was your easy acceptance of the importance of the mundane.  Naming it, describing it, validating it - all that happens publicly, right here in The Burrow.  I never want to let you down.  It's nice to be reminded that you enjoy the simple things, too. And now, since nothing much has happened (beyond the further erosion of trust in our judicial system) since yesterday, I'm done.

Walter Brennan asks that question in To Have and Have Not .   It's a window into the soul of the respondent.  Yesterday, I sat on a (possibly dead) bee, and asked TBG the same question. The bee was certainly dead by the time I smacked it into the pool and TBG skimmedit Some minor surgery with a pointy tweezer removed the stinger.  There was no swelling nor lines of red poison flowing through my veins.  The nerve into which the bee inserted himself is sore, and announces itself with authority every time I change position.  According to Dr. Google, this combination of symptoms is called a Large Localized Reaction. ***** It is now obvious to me that I really do miss my old life.  My blog has turned into drivel, and for that, I apologize. The fact is, sitting on a bee is the most interesting thing that's happened to me all week.

Let's see..... The Trump campaign flubbed the rally.  Why they didn't just move the whole thing outdoors when the crowds didn't materialize is a mystery to be solved in Tell-All books.  Seeing a defeated man shlumping off Marine 1 last night gave me some measure of hope for America. https://tinyurl.com/ybfm48zz The Attorney General of the United States of America has decided that he is the Attorney General for the President of the United States.  I found myself hoping that the copy machines at SDNY are working overtime, placing the documents the Criminals In Chief want to suppress in as many hands as they can. Professional sports are grappling with the same issues as public schools - everybody wants us, nobody can tell us how to do it safely.  Will we open?  Sure....... without fans, for sports, okay..... but schools without students just doesn't seem like school. Governor Ducey finally allowed local municipalities to decide their own fate; Tucs...

He's younger than I am.... a fact he delights in sharing.   He stopped shaving for a while, and sported a full beard.  Not many men look better with a lot of facial hair; my brother is one who does.  He didn't scratch it or pull at it or play with it.  It sat there, on his face, making him look distinguished and delightful. His wife's not crazy about it, so it comes and goes; quarantine has seen its triumphant return (on Zoom). He's all about balance - work, family, friends, exercise, religion, sex, learning, and adventures all have a place in his life.  He wears sneakers everywhere; they are comfortable and why not? He drives a Chevy and a pickup truck and a Miata, a recent addition that makes him very very very happy.  He carries a collapsible bike in his car, and  cycles near and far .  He doesn't believe that large metal tubes should fly through the air; his car takes him where he wants to go when he wants to go there.  He's driven b...

As the national news catches up to the fact that there are people who don't live on either coast, the Bighorn Fire has attracted a lot of attention from people who love me.  Things are replaceable.  You two are not!  I smiled about Little Cuter's text for quite a while.  Brother wrote and called and we chatted up a storm, which was quite an accomplishment given that neither of us has done very much since March.  Big Cuter was part of a larger parade of You guys are okay, right?  calls and emails and texts, all devolving into the minutiae of our daily lives. It was an oddly normal set of interactions in this weirdness.  In case you, too, were wondering, this is what it looked like at sunset on Wednesday.   No filter.

Aunt Jemima is going away. A 26 year old with a gun and a taser and a partner and a badge kicked a dying man after shooting him in the back. John Bolton saved the evidence he should have given during the impeachment hearings for a book he's leaking today.  A friend has Valley Fever, not Covid.... and somehow pneumonia and a hard to treat fungal infection feels like good news. Trump fans are lining up now before going inside tomorrow night to a masks-optional scream-a-thon. Johnny Weissmuller is swinging on vines with Jane, as TBG wonders how Tarzan manages to stay clean shaven.  I'm going to turn on the grill and ponder that last one for a while.

Today, our President told us that we don’t know what we want. I almost knew what he meant (which is in itself cause for concern).  It’s a lot like how I used to describe what a social worker did. We stand on the outside of the doors with our hands pressed firmly, holding them shut.  Behind those doors are your nightmares, your disturbances, your issues.  We do our best to shield you. You really don’t want to see what would happen if we stepped away.  You want us there. And that was supposed to be happening now.  Crisis Teams, willing to go into volatile situations with their wits and their hearts, leading with compassion instead of weaponry.  It sounded just like the job for me - in the middle of things, in the moment, present at the event itself.  The long term solutions could be left to those more inclined in that direction; I was more of an Emergency Room medic than a rehabilitation specialist. Well, that was how I envisioned my future.  U...

I took every course on Adolescent Development that Cornell's College of Human Ecology had to offer.  Juvenile justice, adult probation, mentoring a high schooler - I was preparing for a career touching the edges of policing, but defined from a social welfare perspective Deinstitutionalization was the order of the day.  Community Mental Health Centers, with robust outreach efforts, would provide services to those in need, monitoring successes and trying to head off disasters.  Young offenders would be engaged in community based job training and education and service programs, funded by the generosity of the federal government.  By the time I went on to graduate school, that generosity was no where to be found.  Those CMHC's never materialized.  Those people who had been, and would have been, housed in mental health facilities were now roaming the streets.  Their behaviors were still cause for concern.... and there was no one to answer to call except...

And while Mama was working, I was sitting below her doing my work in a workbook. What kind of workbook?  Letters or numbers? Numbers, of course.  It was numbers.  It was Addition and.................. and ............ and........ .................and....... (i nsert sigh, giant hair shake, and shoulder shrug before she looks back at the camera and says, emphatically )  ..... and Not Addition. Oh. Subtraction? That's it!  But Not Addition is the opposite so............. and we moved on to another topic while Grampa and Gramma smiled at this glimpse into the brain of an almost-6-year-old human. (P.S. Her teacher sometimes says "take away" just like Grampa.)

No, we have not had to evacuate. Driving east after picking up my prescription at the drive-through window today, the white cloud of smoke was appreciably larger than it had been yesterday.  The air is misty even here, about 4 miles from the edge of the evacuation area.   I received an email from an evacuee, asking for help since her files are at home .   Those who are fleeing live on the foothills of mountain that is afire.  Foothills are rolling mounds, created by the accumulation of detritus that eroded down the face and piled up at the base.  There are lots lovely homes occupied by many people I know; the Happy Ladies Club is reaching out to see what we can do. Covid-19 makes relocating a nightmare.  Triple digit temperatures add an extra layer of awful to packing up and getting out.  The Sheriff's Department went door to door, making sure every resident knew that they were at GO!   I guess Trump and plague weren't enough.  We'r...

Black Lives Matter is more than a slogan.   There are programs and global actions (and a gift shop, of course) and there's Campaign Zero.   Somewhat less controversial than defund the police  (which should really be called reallocate resources), these eight steps to reform policing have been proposed nationwide. As of Wednesday afternoon,  two cities in the United States have adopted them. San Francisco is one of them, probably to no one's surprise. Tucson, Arizona is the other. I have never been as happy to call it home.

The weather was perfect here in Tucson, breezy, sunny, mid-80's, not a cloud in the sky. I had access to all the exercise I needed,  on my own schedule. I had choices in the fridge for lunch, and I prepped most of tonght's dinner yesterday. FlapJilly received the letter Grampa and I sent, and we opened it together, on FaceTime, as Giblet put items into and out of a plastic container on the floor behind her. And..... Georgians are waiting hours to vote. A friend has a fever and body aches and has to wait days for the results of the Covid test because no one in Tucson seemed to have the results-in-15-minutes kind. Our President has a new network, OANN, to which I am not linking, nor am I repeating his tweet justifying a grown man pushing an old man to the ground. George Floyd went to rest in a white, horse drawn carriage. https://tinyurl.com/y7wyxa68 And.....  when I looked for an image to upload, I had choices from the Hindustan Times and Voice of America a...

Though the studio is open in a thoughtful way, I won't be taking Pilates in public for a while.  I just don't feel safe spending a prolonged period of time indoors, one on one, face to face with my instructor. But, I love Pilates and I can't be without it, not if I want to keep walking in something approaching a normal gait, that is.  Classes are offered on-line, and that's been working fairly well for me, but they are scheduled to end this month.  I signed up for the alternative - a monthly fee to access 72 (and counting) classes anytime I want. The process was simple, the email explaining it was simple, and I was all ready to jump in and start sweating to my laptop when a random sentence caught my eye. I could watch it on my tv.  The email said it was simple.  Vimeo had videos to guide me through it. I clicked through to them, scrolled down to watch on your tv, and saw the time stamp on the video - 6 yrs. People have known about this for six years....

I wrote graduation cards to TBG's cousin's kids.  I met his cousin when she was 6 or 7 years old; we sat on the floor in the corner of her aunt's living room, playing gin (she won.... she always won) as she identified the newest arrivals. Uncle Bill.  Uncle Bill.  Uncle Chuck.  Cousin Bill.  Cousin Chuck.  Uncle Bill. Billy.  Bill.   I kid you not.  They were all at least 6' tall, and except for her father, they were all Bill or Chuck.  It should have made it easier.  It didn't. But, I digress. I have vivid memories of her childhood, but I've never met her children.  Congratulating a high school senior isn't hard to do, but I wanted to have something personal to say.  Google Photos shows me pictures from years gone by.  Today I saw FlapJilly in a sunhat, munching on her toes in 2015 which, except for the sparkly eyes, looks nothing like this taken Thursday, where she's celebrating her kindergart...

(To the 16 people who read this when it was poorly formatted, please try again!) ***** I clicked through from the morning newsletter to read this: Stacey Abrams: I Know Voting Feels Inadequate Right Now because I never think that voting feels inadequate. When I got there, this is what the page looked like: Opinion Stacey Abrams: I Know Voting Feels Inadequate Right Now And I wondered if anyone paid attention... as I was mildly thinking about Stacey Abrams's breasts....and then I got mad. I'm trying to assume that ad placement has more to do with size than the article it accompanies. I'm having a hard time hanging on to that fantasy. I wondered if the same person would have put one of those delightful Duluth Underwear commercials atop Tom Cotton's anti-American screed. And wondering what Tom Cotton has filling those Buck Naked Briefs might have distracted me from his words.... before I was forced to leave this page and cram my brain with something .... anything.....

Amster made a good point a week or so ago - eventually eveyone will have to leave home.  Eventually, we all will have to engage with the world.  Her clients can't wait two years before a jury can be empanelled.  The world cannot be put on hold. But how and why and when and what constitutes a good reason - all that remains in flux.  Newsweek called out the CDC for failing when it was needed most.  Statistics are being compiled in a haphazard way, often conflating the results of PCR and antibody tests, using hospital data on morbidity to describe a more nuanced reality,  Dr. Fauci hasn't been heard from since last month.  The Bay Area is opening up slowly; Arizonans can get their hair cut anytime they can get an appointment. Consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but right now this little mind would like some clarity. I'm dwelling on this because I have a situation.  The owner of the land across the street from us is going before th...

Little Cuter created a Kindness of Calendar for her graduating kindergartner. Every day has a different activity, starting with June 1st:   Volunteer to do the dishes after a meal. FlapJilly was faced with the detritus of baking and snacking and dinner.  She was unfazed. It was a problem to be solved, an organizational dilemma that was right up her alley.  That which did not go into the machine was washed by competent hands in the sink.   And Mama didn't have to do anything at all. It's been a tough week for the grown-ups; kindness certainly helped.

I was in need of solace today.  My President decided to comfort me by manhandling a Bible in front of a church; he moved 10,000 peaceful protesters seeking redress of their grievances to do so.  I'm sure some people are impressed by this.  I am not. I didn't want to hear about federal troops securing the populace (read: property).  I wanted hope and guidance and love and reassurance that, somehow, we will figure this out together.  I didn't need someone with the answers.  I needed someone willing to engage the conversation, with an open heart and a hug whenever necessary. I needed my Mommy.   I didn't want a picture.  I wanted to spend time with her.  I took out her recipe for Stuffed Cabbage (Holishkes) and started to smile before the index cards were settled on the counter. She kept her recipes in a metal card box, with alphabetical separators and smudges of meals gone by.  If you look closely, you can see her smi...

I have all these thoughts. My head tends to explode as I follow them. I keep trying, but I have no way to make sense.... If part of being an ally is opening myself to the anguish...... FlapJilly loves her Facebook Messenger app because she and I can chat.... if Mama gives her the phone....on which she saw something that led them to a conversation about skin color and how some people think it makes a difference and the importance of standing up when people are mean because of skin color and my favorite little girl's face appeared over her mother's shoulder, nodding her agreement with a fierce and determined and certain mien as my daughter and I tried not to cry........ https://bensbells.org/ Ben's Bells  organized a clean-up in Downtown Tucson on Saturday morning, after protest turned to destruction on Friday night, and the only thing more absurd than the oxymoron of Downtown Tucson  is breaking the windows of the local businesses who support it .... and then I go o...