A Thought For Your Weekend

TBG gets credit for finding some thing new to say, after hearing that if Trump refuses to surrender in NYC DeSantis won't extradite him:

It's awfully hard to run for President if you can't leave Florida.

Advancing the Narrative

Another School Shooting

What does it say about us that we cannot keep our children safe? We have failed as a society.

Bill Hileman
Northwest side

Watching the news, tears in his eyes, my husband looked at me and said that. Then he said it again. The third time he said that we are a failed society I typed the words into the Letters to the Editor form at the Arizona Daily Star's website and clicked Send.

I didn't ask if he minded my using his name.  We have unity of person when it comes to things like this.  

His letter was published in Wednesday's edition of the paper; I shared it with him before breakfast, explaining that my name is synonymous with gun safety here in Tucson and I wanted to amplify the message by having someone else say what was in my heart.

That's fine.  I'm glad to be the pumpernickel to your white bread.

Feel free to copy his words and be the pumpernickel in your local paper, too.

Uphill With Jemele Hill - A Short Review

Uphill is a short read. 

Jemele Hill is an advocate, a sports writer, a broadcaster (though not a very happy one), a daughter, a granddaughter, and a friend.  

What she isn't is an author.

The book details her family's personal struggles with addiction and abuse; how she came out of her childhood relatively unscathed is a minor miracle.  The book roasts ESPN's culture and leadership.  The book lauds those who took time to mentor her, but she has much more fun skewering those who thwarted her, who disrespected her, who didn't give her what she deserved.

I couldn't find fault with the facts or her interpretation of them.  What bothered me was the writing.

Ms Hill writes for the Atlantic; I've never read her work.  After finishing Uphill, I'm not sure I want to.

The book presents last names without context; I was constantly flipping back to figure out who was who. It dances around the years, back and forth, confusing the timeline and this reader.  

But the worst offenses ran throughout the entire book - subjective and objective pronouns jarringly misused on almost every page. It stopped me short, every time.

What fool wouldn't want to work at ESPN?  

Me.

She and me.  Her and I.  This makes me nuts when it comes out of the mouths of reality show contestants (Bachelorettes talking about him and I's relationship). But showing up in a book, a book edited and published by Henry Holt and Company, was more than I could take.

She was part of a high school journalism internship run by a no-nonsense, intense woman who..... called us out if we made grammatical... errors.  I wonder what that woman thought about this book.

I know that it doesn't deserve a permanent place on my bookshelves; it's going in the Sell at Bookman's bag right now.

Again

I wrote a post this morning.

Then, I watched the news.

Then I watched the reporters' microphones in front of a Highland Park July 4th shooting survivor who was visiting family in Nashville.

We have failed as a society when we can't keep the littlest among us safe in school.... or at the grocery store.... or watching a parade.

No comments today, please.  If you feel the urge to reach out,  you might phone the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and tell your elected officials how you feel.

March Madness

The madness has turned to sadness.

I have no teams left.  Princeton beating Arizona was not something I could have predicted, but it didn't matter because Alabama was out in the early rounds, too.

I was doing pretty well in the early rounds, and my picks of Furman and Creighton and Texas took me into the later rounds, but now, I'm toast.

ESPN had more than 20 million participants in their March Madness pool. I've been in the upper 90%'s since the beginning:

99.6% of the 20 million plus people who were playing were doing worse than I was.  Big Cuter encouraged me to revel, and I did. A woman at Pilates asked how much I was going to win.  Bragging Rights was my answer, and it feels like enough.

At one point I was in the top 122 thousand entrants.

I spent some time with that number. I stalked the Leader Board.  The top participants felt like my friends.  

And now, I can have a rooting interest in some of the players and some of the coaches, but I'm not invested in the event any more.  I'll watch but I won't care.

For a while, I was on top.... and it felt great.

Garden Gone Wild

 Before we start, I wanted to show you proof that, at times, Grandma's Garden is neat and organized.

2019

There is always a plan. 

Unfortunately for the plan, there are always children.

Those children need to dig and to plant and to toss seeds with reckless abandon thus destroying any hope I might have had to bring order out of chaos.  

Combined with the recent rains right at the flowering and growing window

potential mandarin oranges making their first appearance in Grandma's Garden

and their charmingly enthusiastic participation  (repeated every few weeks because, well, why not?) and my absence {due to their Spring Break and my life} today, when I arrived with the kindergarten 

I could only say Wow!

They aren't weeds, because we planted them so, by definition, they are the right plant in the right place. but whatever they are they are taller than a 6 year old.  

Did I mention how much they like to dig?

There is nothing there.  They are just digging.

That perfect set of white bows just slays me, as does the fact that she and her hair are down there, getting dirty.

No one is excluded on our Kind Campus, especially when she brings her own tools.

And speaking of those tools, it's not like I offered them up as an activity.  They were neatly stacked on the bench when I walked in, and then they were being carefully and appropriately used, albeit in random places and to no apparent purpose other than the act of digging itself.  

Along with the tools, the little fiends discovered the sidewalk chalk in the little blue tub beneath the tools, on the bench, unopened but easily disinterred from the flimsy plastic and turned into wall art for the ages.

Again, no one asked permission and no one misbehaved.  They were seasoned gardeners and knew just what to do.  

After discussing the flowering mandarin orange tree's magnificence, I offered them scallion-infused -super-powers. They were more interested in eating the lettuce than expanding their palates with a sharp taste, and I sent them off with home grown lettuce in their fists and their mouths, returning 

chalk and a tool to join the collection created by two young men who collected those left behind and stacked them neatly on the bench.  

I hadn't assigned the task.  As the whistle blew to end recess, I made a general announcement that the tools and the chalk should go back where they started out.  While politicians are busy creating a list of banned books,  I'm reaping the joys and benefits of kindergarten teachers who are making civic minded Americans, one little human at a time.    

Well Then........

I seem to have hit a nerve.

If you click through to yesterday's comments you'll see that I'm not alone in being spammed in ever more sophisticated ways.  That Olga received the same letter from a different name suggests a data base of brilliant older women who recognize nonsense when they see it.  

Carol, like TBG and I, has a landline.  Hers, like ours, is bombarded with spam.  Comcast/Xfinity labels lots of it as spam, but it still rings and rings and, sometimes it gets into my voice mail.

The worst is when TBG gets involved. Like Terry, he tends to believe what he's being told.  During Pandemica, I found myself reminding him that he was allowed to hang up the phone.  

That's what's so insidious about this.  They are getting more and more sophisticated.  The texts with misspellings and grammar with an Eastern European bent are easy to delete, and so are the gmails and the voice mails.  But it's the moment of Oh No What Now??? when my eyes first alight that I resent.

The ones arriving snail mail, in the ominous envelopes, with FINAL NOTICE BEFORE CANCELLATION in red emblazoned above the address label (often misspelled, but somehow, delivered), that send my blood pressure soaring the most.

These are nerves that should not be touched.

Hmmmmmmmm.......

Godiva Disessa <melssigutaai@hotmail.com> wrote to me last week.

Mar 14, 2023, 6:57 AM

(My Real Name),, I am reaching out from the Financial Assistance Department, where I have been assigned to assist with your recent application for hardship assistance. I have reviewed your application and am pleased to inform you that you have been pre-approved for up to $37,000 in financial support. Our program is designed to provide unique opportunities to those facing financial difficulties, and I would be honored to assist you in enrolling. To that end, I would like to schedule a call to discuss the details of the program and answer any questions you may have. If you are available, please call me back at: 8‎‎5‎5-435-523‎5, to schedule a convenient time for our call. I will be available during normal business hours, 9 AM to 6:00 PM Pacific Time, and will make every effort to accommodate your schedule. I look forward to the opportunity to speak with you soon and help you take advantage of this exciting opportunity. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely, Godiva Disessa - Financial Assistance Department   

There are so many many many ways to dissect this, I hardly know where to begin.

The Financial Assistance Department of what, I wonder?  

I haven't made a recent application for hardship assistance.  I'm not feeling much hardship right now, not more than anyone else faced with the high cost of gas (forty cents a gallon cheaper at Costco than QuickTrip this morning, but edging closer to $4 for regular once again) and airfare ($2000 for my grandkids and their parents to visit us, using one mileage-paid-for-it ticket) and eggs ($7.99 a dozen yesterday at Albertsons). 

I'm thrilled that someone wants me to have $37,000.  I just don't know why it's not $38,000 or $29,000.  Is there some magic algorithm that indicates I'd be delighted with just that amount?  This is a question I would love to investigate more fully, but I don't have the skills or the imagination to know where to start.

What do you suppose the unique opportunities might be?  Crypto?  Telemarketing?  Selling Cutco knives?  Inquiring soon-to-be-debtors want to know these things.

Social Security has sent emails and snail mails warning me about scammers preying on the elderly.  My younger friends don't seem to receive these solicitations as often as TBG and I.  

This email reminded of Daddooooo, who wrote a check to every charity that sent him a set of address labels or a key chain or even just a charming letter pleading their case.  He didn't have a lot of extra cash, and he was a sucker for a sob story.  

Those small checks he wrote to starving children and medically underserved patients and veterans needing prostheses seemed legitimate, if somewhat of a financial stretch, for a couple on a small fixed income.  But the requests were legitimate, even if they were generated by selling lists of donors.  

Godiva Disessa, on the other hand, comes straight out of the How to separate desperate people from their money playbook.  Were I in dire need of cash, no doubt I'd return her call.  She seems pleasant enough.  She's willing to meet me when and where I am. She's not shaming me for needing help, she's offering it at my convenience.  And what are those opportunities?  

Curiosity killed the cat.

I'm deleting the email as soon as I finish typing this post.

Something New in the Universe

It's not a urinal, although the comparison struck me as I posted the picture.

It's my new contact delivery system.  It made me very happy when I peeled back the lid.

Every other package I've ever opened, regardless of the manufacturer, has presented the contact floating in a round bowl.  In order to get it out, I had to pour the contents into my open palm to retrieve the contact, or scrape the finger holding the contact along the side of the bowl, trying not to break it or scratch it with my fingernail as my knuckle bent to lift it out.

But when I opened my new prescription in the new, water filled, 30 day continuous wear configuration,

I discovered that not only were the contacts themselves cutting edge technology, but the container itself had been updated.

I slid my finger into the concavity of the contact and slid it out effortlessly.  I didn't pause to be sure I wasn't cutting it with my nail or the edge.  It was on my finger and out of the package without angst.

In a world where customer satisfaction is all too often  sacrificed for ease of production and corporate profits, it's nice to see that someone is paying attention to the person who uses the product.

It's also nice to see something that I took for granted being looked at with a fresh eye.  I wonder if it was one of Temple Grandin's Clever Engineers who thought it up.  It's so obvious.

March Madness

Yes, it's a sports post.  I've tried to be clear;  I've put hints in parentheses.  

If you have no clue about any of it, you might take solace from this clip of Anderson Cooper.  

His incomprehension is magnificent.  He owns it, completely and totally.  We all have our blind spots.  I can appreciate it if you stop reading here and come back tomorrow.

But, I've been having some pithy thoughts that I'm happy to share with the rest of you, so, read on, if you care.

*****

My Arizona Wildcats lost in the first (of 6) rounds, on Thursday (the first day of the tournament weekend).  This is notable for many reasons, not the least of which is that I have them winning the whole damn thing.

Their performance was lackluster and frustrating.  They wielded those huge bodies like giant marshmallows.  I've never been 13 inches taller than another person my age, but I have to think I could prevent them from scoring at will. 

As I said, frustrating.  

*****

I could do a whole post, or at least a section right here, on NIL and foreign players, but why?  It's legalized bribery.  There's nothing else to say.

*****

I knew something, from a reliable source, that would have materially changed my picks. I felt guilty about trading on inside information, so I didn't act.  

The more I thought about it, the more ridiculous that seemed.  There are plenty of people who know something no one else know.  Why was I holding myself to a higher standard?  I was just doing what investigative journalists do; I was tracking down leads and speaking to informants.  

I spent a fair amount of time lamenting the what if's until the players themselves made everything moot.  

And, as they say, that's why they plan the game.

*****

By Sunday night, #15 Princeton had trounced #2 Arizona and  #16 Fairleigh Dickinson University sent #1 Kansas home (in what's being called the biggest upset ever).

I texted our favorite (Kansas) Jayhawk to extend our condolences.  Her reply was particularly apt: This tournament is madness.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I know nothing about the origins of the holiday.  I do know that once the boys made it clear that corned beef and cabbage and boiled potatoes did not hold a candle to pizza, Little Cuter and I began a delicious tradition of eating, ravenously, voraciously, turning to our fingers when that bite eluded the fork.  

I've missed her every March 15th since she went to college.  

Her brother in law brines his own meat, creating three huge trays, each with a different recipe, enough for the family and friends that filled his house.  I'm jealous of the food, but not the public setting.  Part of the joy I take is in the messiness, the pure hedonism, the lack of propriety or respect for anything except getting the tastes into my mouth as efficiently as I can.

I usually use a dish towel instead of a paper napkin.

I am slovenly and unapologetic.

So, for whatever reason we celebrate you, thank you St. Patrick for having a day.

******

Yes, of course, now I'll do the research.

Weeds?

I can certainly see why you'd say the were weeds.

Scruffy doesn't even come close to how unkempt it looked.

But the flowers are beautiful

                                        

and delicious

But when it's cleaned up

I think it looks more like a flowering meadow. 

Give the Customers What They Want?

I needed a large sprayer bottle.  I was in CVS and couldn't find what I wanted.  I drove across the parking lot to the Ace Hardware, parked, walked across the tarmac, approached the door..... and then my day went to Hell.

I almost didn't go in.  

I needed the sprayer.  I didn't want to waste gas driving around looking for one.  I decided to make it a teachable moment, rather than give in to my fear.

The cashier asked how I was doing.  I'm a little bit anxious, than you.

The Assistant Manager was standing next to the sprayer.  He smiled at me. I smiled back, trying for rueful, as I said that I was sad that I wasn't going to be shopping in his store any longer, now that he was selling ammunitions.

Well, ma'am, you have to give the customers what they want.

There was (to me) a lengthy pause as I stared at his face.  No, you don't, not if you care.

I lost it when he told me not to worry.  I told him about being shot with Gabby and how the first place the shooter went refused to sell him ammunition and if the second place had exercised the same kind of discretion Christina would be 21 right now.

Paying for my sprayer I asked the cashier, new to her job, if she had been trained about selling ammunition.  For the second time in a minute I was told not to worry. I'm allowed to worry.  I was shot with Gabby Giffords.  

We should all be worried. 

What I Found

I've been going through closets.  I've been finding lots of interesting things, including this: 

The cap gun is probably mine from my Annie Oakley days.  The holster looks too new for a 60 something year old leather strap and pouch.  I have no idea where it came from or why I have it.

It was startling.  I picked up a folder and my eyes got stuck.  

The boots have a high heel.  Unless Little Cuter takes ownership I guess I'll have to take responsibility.  

TBG took one look at it and said THROW IT OUT! Why do we have that?  THROW IT OUT!  

And I did.

For a while, the Annie Oakley/Calamity Jane piece of me treasured that cap gun.  I loved the lurking and the skulking and the bam-bam-shoot-em-up adventures my cousins and siblings and I had in and around our abutting yards.  

Those are powerful memories.

My, how times have changed.  

 

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood - Random Thoughts

TBG took me out to breakfast at Cryin' Onion, where the thinner-than-a-crepe-but-it's-still-a-pancake filled with blueberries drooped over the edges of the big, round plate.  

Fresh squeezed orange juice and an efficient and engaging server made up for the 10 minutes we'd spent sitting in a booth at IHOP, untended and feeling unwanted as the staff walked past, studiously avoiding our eyes, until we left, my hopes for their *NEW* BERRY TOPPED CREPES dashed.  

But the sun was out and the highway was the best way to get there and we zoomed south a couple of exits for what was, I am certain, a much better version.

*****

The sunny day tempted me to work on the weeds in the front yard.  

I pulled, I sprayed (a little - there are really too many at this point to try any other way).  I pulled some more.  

The bluebells are lovely.  Everything else is truly a weed - the wrong plant in the wrong place.

*****

I showered off the gardening and donned athletic attire - shorts and a tee shirt that I bought specifically for myself.  

It's rare that I buy those things; I'm still wearing hand me down shorts from Big Cuter (before his growth spurt). TBG continues to donate to my collection of comfortably over-sized tees.  

It felt like more than changing my clothes.  It felt like donning attire.

*****

Christina's path was filled with enough bicyclists and walkers to keep me company from a distance.  It's hardly a dangerous space, but neither was a grocery store on a Saturday morning.  I pay attention more these days.

TBG is thankful for my vigilance, which costs me nothing and is, no doubt, to my benefit.  

Plus, his concern feels like a giant hug.

*****

The Bracketology for March Madness was announced at 3pm, by which time I'd showered (again) and joined TBG in front of the television.

Arizona's playing Princeton in the first round.  I'm sure there will be more on this, but today that's all I really cared about.

*****

Veggies and marinated meat on the bbq for an early dinner, a 1950's sci-fi epic on the tube, with three or four other oldies-but-goodies ready for our viewing pleasure as soon as I finish typing to you..... life is good.

Girlfriends

I've written this before and I'm sure I'll write it again.  Girlfriends are the best.

I've had a lot of them in my life lately.  

Miss Mississippi and I talked on the phone for 90 minutes before one of us looked at the clock and we both realized we had to go.  

The Social Justice Warriors are here from Chicago; she and I walked and talked and talked and talked this afternoon and, despite her husband's fears, we'll still have more to talk about over dinner tonight.

The Chauffeur is getting Mr. 19 (in Chicago for a solo Spring Break) into the East Bank Club on a guest pass.  Being who she is, she finagled him 2 days to visit.

My daughter's smoothie recipe, a quick text from a Playgroup Mom, delightful conversations with the women who run the landscaping company and the Pilates studio and the hair salon and the doctor's office - all encounters with woman who were upbeat and helpful and smart.

I'm a lucky woman.

TFOB - Part 4 (the last one, I promise!)

There were some pretty fabulous stories at the Female Agents of Change panel.  Moderated by the former editor of the Arizona Daily Star, these women

Bobbie Jo Buel, Dahlia Lithwick, Sheri Brenden, Jemele Hill

covered topics from abortion to Title IX, stopping off at racism, sexism and Donald Trump along the way.  

Sheri Brenden's big sister was a junior in high school when she filed suit in Minnesota because her school did not have a girls' tennis team.   It wasn't a class action suit; that would have taken too much time.  She wanted to play in her senior year, not spend it in a courtroom.  She and her co-plaintiff won their suit, and the result was Title IX.   

Her proud little sister wrote the story all these years later. She's still beaming.

Dahlia Lithwick (Big Cuter: OH! From SLATE!!) had us laughing from the start.  The Supreme Court was inching closer to equality.... we could see it from our porch was her rueful description of Trump's court packing.  It is his ignorance, though, which seemed to bother her the most.  Lock her up isn't rhetoric.  The crowd couldn't have agreed more.

She said she was pushed to reveal her own #MeToo moment from years ago when younger colleagues spoke out about a judge's harassment in 2020.  Her description of the internal dialogue which took place was remarkably revelatory in a setting where she didn't know a soul.  She came to two conclusions.  You can be a Bystander or an Upstander.  There is complicity in silence.

Jemele Hill disappeared from ESPN shortly after calling out Donald Trump's racism.  A white male colleague reassured her that she'd have no trouble finding a job.  After all, they're looking for YOU.  Out of the 405 female sports writers at the event, she was the only woman of color.  I'm good, but I'm not that good was her tart response.

What made me happiest, though, was her comment at the end of the conversation about power.  I didn't know when I was young how to wield the hammer......now, I'm Thor!

*****

Alex Prud'homme, Julia Child's great-nephew, was there, too, promoting Dinner With the President and sharing stories about Presidential food and state dinners.  Here are some of my favorite bits of information, in no particular order, and with no effort made to turn them into connected paragraphs.

• Lincoln lived on apples and cornbread and coffee.
• Jackie Kennedy modeled her State Dinners on the grand parties of Louis XIV, the Sun King.
• Eisenhower like to cook.  He was good at the grill.
• The White House kitchen which prepares the State Dinners is small - 27.5' long and 22' wide.

*****

That's it for the TFOB.  It's my favorite weekend of the year for many reasons, not the least of which is that it makes for great fodder for The Burrow. 

TFOB - Part 3

Jim Nitzel, Malcolm Nance, Mark Leibovich, David Corn

I spent some time with the talking heads I see on tv every night.  They were all perfectly comfortable with their broadcast credentials - Malcolm Nance called himself a spy who talks on tv.

After spending the day watching Tucker Carlson being excoriated on MSNBC, I had a greater appreciation for this, from Major Garrett (formerly of Fox News) - Defending the truth is not BIAS!

David Corn reminded us that the GOP has always included the Far Right - Joseph McCarthy, the John Birch Society, Ronald Reagan, Pat Robertson - and then Nance was on, again.  Today's Far Right has been infiltrated by Russia, and Putin knows an idiot when he sees one.  

There were lots of heads nodding as he described Trump giving his base and the toady politicians who follow him, permission to be nasty - then they will be respected.  Switching gears and speaking directly to the C-SPAN BookTV cameras airing the event live, he called out those who were listening and thought of themselves as good Republican Trump lovers, demanding that they pay attention to what's happening in the real world. Or, his face full of disgust, call it the Trump Party and be done with it.  

Mark Leibovich shone the brightest light on the part that upsets me the most. Our Constitution is based on expectations ..... Trump exploded them.  David Corn said what we'd all been thinking: 

• The base has become radicalized. 
• The leaders are afraid of them.
• Obama's election freaked out the base.

It was a room full of believers being preached to by smart people who agreed with us.  I started to worry about being in the bubble, but then thought back to Major Garrett - Defending the truth is not bias.

TFOB - Part 2

 Do you know Temple Grandin?

She's a Colorado State University professor of animal sciences, an animal behaviorist, and an autism activist.  Labeled autistic, she didn't speak until she was three and a half.  On Saturday, she spoke eloquently and passionately and intelligently about animal behavior, the lack of shop and sewing classes in public schools, the hands on classes where visual thinkers thrived.  

Education phased out ways to enhance object visualizers she said, while bemoaning the demise of the Clever Engineer, working in the shop, inventing mechanical devices.  We've lost the ability to make things, reminding us that the chip was invented here, but isn't made here.  

There were three more take-aways I want to share:

• If I have to take a course to use the software, it's a failure.  I shouldn't have to learn to use the software.
• A young man identified himself as "on the spectrum" and asked When you're weird, how do you sell your work.   Her answer was simple and direct - You sell your work, not yourself.
• And then she explained Elon Musk.  A visual thinker, he's good at the object projects - space, cars.  Twitter is a verbal, linear program, and well out of his wheel house.

Tomorrow I'll move on to the talking heads I see on tv who came to Tucson to talk about Trump.  I'm in too good a mood, thinking about Dr. Grandin, to go down that rabbit hole this afternoon.

Tucson Festival of Books

It's my favorite weekend in Tucson.  

Free to the public, there are hundreds of author presentations, 

indie publishers hawking their wares, 

tents devoted to science and food and racial justice, and a kids' village.

There were giant games to play

and an even bigger heart to walk through.

There was a NASA Solar System Ambassador, whose explanation of gravity's effect on space actually penetrated my brain.

Her outfit was outdone only by her demeanor.  She looked that happy even when she was explaining Einstein.  (By the way, did you know that Jupiter's day is longer than its year?)

I was struck by the footwear of the men on one panel.

I was in the front row for Jemelle Hill's fabulous sneakers.  

It was sunny and in the 70's.  

Visitors were in shorts and t-shirts, blue jeans and backpacks, baby strollers and wheelchairs.

I have no idea what these two were up to.

I didn't notice Jack Sparrow until I was editing the photo.

Mostly, I was obsessed with the bathroom pompoms.

It is wonderful, as David Corn said, to be surrounded by people who love books.

We come in all shapes and sizes.

Very few of us were on our phones.

It's my favorite weekend in Tucson.

I'm Going to Walk Away

I rescued the Homeowner's Association once before, offering up Fast Eddie to fill the leadership vacuum.  He healed schisms and settled disputes, his folksy charm belying a canny intellect.  He loved doing it as he eased into a full retirement.  The neighborhood thrived under his gentle guidance.  

Then he moved away and, once again, I had a hand in convincing another charming and intelligent person to take on the job.  She's a pleasure to work with, running crisp meetings that end in record time.

Through it all, I've been the Landscape Committee.  My duties involve tending to any egregious excesses.  Lifting the tree impinging on the roadway was my major accomplishment.  Over the past 10 or so years, I've probably spent 2 hours on landscaping issues.  

But I'm done.  I don't want any more meetings in my life.  I don't want responsibilities that don't bring me joy.  I'm embarking on the Adulthood of Old Age, and I want to make the most of it.

The most of it doesn't include my HOA.

SNOW

I opened the blinds to this:

It just got better.

The sun came up.

I'm driving to pilates,  then walking with Taos Bubbe. More pictures may follow. 

Snow in the desert..... living here never ceases to amaze me.