The Burrow

Our local NPR outlet ran a story about the increase in burn cases seen in local ER's.  Apparently, asphalt in full sun in triple digit temperatures without a cloud in the sky reaches either 150  or 180  degrees Fahrenheit.   That's enough to cause second degree burns, which they are seeing on addicts who fall asleep on the pavement and on the elderly, who fall and cannot get up.  Just thinking about G'ma's thin skin on the hot sidewalk makes me cringe. It would separate like tissue paper in a flame. There's a lot to be worried about as we age.  I don't think that burning sidewalks ought to be one of them. The Babe Ruth League Indiana State Champion 8U Eastside girls are driving from the Chicago area to Louisville for the Regional Tournament.  They haven't been able to practice outdoors because the smoke from the Canadian wildfires has caused their air to be unsafe.  They are on their way to a Ring of Fire, with heat advisories galore....

I've been spending a lot of time with my parents in the past few weeks.  With a new baby in the family, there's lots of kvelling (delighted bragging over good news) to be done.  Daddooooo would really appreciate this .   They were married 73 years ago today, June 29th, a Thursday.  Just like today. I don't remember many significant gifts they exchanged, beyond the custom jewelry from Daddooooo's silversmith friend.  But I do remember the green glass vase he bought one Mother's Day, while we were at the nursery buying her annual gardenia corsage.   G'ma could never have something fragile; it'll just get broken.  She said it.  We assumed she meant it.  That morning, we held an impromptu family meeting decided to prove her wrong. The vase sat on an end table in my parents' living room from my pre-teen years until the house was sold.  It moved with her to New Jersey and two places in Tucson, and then, when she died, I t...

On the plus side, I did remember to bring the 30 pairs of new socks to my friend at Pilates this morning.  She'll distribute them to the women who live on the street and find food and comfort where she volunteers. Those socks have been waiting to be delivered for a month; it felt good, finally, to send them on their way. I was feeling pretty good about life in general this morning.  The bagel store had perfectly toasted lovelies to go with the lox and cream cheese I had at home. The line at the post office was just long enough for me to browse the card selection and select a smiley note for my grandson, who, his mother informed me, will be happy to receive mail addressed to him and him alone. There were lots and lots of pretty new stamps to buy, and I did. Tomie dePaola's Strega Nona, endangered animals with glossy, sticker like pictures, Roy Lichtenstein's Pop Art, and some elephants and flowers just because.  The sailboats are for postcards.  After making my purcha...

The leaves on the trees have folded in upon themselves, exposing as little to the air as possible.   I've done the same, wearing as little as possible and interacting with the sun only when I must.  If I'm not out of the pool by 9am, I'm not going in at all.  By then, the water temperature is in the mid-nineties; there are days when I wish for a shower of ice cubes to cool things down .   Despite slathering lotion and spraying SPF50 on every available surface, just walking through a parking lot leaves me with tingly arms.  Taos Bubbe and I went to the Grateful Dead Meet Up movie in a semi-abandoned mall on Saturday afternoon.  Google Maps couldn't find the theatre and neither could we.  We wandered past empty big box stores, deterred by security fencing from exploring further.  Plus, it was really really hot, too hot to do anything but get into my car and drive around the parking lots until we stumbled on the building.  We parked 3 ...

They are the Indiana State Champions. They play in the Babe Ruth Softball 8U Division.  After a weekend of elimination games, sometimes coming from behind, sometimes crushing their opponents, they proved themselves to be the best in the land. Much excitement ensued.   They move on to Regionals next weekend..... in Louisville, Kentucky.  Air fare from Tucson is more than $1100 per grandparent.  It's a 26 hour drive.  Just looking at the map is exhausting. We'll be relying on live updates from the excellent app Little Cuter, channeling my thoughts, just sent me.   Should they win it all and move on to the World Series, the games will be held on  Florida's Treasure Coast.  Fort Pierce,  home of the Federal Courthouse in which Donald Trump will be tried, anchors the northern end of the Treasure Coast. I'm not considering attending in person.   It's not only the fact that it would hurt my soul to spend money in Ron ...

We're watching Stewart Granger movies, starting with The Prisoner of Zenda (a scene for scene recreation of the original ). We are in sports deprivation season, the time when the Tour de France is TBG's only opportunity to watch grown ups participate in sports.  If we lived closer, we'd be spending time at the softball field, watching what could end up in six games on the way to a state championship and a trip to Regionals in Kentucky.. Instead, we'll rely on our favorite photographer/wife of the coach/mother of the player for updates, and consider taking a trip to the Bluegrass State. Little Cuter and I relived memories of her travel soccer team's trips to Ft. Bragg and Ukiah (twice in 8 days) and Los Gatos.  She told me that a middle school teammate's daughter was now playing on the same field their moms once called home.   What goes around comes around, in lots of wonderful ways.  I've been smiling about this all day.

I have the best brother. Don't argue with me.  It's true. He's the glue that binds me to my sister.  She doesn't read The Burrow.  Therefore,  I'm free to say that she's often been a difficult presence in my life without running the risk of her not talking to me for months.  I enjoy her company when she's not being a lunatic.  I'm sure she'd say the same about me.  But every year, Brother creates a conference call so that we can sing her Happy Birthday. He laughs when I promise to hang up when she misbehaves.  He doesn't scold.  He understands. He understands that we are all screwed up in our own little ways, but that the common thread running through us is one deserving of respect.  I'm glad someone is alert to keeping the flame alive. He's a collector of interesting pieces of wood, which he turns into interesting decor or alligators with wheels and a jaw that opens and closes as it rolls along. He's the occasional drop-in-for-dinner...

Among the more inane defenses the talking heads have come up with for the lying liar, maybe he just didn't understand  is the most infuriating. The man was in charge of the whole country for four years.  Will his lawyers say that he's really that dumb?   Let's look at what he might not understand, shall we?   He keeps insisting that the papers are his.  Can that possibly be construed from the verbiage of the Act itself? (3) The term "personal records" means all documentary materials, or any reasonably segregable portion thereof, of a purely private or nonpublic character which do not relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President. Seems pretty obvious to me that maps and plans and documents marked Classified would relate to Presidential duties. ***** Hunter Biden is a troubled souls.  So is the lying liar.   Hunter Biden struggles with addiction....

School always started the Wednesday after Labor Day and ended right around Brother's birthday, the 22nd of June.  For some reason, schools here in Tucson think it's wise to let the kids run free when it's 104 degrees in the shade and no one is playing outside.  Summer Break starts in mid-May and school begins again the 1st week in August. So, vacation is halfway over this week, and I haven't begun any of the Grandma's Garden projects that are on the To Do List.  I haven't called the irrigation specialist nor ordered the cedar planters nor figured out where the tubing is for the hanging baskets we received from a Federal grant program.   It's a matter of an hour or so, and then the actual work.  I just kept looking at the calendar and seeing May and June and feeling like summer vacation was a while off.   Wrong-o, Turkey Toe as the Cuters and I used to say. What's the rush, I wonder?  Who stole summertime, that lazy space between 4th of July a...

So much time is spent walking.  Tanned below the sleeves of the ubiquitous polo shirts and the brims of multi-logoed caps, they walk.  It's pretty where they walk, but, to quote Mark Twain, golf, to me, is a good walk spoiled. TBG tells me that in his youth, 250 yards was considered a long drive.  With new technologies and designs, he thinks Arnold Palmer could have hit 500 yards.  Consistently. We saw Arnie, up close and personal, at the Kemper Open last century.  We found seats on the bleachers at the 18th tee, and just as we settled in the crowd rose to its feet as one.  Being polite golf fans, they immediately returned their bottoms to the planks and I was able to see what the hullabaloo was all about. There, 10' in front of me, was Arnold Palmer, smiling, waving his cap, mugging for the crowd.  The man had the biggest forearms I've ever seen.   In 2010, I walked   PGA's Accenture Match Play Opening Round at the Ritz Carlton Dove Mou...

There's a new Pilates teacher at the studio .  She just graduated from the UofA.  She didn't grow up in Arizona.  She's absolutely lovely; watching her come into her own as an instructor is an added attraction to the workouts themselves.   Before I became the bionic woman , much of my practice was limited by my destroyed joint.  A lack of strength coupled with a lack of confidence made standing pieces challenging, if not altogether impossible.  But now, full of courage and lacking any physical reason not to try, I asked for a session that would end with us standing atop the reformer, one foot on the wood, one foot on the mat, 2 heavy springs keeping us tethered.   No, that's an unattributed photo from the interwebs, not anyone resembling me or anyone I know.  But that gives you the general idea.  We were doing the splits. Before my surgery, I needed help getting up and settled on the two surfaces.  I couldn't move the carriage ...

Doesn't that make you smile? Kind of takes your mind off the idiocy of someone indicted for a crime making a speech and admitting that he committed that crime, doesn't it? I tried not to focus on the Americans who supported the lying liar outside the courthouse in Miami , nor on the 75 million Americans who, according to Kari Lake, are also in his corner.    Oh, where is the weaponized DOJ when we need them? Then Queen T found this while watching MSNBC.   She took a shot of the screen (vs a screen shot... and am I proud that I know the difference!) and sent it along in the family chat, with the words on the sign spelled out for those of us with aging eyes:  Trump 20-24 Years in Prison. Okay, if you're not smiling now, there may be no hope for you.   Here's one last chance.

Parts of this have appeared before. June 14th is Linda-from-Kindergarten's mother's birthday, a fact which I remember for no reason at all.  It's also Flag Day, although you'd hardly know it by looking around.  No parades, no speeches, just my flag outside my front door. It's one of my favorite holidays.  Just me and my flag.  And Linda's mother. ***** Back in 1970 or '71,  Daddooooo was quite annoyed at the American flag patch on my jeans shorts, . He felt that using the flag to cover my tush was the height of disrespect. Of course he was right; the Flag Code prohibits such behavior. Then again, it also prohibits all the machinations the NFL puts the flag through in the name of patriotism. I wonder what he'd say about that. Back in 2015, though, I wondered how he'd react to soccer fans, with their flag clothes and their flag faces ***** The Smithsonian Channel tried to convince me that Betsy Ross did not design and or sew the American Flag.   I...

 As Laura said of me , From Bill Barr's mouth to God's ear. Bill Barr is another spineless sycophant, swirling around the vortex, creating chaos (cf his misrepresentation of the Mueller Report) and advancing his own version of the narrative.  That version reflects what's palatable to what he thinks is the winning-at-the-moment side. I suppose, then, that I should be glad that Barr went on Fox this weekend and said that if the DOJ can prove even one of the crimes in the indictment brought against the lying liar, He's toast. I'm not sure it will be hard to do. The indictment starts by pointing out that just because you once worked there doesn't mean that you get to keep the stuff you read there. (Charges 4 and 37)  And it certainly doesn't mean that you can take that stuff home to your bathroom (no matter how ornate the chandelier - Charge 28). https://tinyurl.com/yc3smnw4 nor leave boxes of it, unattended, on a stage. (Charge 25) It's against the law. ht...

Little Cuter and I discussed that which neither of us had touched for a while.  It was a painful subject, one laced with joy and consternation in equal proportions.  There were others involved.  We had been excited about the initial planning, but life changed in unexpected ways and our plans needed some adjustment.  Neither of us wanted to face it.  We'd danced away from it several times until the phone call where she said, Should we just do it now? We did. There were no repercussions of any significance, though we had been prepared for a discomfited reception. Good friends are good friends and you're stuck with us  they said.  We hung up smiling. With that in mind, today I tackled the Projects to be Dealt With Eventually pile.  My stomach was in a knot.  My hands were sweaty on the keyboard.  My head was saying DON"T DO THIS while my inner sense of something or other kept plucking away at the tasks. I called. I spoke to agents. I was re...

The prosecution has to convince twelve jurors that the lying liar is guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, of violating the Espionage Act. This shouldn't be hard, since not only are there photos,  but he has already admitted that he committed the crime.  And yet there are still people who will vote for him.  I'm not dwelling there. At this point,  it's like arguing with a wad of gum.  Instead,  I'm reveling in the fact that our institutions held.  A former President is facing off against the might of the American justice system.  I end up at Merrick Garland, whose ill-fated nomination to the Supreme Court began the era of the Trumpian remake of that body and whose tenure as Attorney General may end in the incarceration of the Orange Menace. 

A brief synopsis for those who haven't followed the drama: In 2021, the Saudi royal family's sovereign wealth fund (the Public Investment Fund), run by MBS (the guy behind the dismemberment  of Jamal Khashoggi), created the LIV Golf Tour to compete with the PGA.   The PGA responded by banning LIV players from all  PGA events except the four major s.  Those are the ones you recognize - The US Open, The Masters, Open and PGA Championships - the ones with big advertising revenues. The players who stayed with the PGA took the moral high ground. They were not taking Saudi blood money.  911 and human rights and that pesky dead journalist made strong arguments for eschewing the new Tour. The players who had no such scruples were pilloried by some but handsomely rewarded by the Saudi's money.   Brooks Koepka $100 million Bryson Dechambeau: $125 million Dustin Johnson $150 million Phil Mickelson ...

I had a brilliant idea for this post but then a family of quail - mom, dad and about a dozen babies - just scurried across the front yard and all rational thought vanished.   It was a quiet moment in my head.  I felt my face smiling and my eyes scanning but that was all.   No random memories of the mistakes I've made along the way popping up to disturb me.  No nagging list of To Do's peeking through some brain cells.  No planning for the future, near or far.   Dinner is in the works.  The dishwasher is emptied.  The laundry is merrily flinging itself around without any help from me.  The yucca's flowers are hosting finches for dinner outside the library window. Why am I looking for something to stress about?  I had an angsty childhood.  It wasn't a particularly unhappy home, but I was a worrier, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.   I knew that as long as I worried, nothing bad would happen.  So,...

Xfinity and Comcast (they are the same but not really; I've never taken the trouble to figure it out) have decided that June 12th is the last day that TBG can hold on to his beloved DVR boxes.  After that, the technology will be changing and several vital pieces of our service will be unavailable. We need two new boxes.  They take 5-7 days to arrive.  I waited until we were leaving the kids in San Francisco before ordering mine, not wanting them to be undeliverable if we were not at home to receive them. The note in My Account on the app said they would arrive between May 24-25.  Once it got to be June, I began to wonder.  I did a lengthy on-line chat with a lovely young woman who saw the initial problem, ordered me new ones, and sent me a link to confirm the order. I clicked through to the link, which caused me to lose her chat. The link was on a self-replicating loop of Click Here/Blank Page , over and over again each time I started over and clicked through ag...

This started in the subjunctive, then moved to the passive, toyed with the future and ended up stuck here, in the present tense, wondering what sounds right.   I don't want to whine.  I don't want to be dogmatic.  I want to be understood in that wishing-on-the-first-star, blow-out-the-birthday-candles, if-only kind of way.   I know I can't have my wish.  I know it's irrational to demand it of the universe.  But I find that some part of my brain goes to this strange, how-can-I-make-this-happen place and I find myself being comforted by believing that it could be true But it  can't come true, and I'm peeved at the Universe. What do I want?   I want to do a Superman move a la Richard Donner  and turn back time. I want this to be the year that Joe Biden enters his 8th, not his 9th, decade.   I read a quote in Vanity Fair that sums it up for me.  A friend, referring to Rupert Murdoch, said  People say that 60 is ...

There are tapes - there are always tapes! - that may send the lying liar to the pokey for espionage.  But rather than revel in the how stupid is he?  realm, I'll leave you with this photo, from the my son, filed under  Times Have Surely Changed . Take Your Daughter to Work Day... (but isn't that every day?)

  When I first wrote about them ,  I had no intention of creating a series.  But, they are impossible to ignore. I was doing laps and admiring this at every other turn, until I stopped and watched my planter become a cafeteria, an automat, a free lunch kitchen for three and then four little yellow finches.  They* were balanced on the lower leaves' petioles, nibbling on the stems and the leaves  and the petioles themselves.  The flowers are happily untouched as they begin to unfurl at the top of the highest stem. And when they begin to fade away,  they leave orange tentacles to attract the birds who might be interested in what's left inside their gently wilting plumage.   I had my Do not go gently into that good night  moment, then turned to revel in the giant stalks popping up in every corner, seeds I planted in a lone pot at the far end of the yard  Even if their ungrateful faces are facing defiantly away from she who gave them lif...