The Burrow

I'm really proud of America today.  The center held.  My faith in our institutions has been vindicated. Not because the verdict went against the Lying Felon, but because there was a unanimous verdict of any kind.   It makes me feel that our country is less divided than it felt yesterday.  Twelve people listened to facts, listened to explanations, talked about it, and then decided to tell a former President of the United States that the rules apply to him, too.  I can let my breath out now.  Tomorrow there will be time to think about the election,  about what it means to be a Republican voter right now, about the media,  about the future.  Right now I'm going to revel in the wonderfulness of our democracy. 

Lawyers say this is the hardest part of a trial.  The jury has the case.  The talking heads are reading tea leaves and prognosticating based on their years of experience and the networks' need to fill the air with blather.   But there's nothing real except the wait.  I've waited before.   April 16, 1969, when the college acceptance letters were due to land in our mailboxes.  The applications had been submitted months ago, the interviews far in my rear view mirror.  All I could do was wait. Nine months and too many days pregnant and ready to start parenting instead of housing. Despite TBG driving me over the bumpiest roads in the neighborhood, trying to move things along, all I could do was wait. Gathered in the tennis club's party space with the supporters of our ballot measure, watching as the votes were recorded on the blackboard on a table near the windows.  The quality of our children's education hung in the balance, and all we could...

There's the sun on my shoulders around the straps of my tank top, heating up certain parts and leaving others to drip perspiration down my back.  It tickles and I smile. There's the fresh peach in my hand, ripe and ready and heady with that aroma that belongs in the pantheon of perfumes.  It's as much fun to smell as it is to taste. There's the yellow pollen and dander and flower detritus littering the ground beneath the now barren trees, their leaves folded upon themselves, protecting the moisture within.  It's a startling reminder of how quickly the seasons change.  Did it just become summer? I ask aloud. There are baby snakes and ground squirrels and quail to admire as I walk on Christina's path.   The little slithery ones are really dangerous, the others are just adorable.  They warm my heart. Hot weather annuals line the garden centers' shelves.  If only it were cool enough to spend the time preparing the beds and planting the plants.  I'm bo...

He was a college basketball hero when I was a college student.  He was an anti-war activist at the same time.  This was unusual.  He was 7'1" tall, with red hair and the longest arms I've ever seen on a human being.  Before Air Jordan, there were Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar soaring through the air, blocking shots that used to have clear sailing to the rim. He loved the Grateful Dead and Arizona's saguaros and peanut butter.  He ate the peanut butter on air.  With his fingers.  Offering some to his fellow commentator on the sidelines.  With his fingers.  You either groaned or giggled.  There was no in between. His tangents were legendary, going off and on and around and through mazes that were obviously crystal clear to him but were dazzlingly obscure to the rest of us.  Was he watching the game as he bloviated?  He pivoted to the action seamlessly when it was worthy of notice.  Otherwise, he was sharing the thought...

I'm not sure what's causing the glitches, but I'm investigating the situation. Don't despair.  I hope that help is on the way. Think of me smiling at you as you wait for the site to load.... it's all I can do right now.

     First posted in 2008.   I used to march in the Memorial Day parade. I was dressed in my Brownie uniform, and then in my Girl Scout uniform - replete with those embarrassing anklets. I wore them because the troop leader said we couldn't march without them, they were part of our official uniform.  Marching was too cool to pass up. I wore them and bore the scorn. All the school bands marched too, and the moms on Benjamin Road provided the materials and the labor to make the capes the high school kids wore. There must have been a military presence there, but I didn't pay enough attention to notice. I was marching and I knew that, all over America, other kids were being Americans and marching, too. I belonged to something bigger than my family, my school, my town.   Belonging means different things in different places. In Marin, the Memorial Day parade was always good for a  controversy  or two. Or three. Should the anti-war protesters w...

Sherman Alexie's Substack  brings me joy.  He tells stories in prose and poetry and, sometimes, by reading aloud.  He's playful and profound.  I carry his words around with me.   His latest post touched on something that has bothered me for a long time, something that feels simple and cheap and embarrassing, something that probably happened at a graduation ceremony near you last weekend.   Here's part of his musing on Spokane, his hometown: I’m often reminded that this land was stolen from my tribes. I’m walking on the body and blood of my ancestors and I sigh when I think of the performative land acknowledgments that are only placebos. The only honest acknowledgement is this: “We took your land. We’re not giving it back. Enjoy the show.” My ancestors laugh in their coffins at the earnest white folks who don't pay us any rent. My ancestors giggle and mourn, giggle and mourn.

The night before we left, I helped SIR string the HAPPY BIRTHDAY banners from the ceiling.  I laughed at the cards the kids created ( I hope you had a good time being 38)  and smiled at the grown up presents she was receiving. Then, I went to sleep, which was something I did not do while she was deciding whether or not she wanted to be born.  With a little help from science, she appeared outside my body just after 12 noon.... not midnight, as her birth certificate read.  It was Memorial Day weekend, everyone wanted to be somewhere else, except me. My little girl slept comfortably, nursed well, and when she wailed while being used as the demonstration baby in the bathing class I swooped her right out of the nurse's arms and took her back to our bed.  Don't poke the Mama Bear. I read her stories over the phone when she was scared at sleep away camp.  I rubbed her back to help her fall asleep when being a teen was just too much.  We ate St. Patrick's Day ...

 ..... it happened again.

Little Cuter and SIR worked all Sunday morning creating a Secret Garden in one corner of the yard.  Little Cuter and I repotted her Monsteras, a task easier said than done. I pruned her Highlight Hydrangea, then took a break to admire the coleus and the grasses and the green.  Even her cacti and succulents were green.  I love my desert life,  but there's something delicious about the Midwest in the late spring. It's so much softer here.