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Thursday, May 9, 2024
The End of the Year for Grandma's Garden
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
41 Years
When it dawned on her that she'd forgotten my birthday, G'ma could only laugh and say that the idea of her child being 40 years old was something she was not surprised she'd forget. She was retired and the date was only important when she was writing a check.
She was properly abashed; how do you forget a kid's birthday? We agreed that it was funny and moved on.
It's always been a favorite memory, my mother surprised by the passage of time, by the fact that I was so old. Today, though, it's occurring to me that she couldn't imagine it for herself. How was it possible that four decades had passed since that late night and early morning in French Hospital in NYC? How could she possibly be old enough to have a 40 year old child?
I'm wondering that myself right now. At 12:16pm, on a sunny Mother's Day Sunday 41 years ago today, Big Cuter arrived and looked around. I can feel the feels and remember the people and put myself back there without any trouble at all. It can't possibly have happened that long ago.
I haven't forgotten it this year. I baked him the brownies he asked for. I shopped for what he wanted, found a card in G'ma's stash, and didn't bother with anything more than one sheet of tissue paper as wrapping. After 41 years, I've learned that he doesn't care about the frou-frou.
I sent it to arrive in time, although he wouldn't have cared if it were late. Again, just knowing he's loved is enough.
Can we have known each other for 41 years? That doesn't feel impossible at all. I cherish every day of it.
But the fact that over those 41 years I have become a 72 year old woman is obviously something to consider....... from a distance......
Where's G'ma when I need her?
*****
Happy Birthday, Big Cuter!
I love you every bit as much as when you first arrived - and that's A LOT.
<3, your maternal unit.
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
A Disappointment
Jeff Daniels is making the rounds of the talk shows, promoting his Netflix series, A Man In Full. We were intrigued.
We loved him in The Newsroom. Tom Wolfe, one of my. favorite authors when I was young, wrote the book on which the series is based. We were looking for a new show to binge on. It seemed like a sure thing.
It was not.
The background music is relentless. It's not bad music. I don't mind it in small doses. But it's always there, announcing its presence with authority, the lyrics telling me how to feel.
The plot isn't deep enough to need that much help.
There are story lines to support Diane Lane and Lucy Liu and a fine supporting cast of actors of color. I bet that you, too, could create a mini-series with a mogul who's a bad father on his second marriage and a business in trouble; a young black man who's involved in an incident with a white cop; some unsavory politicians and sniveling underlings; and very supportive women in almost-powerful jobs.
Everything that you expect to happen will happen. Everything you expect to be said will be said. The furnishings and modes of transportation will be over the top, elegant in an I Have Too Much Money way. The parts that made you squirm the last time you saw this will make you squirm this time, too.
Have I made my point? There was nothing new, interesting, provocative, or unexpected in the two episodes we watched in full. We let Netflix roll into the third episode. When the credits began after the opening musical assault, we each said the same thing: Do you really want to watch this anymore?
TBG defaulted to basketball and I to my book. Wiser choices, indeed.
Monday, May 6, 2024
The Yellow Season
It happens every spring. No, not Ray Milland's pre-Flubber baseball-avoiding cream, but the blossoming desert willows, then the palo verdes, then the mesquites. It brings pollen along with the color. But as a last blast before the summer heat and winds dry up ever bit of brightness, it's really quite glorious.
Yes, the sun bleaches some of it out, but that's what I get for living in the desert.
Friday, May 3, 2024
A Smile For Your Weekend
The young person attached to these hands
lives with her two parents and their work from home, full time jobs. Most days she goes to a Montessori day care (she's 1; I can't really think of it as school) nearby. Recently, though, she's been spending a lot of time at home.
It was first diagnosed as something that it wasn't and was given an antibiotic to cure what wasn't wrong with her.
When the lab report finally came back, they gave her a different antibiotic to fix what really was wrong with her.
Through it all she's had the sniffles. Turns out that's now an ear infection, a left over from the one she had at the beginning. Not surprisingly, she was prescribed another, stronger antibiotic.
Her exhausted father, battling a cold of his own, called for some sympathy from his much-too-far-away-to-be-any-help parents.
He ended his sorry tale with the news that their pediatrician suggested probiotics for a few months......probiotics..... antibiotics..... ambivalent biotics.....
Thursday, May 2, 2024
Two Good Books
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
I Needed a Break
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
The Hardest Problem
I loved Lawrence of Arabia. Not just the movie, but his whole story, right up to his fatal motorcycle accident. Gertrude Bell, an archaeologist and Arabist and British diplomat, a woman who rode around Mesopotamia like it was Kansas, held my interest for quite a while.
What no one told me was what those two were up to after WWI. By the time the Western powers were finished divvying up the spoils, the groundwork was laid for disaster.
No one wanted the refugees created when Israel was formed.
No one seems to want them now.
When I was in Hebrew school, twice a week from elementary through high school, I never heard anything about those displaced when Jews found a safe haven from the hate in the world. The land was barren and empty until those hardworking Zionists came to town. Suddenly, there was irrigation in the Negev and civilization from border to border.
Was there nothing there before? It was certainly never mentioned.
And now all those displaced persons' descendants are once again unwanted.
And the Jews are unwanted, too, with antisemitism on the rise and now heightened by Bibi Netanyahu's absurd incursion into Gaza. And yes, it is an absurd incursion. If their special forces couldn't find the hostages then and can't find them now, then bombing the whole place to extinction is certainly not going to find them in the future.
It's possible to be Jewish and against all this, in Israel and in the US. It's like loving America but despising what the Lying Liar did in our name. It's loving America but despising LBJ's perpetuation of the Viet Nam War.
The news of what's going on in Gaza has pierced the veil of TikTok videos and Instagram selfies on the phones of this generation of protesters. That's a good thing. People should be outraged. Young people should sit in and march and share what they know and what they feel.
They should also be prepared to suffer the consequences. Having an arrest record changed the course of a friend's life, and he was mad at the system. But the system was what he was railing against; what did he expect?
Having the courage of your convictions sometimes involves real courage. As the police march onto campuses we will see just how deeply held those convictions are.
I'm glad that the noise has been raised. I'm glad that the issue made the front pages. If I were paying for that education, I'd wonder what else they thought they'd accomplish. Finish the degree. Run for office. Be the change. It doesn't take much to get arrested, it seems. The work of tikkun olam - repairing the world through action - is much harder.
Monday, April 29, 2024
Three More Weeks
Friday, April 26, 2024
Beauty and The (Absent) Beasts
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Ready for Some Comic Relief?
The Supreme Court dallies, the war against women continues, and the sun waited to come out from behind the low, light grey clouds until just after 5pm. I was in need of a smile, and the talking heads on MSNBC were up to the challenge.
*****
Today, less than a month later, she was indicted by Arizona's Attorney General for her role in the fake elector scheme to undermine the integrity of the 2020 election.
I'm reveling in the irony.
*****
For those not living in the weeds with me, here's Wikipedia's introduction to our next giggle: John Charles Eastman is an American lawyer and academic who has been criminally indicted and recommended for disbarment for attempting to keep then-president Donald Trump in office.. (emphasis added)
Joyce Vance, former US Attorney and current law professor and writer of a wonderful Substack, opined on the sad state of John Eastman's life with this: Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
*****
And finally there was Joy Reid, contemplating the probability that one of the eighteen co-conspirators in Arizona's election interference case would flip on the others: An indictment certainly clears the mind.
*****
It feels good to laugh, doesn't it?
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
As If It Couldn't Get Worse
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Earth Day (Belated)
(This is the 8th post I ever wrote, back in 2009. I like it just as much today as I did then. That must be true, since I have now posted it 14 times... even one day late, it still resonates.)
Created in large part by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, in the world of 1970 it was a touchy-feely alternative to the harsher realities of the anti-Vietnam War protests. War was such an uncomfortable subject and arguing against it made your parents wonder why they were spending tuition dollars while you were telling the lawfully elected President of the United States of America that you knew more than he did. With your picture in the crowd on the front page of the NY Times. At 18 years of age, no less.
Earth Day had teach-in's. They were more fun than sit-in's, which invariably involved police and disciplinary action. They were less fun than be-in's, which owed more to Timothy Leary and The Grateful Dead than to anything political or practical. Teach-in's were earnest and had hand-outs and statistics and pictures of desolate landscapes ravaged by the cruelty of man. There was science and legislation and outrage and lots of tree give-aways.
Earth Day had no mandatory family gatherings. It required no gift giving, no card sending. You went outside and did something - cleaned a playground, weeded a median strip, planted one of those free trees. You felt good because you were doing good.
Now there is Earth Week and "We're greener than you are" tv networks. Were this still 1970, there would be protests about the idea being "co-opted by 'the man'". Instead, Sheryl Crow is designing re-useable grocery bags for Whole Foods and Wal-Mart is selling others next to the discounted paper towels.
And Mother Earth is grateful.
Monday, April 22, 2024
All Things Come To Those Who Wait - A Gardening Snippet
Sixteen years ago I planted two yellow Mexican birds of paradise, anchoring a corner of the front yard. Their cousins, the reddish ones, have thrived over the years.
I transplanted one to a shadier spot a few years ago, on the theory of the right plant in the right place. It died.
So imagine my surprise when I went to pick up the Sunday paper and saw this.
My patience with the scrawny bush has been rewarded. It's finally joining the yellow season.Friday, April 19, 2024
Summer is Coming
My bluebells are spent. They now look red on the bottom and white on the top and scruffy all over. They really need to go. The gardeners aren't coming for two more weeks and these guys will only get worse over time. Obviously, it's a chore for me.
I started on it on Monday. I filled a giant blue IKEA bag with plants I pulled from the ground. They released quite easily, their root systems apparently designed for a short lived burst of color rather than as an anchor for a long and prosperous life.
Bending over wasn't difficult. I started with the Nanny Pose, my mother-in-law's stiff legged, bent at the waist with arms dangling method. TBG always described it with laughter. I look at it as the first step in getting all the way down there.
I moved on to the Bent Knee Nanny, then took it to the ground. On a foam kneeling pad, I sat in High Kneeling, letting my arms swing around me, grabbing what I could easily reach. That devolved into sitting back on my heels, then cross legged on my butt, and then the bag was full.
Fifteen minutes and I was drenched in sweat.
It was mid-afternoon, the temperatures were in the 70's, the sun was blazing, and the desert was reminding me that yard work starts at sun up these days. I proved that to myself all week, as my calendar took me away from home every morning and deposited me in my driveway around noon.
Now, it's 6am, the sun just peeked over the Pusch Ridge, and there are shadows everywhere. I'm off to pull more weeds. I think I'll change out of my night shirt first.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
The Last One, I Promise
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
A Decision Has Been Made
There is a bright blue porta-potty sitting on my neighbors' driveway.
Next to it is a shiny silver sink and soap apparatus.
I'm wondering if random unhoused people will see it and take advantage of the fact that it's neither locked nor hidden away.
I debated walking over and checking it out for myself, but the thought of walking outside to do what must be done had pushed me to deciding that there is no way I'm going to be taking advantage of that clean and private space, provided by my County at no charge, for eight hours every day.
There are places I can go.
Okay, I'm just leaving that there for a moment.
I will spend some time at Prince and I'll go out for lunch. Amster's house is always available. It's only from 7:30 til 2:30; I think we'll survive.
Definitely a first world problem, and one that's bringing a murky problem into specific relief. (Kudos if you got the American President reference.) There are women all over the under-developed world who go in pairs to the bushes to avoid being preyed upon when they are most vulnerable. It feels kind of churlish to ignore the kindness of a personal potty right next door.
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Damning With Faint Praise
I fell in love with John Grisham when I read The Firm. In 1991 I was living in Chicago, with two kids, a wonderful sitter, and time to indulge myself. I knew lots of Big Law lawyers like John Grisham. I was impressed that a partner at a fancy, downtown law firm had the time to write a best seller. And he wrote some good ones.
I enjoyed The Pelican Brief and A Time to Kill and The Rainmaker. The Runaway Jury told the best of all of those stories, and that's saying something. Each one of them is memorable, decades later. The names of the characters have escaped me, but their escapades are still kicking around in my deeper memory banks.
Things happened in those books. There were surprises. You had to pay attention because not everything was what it seemed.
That was not the case with his latest oeuvre. The Exchange is a sequel to The Firm. It's about gathering money to ransom a kidnapped lawyer. The title was kind of a spoiler.
If I cared about any of the characters, I might have been as insulted as they were that phone calls weren't returned in a timely fashion, that national governments were reluctant to negotiate on the main character's terms, that Big Law partners were greedy.
But Grisham never expands on any of them beyond where they live and how much money they have. For those without money, their descriptions lie within their rung on the corporate ladder. The kidnapped woman cries a few times. Her sick father is hospitalized a few times. Told from a distance, that's about as emotional as the story gets.
When a serious bout of food poisoning - the who/why/how of which was a tantalizing storyline left disappointingly unexplored - is the most action packed sequence in the book, you can bet there is trouble ahead. The kidnappers were never identified Absolutely nothing unexpected happened, and what did happen was boring.
Flying on private planes sounds like fun. Five star hotels and limousines and friends with secluded island retreats who would just love to have your twin boys and your in-laws drop in for a few weeks to hide from dangerous bad guys sounds like fun.
It's too bad the book is no fun at all.
I wish the words lived up to the quality of the paper they were printed on. It was a pleasure to turn the pages; they were thick and the perfect shade of white and made a satisfying sound when grasped.
It's pretty sad when the physical book outshines the content. I can't recommend this one at all.
Monday, April 15, 2024
Casual Misogyny
It was a lovely funeral, celebrated for one of TBG's spin class buddies. It was a two-fer; her sister died three weeks before she did. They were both active in the church which hosted the service; their ashes were sprinkled on the grounds, beneath a cross, together forever.
The pastor knew them both quite well. So did most of the attendees. Stories were shared, praise was heaped, love was everywhere.... until it wasn't.
One of the stories revolved around a dance, referred to as a meet market. At least that was how I interpreted the sweet story to which it was attached, until mention was made of the meat and the heifers he saw there.
I tried not to gasp too loudly. The pastor smiled broadly, and repeated the tale, in all its cringe-worthiness, as he delivered the final Prayer for Peace.
I'd been able to find beauty in some of the passages he read. I was impressed with his kindness to the congregation, most of whom he'd seen just three weeks before. He was welcoming and thoughtful and his casual misogyny rankled all the more because of that.
This is why an 1864 law can be passed in modern day Arizona. The disrespect, the obliviousness, the hurt that any woman who'd ever had that insult tossed her way, all this from the pulpit, from a man of God, an authority figure.... this normalizing of the indefensible is why we are where we are today, teetering on the edge of electing a sexual predator to the highest office in the land.
It's just not right.
Friday, April 12, 2024
An Unfortunate Occurrence
Our Neighbors On The Other Side noticed effluence spewing from the backflow valve down in the open space between and behind our houses.
Pima County was quick to the rescue, sending a crew to survey the scene and plan for the repair. Apparently, that repair requires shutting off our sewer service while the contractors fix the leak. A lovely supervisor rang our bell and explained that they work from 7:30am until 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon, and that they'd probably be here for several days. He encouraged us not to flush our toilets during that interval.
He offered us brand new, really clean, private Port-A-Potties to use for the duration. One here... or over here... and one for them over on their side.
The situation offers many avenues to wander. Do we visit friends for the day? We have lots of bathrooms; do we not flush and bear the consequences? Do we let them install those celebrity portable toilets on our front yard? Would we use them? And how about the New Next Door Neighbors whose house is on the market for a sizeable sum? Big, blue toilets don't add much to the ambience.
We will survive. It's annoying but necessary. I just wanted to share.
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Sticker Shock
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
A Travel Day
Up before sunrise.
Refusing to pay $4.95 for a mini-muffin at SFO.
Saying Yes to the offer of a snack from the flight attendant, only to be handed a chocolate chia cookie.
Planning to bake brownies to thank New Next Door Neighbors for keeping watch over the house but falling asleep for most of the afternoon.
And now I am staring at this screen with a brain reacting to the altitude.
I'll be back tomorrow with something more interesting.
I'm going back to sleep.