The Burrow

As we begin another week of chaos and confusion, misinformation (Cod Liver Oil for measles???) and outright lies (I know nothing about it), I thought I would lighten the load.  Here are two stories that made me very happy this week. ***** Thousands of The Resistance were lining the cross town intersection, east and west, north and south on Saturday.  Up on the adjacent hill, directly across from the Tesla dealership, were dozens of protesters holding a giant American flag.  Horns were honked, motorcyclists clad in black leather and tattoos revved their engines, fists were raised in solidarity.   I stopped by for a while, since my sign was still in my car.  I saw this sign  and it brought me back to Thursday's demonstration outside Juan Ciscomani's office.  A gentleman holding a similar sunflower sign (did you know that the sunflower is the Ukrainian national flower?) smiled at my Slava Ukraine poster.  I said No, I don't speak the langua...

This morning's street protest against the state of the world was outside Representative Ciscomani's office.  This is what it looked like. 

From the middle of the 5th graders lining up after recess came an indignant young man.  Peering over the wall of Grandma's Garden, he looked me straight in the eyes and announced, in no uncertain terms: You lied.   I knew where he was going with it, but he was on a roll, so I let him preach.  You promised us that book when you read to us and then you said that you were giving it to her on Monday when we came back after break and that was yesterday and it was NOT in her mailbox. The her  to whom he most emphatically pointed was his teacher,  struggling between delight that he stood up for a perceived wrong and concern that he would hurt my feelings .  She need not have worried.  I spent two weeks wrangling a two year old; a 5th grader is hardly a challenge. Anyway.... You lied. Yes, I did.  I had the whole week off, with nothing to do and no place to go and doing the teachers' books was the only thing on my agenda and I just didn't do it.  I k...

What day is today? Last week was Spring Break for the Prince Mustangs.  It was discombulating.  Every day felt like Saturday.  The malaise seems to have carried over to this week.  I've been one day ahead since Monday.   Thursday is a very busy day for me.  There's a sidewalk protest outside Rep. Ciscomani's office at 9, pilates at 10, lunch with Taos Bubbe at the Botanic Garden and then hosting Dr. K and Not- Kathy for the UofA men's basketball Sweet Sixteen appearance in the evening.  I spent yesterday thinking it was Wednesday.  I woke up this morning, dressed and packed for my various events scheduled for Thursday, ate a hearty breakfast, then checked my calendar for the Congressman's location.  Oops.  Nothing showed up.  It's Wednesday.  I changed clothes, went to the hardware store and the garden store, and spent a very productive morning in my garden.   TBG took me out for a drive and lunch, then I settled...

This is a true story. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth;   Vice President JD Vance; Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Tulsi Gabbard, FFOTUS’s director of national intelligence; and  Mike Waltz, his national security adviser were on a Signal (end-to-end encrypted text app) sharing   operational details of forthcoming strikes on Iran-backed  Houthi-rebels in Yemen,  including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing. Mark Kelly: NOTICE TO WHILE HOUSE STAFF   the re is a room in the building and secure systems where you are supposed to have these discussions. SIGNAL ain’t it . How do we know this happened?  Also included in the text chain was editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg.  Mike Walz invited him and he said yes.  Then he wrote about it. Mayor Pete:  the highest level of fuckup imaginable Defense.  State.  Intelligence.  Security.  Those used to be words ...

That's (the generous) count of the people who showed up to see Bernie and AOC on Saturday morning . Foolishly, I thought the event would be held in the gym.  That's where I saw Tim Walz.  I knew I could manage that crowd.  I arrived at the high school 15 minutes before the doors were to open.  The line was five people deep,  turning the corner, five blocks away from the school gates.  I drove by, slowly, smiling, loving the energy, looking for a parking space.   A similar line snaked the same way in the other direction.  A group of about 100 followed a neon vested man toward the end of yet another line. Neighbors were on their roofs, filming the scene, and relaxing in lawn chairs in their driveways, coffee cups in hand.  I turned another corner to find a similar scene.  There was nary a place to place the UV. Besides, I thought, all these people cannot possibly fit inside that gym.  Not wanting to be in an over-flow area, I dr...

TBG and I just calculated that our family March Madness pool has been around for about five decades.  I've saved a lot of the hard copies; they live in a drawer that could probably house more necessary items.  But I like knowing where they are.  It's part of our history This year there are some old, familiar names and faces.  Calipari and Pitino (two of them) and Izzo are coaches I've followed for decades, Mark Few and Shaka Smart for a few decades less.   The second Pitino is the son of the first.  The first has a checkered past and is now at New York City's flagship basketball school, St. John's.  I guess fraud and corruption and adultery and abortion are lesser considerations when winning is at stake. With 2.9 seconds left, it looks like Bill Self (another old friend) and his boys will be heading back to Kansas tonight.  No sense paying for hotel rooms when you're not playing any more.  Yale losing in the first round wasn't much of a ...

I've been making my three phone calls every morning.   Brennan is a lovely young man who answers the phones for Juan Ciscomani.  I wish I didn't have to holler at his boss every time I call. Ruben Gallego's message still says he's trying to hire enough staff to answer the phones.... and he says it at great length... in English and then in Spanish.  Now that English is the official language of the United States, I wonder if FFOTUS will come after him for abuse of government phones in service of being understood by his constituents. Mark Kelly's DC office has a cadre of young voices who are happy to hear that I love my Senator. Whatever my destination, I share the fact of those phone calls.  My like minded friends in the lobby at Pilates are eager to share what they've called about.  Sometimes we are overheard and the conversation expands to include others who are not as committed to the 3 Calls A Day plan. What do you say? My list of concerns is monumental....

HoneyBunny was having none of it.  No diaper change.  No putting on pants. She wanted the phone and she wanted it right now. My phone announced a video call from Big Cuter.  I answered it with my usual smiling, loving, delighted to see you greeting.  She responded with a wail.  GRANDPA??? GRANDPA???? All the grown ups laughed as TBG took the phone and the crying stopped.  He held the device, watching as she walked around the house, arranged blocks in her play pen, snacked on organic cheese puffs which were certainly not meant to be put two at a time in her mouth, and introduced him to her baby dolls. I watched from the sidelines. TBG tried to share the viewing screen, but that was unacceptable to the almost 2 year old autocrat.  She wanted Grandpa and only Grandpa. My son felt my pain.  He tried to include me in the conversation, in the show and tell, in the peek a boo.  Her stern little face put paid to that. Her dinner was ready.  She ...

Before the authors, these was Science City.  From the walk-through heart to the herpetology (alive and not) explainers, there was much to learn for the Prince gardeners and for me.  There was so much that had never been contemplated when I was learning science.  The passionate MIT PhD student clearly explained how her nano-wire super quantum connection thingy will change the world and, in the moment, I totally understood.   *****   This was the first session of the first day, an un-ticketed Q&A with Robert Crais about Joe Pike and Elvis Cole and growing tomatoes from seed.  The crowd was sparse.  The weather was cold and damp.  People were wearing puffy vests and jackets with lined hoods. Crais is at the tip of the arrow.   ***** Billy Collins has aged (haven't we all) since his last appearance at the Festival.  He was as gentle and thoughtful and totally focused in this moment with his host as he was with each question, wi...

It was cold and rainy when I woke up Saturday morning.  I never needed the umbrella I stashed in my backpack at the last minute,  but I was very glad to be wearing my niece's eponymous NaomiNomi  long sleeve oxford shirt and a nice warm sweater. Sunday was bright and sunny and a shawl would have been more useful than the sweatshirt I started out in.  But I'll never complain about a sunny day, surrounded by people buying books. ***** I had a member's pass to two events.  Guaranteed admission to Billy Collins and Maureen Dowd, one each day, the rest of the time free to wander the exhibits in the Science City, chatting with graduate students about their passions.   The philosopher and I discussed how many holes are there in a straw?  for an exceptionally long time.   ***** Billy Collins read us poetry and told us stories for an hour.  I wrote nothing down,  though much was worth transcribing.  He frowned at someone recording ...

I took my printed blog post from yesterday  and went on a hunt for Senator Kelly's office.  I was a woman on a mission. Senator Flake's fairly spartan Tucson office was down the street from the (infamous) Safeway , an easy, quick stop on the way to most of the places I go.  It had a large parking lot and a plaza where voters could gather, waiting as we were allowed in, by twos and threes, to wonder about the Senator's disturbing ideas on gun safety.   Senator McCain's office was embedded in the cluster of public buildings at the western entrance to downtown.  Around a concrete amphitheater of concrete steps were the offices of the DOJ, the Federal courtrooms, and a first floor glass door opening onto the Senator's waiting room, replete with comfy chairs beneath awards and photos and memories of a remarkable life.   JannyLou and I were regular visitors.  Until COVID separated us from the outside world, we'd drop by after Pilates, or on our wa...

I was ready to write something fun about the Garden and then the news popped up as the browser turned on and I saw that the Government is now criminalizing environmental justice. . The aura began in my right eye and the sparkles moved outward as usual.  I closed my eyes, took many deep breaths, two Extra Strength Excedrin, and let my mind drift. The path it was taking was FFOTUSian and quite unpleasant.  TBG turned on TMC's homage-to-Barbara Stanwyck film,  Ball of Fire  , which delightfully replaced thinking about my Congressman.  Now I feel better, I'm able to type, and I can't stop doom scrolling the conversation in my head.   Initially, the woman who answered the phone at his local office had no idea which way he'd voted on the Continuing Resolution.  I couldn't believe it, and I told her so: That's appalling.  It happened yesterday.  It's important. How does he not have a statement? She asked me to hold on, returned, addressed me by...

Tucson Clean and Beautiful  is on a mission to save the environment, by planting 1,000,000 trees, one at a time. Volunteers meet at a predetermined location where they sign in and are assigned to a group, given gloves and a lovely reflective mesh vest with the logo printed front and back.  Almost promptly at 9am each group picks up 2 shovels, 1 rake, and two 17 pound steel digging bars.    They carry the equipment to their first home, where 2 trees and 1 bag of mulch await.  The homeowners' only task: soak the planting area the night before the event. This sounded like a perfect community service event for the Cornell Club, and the Board's most competent member organized it all.  Relevant and enticing emails arrived at appropriate intervals.  She made sure everyone had everything and knew where to be.  She couldn't have done a better job. We thought this was the kind of thing that younger alums would enjoy, that it would lure reluctant joiners int...

Since I left her house in January,  HoneyBunny has been asking to call me.   A plaintive  Baba Phone?  and a compliant parent is all it takes to connect us. The screen opens to a happy, silly, smiling, glad to see me, not quite two year old grandbaby. She has breakfast with me.  She watches me cook.  I watch her climb and jump and kiss her baby brother. She's quite demanding if life forces me to move away from the camera.  Her displeasure is replaced by a big grin but the point has been made.   At least that's how it's been until last week.  Suddenly, TBG's sporadic appearances are multi-grain to my plain white bread.  The calls come on my phone so it's my face she sees.... and she can't wait for me to finish saying hello before she wonders about Granpa??? Granpa???    He's always been happy to join the party, but he has less endurance than I do.  Until last week, he could say goodbye without consequences.  ...

Brother, who lives in Maryland, copied this email onto his aptly titled My Sisters  What's App chat:  Hey everybody, it's Mark Kelly. For some reason, Elon Musk just attacked me on Twitter — calling me a “shill”. Look — he can go to war behind his keyboard all he wants. It’s a free country. But I’ve launched into orbit 4 times, I flew 39 combat missions in Desert Storm, and I held my wife’s hand in the hospital after she was shot in the head.   I don’t scare easily, and I don’t really care what he thinks of me. What I do care about is that he is gutting our government, illegally firing federal workers, illegally dismantling independent federal agencies, spreading conspiracies, and empowering extremists. I’m going to defend working families and the middle class against President Trump and Elon Musk with everything I’ve got.  And Elon: When you finally get the nerve to climb into a rocket ship yourself, give me a call. That's the Mark I've seen, up close and personal. ...

Her black and white geometrically painted mailbox on the street is reflected on the wall beside her front door.   Her quilts are on the walls and a blanket rack's rungs.  They are stacked three deep on beds and folded on foot rests.  Her giant quilting machine occupies most of the floorspace in a crafting room lined with shelves and clear boxes of fabric.   Today her brilliantly shimmering, red with colorful accented sparklies sneaker-ish shoes complemented her long, bright, many colored tunic.  Her wardrobe seems to be full of singularly excellent pieces, all new to my eye and all impressively pleasing. True, I only see her at events.  TBG, however, has been hanging out with her for years. Twice a week, in the gym and then on Zoom, they and a core group of similarly situated humans have been in each others' lives in the way that time and shared sweat and conversation creates.  It's been an extended caring circle for more than a decade. ...

Nina's comment  on yesterday's post reminded me of a story.   She wrote that her parents consumed   3 0 minutes of national news, filtered through the professionalism of Walter Cronkite.   I replied that I grew up with that kind of news, too. Just as there were Chevy families and Ford families, there were ABC and CBS and NBC followers, but everyone knew that Cronkite was the voice of the evening news. It was a big deal to read an out of town newspaper, but Daddooooo read the NYTimes on the train into the city, Newsday was delivered to our house in the late afternoon, and Uncle Abby (who lived next door) brought home the Post.   Nobody read the Daily News. Newsweek and Time gave us depth and a chance to respond.  I once had a letter published in Newsweek. Timing was everything.  I took the magazine out of the mailbox and read the movie review in the elevator going up to our apartment.  I finished reading it at the kitchen table ...

That was TBG's response to whether we should watch the Joint Session of Congress. I was conflicted.  I always watch them, if only to take the pulse of the listeners.  Sometimes there's drama, and I don't mind seeing it in real time.  POTUS deserves to be heard..... or at least until FFOTUS. On our walk this morning, I asked Taos Bubbe about her plans.  Absolutely not! came out of her mouth before I finished the question.  She'll catch snippets if they appear on her internet feed, but the thought of spending time with that man made her physically ill. The notion of self-care by avoiding all things FFOTUS suddenly became front and center for me.  Bluesky and Substack are filled with outrage that is nigh on impossible to ignore.  1440   is unbiased but the links lead to others and suddenly I'm drowning in the slime.   It drives TBG nuts.  This morning, as I regaled him with the latest outrage, he asked  Why do you do this to ...

It was cold and windy in Grandma's Garden today.  When the clouds were blocking the sun, the scholars in sleeveless shirts were clutching their arms around their bodies, seeking comfort.  My arms were only long enough to enfold three or four of them at a time.  A serious distraction was needed. I found paint pouches in the storage bench.  There was no paper except for a brown bag from the grocery store.  There were no paint brushes.  There were lots of children clamoring for something to do.  I looked around the garden for a solution. The bigger kids have been stripping the stump of its bark, leaving a smooth surface behind.  We've been saving the bark in a big planter, with no particular plan for its use.  Today, I found one. I gave the scholars large strips of bark and told them to consider them paper.  Small pieces of bark made useful brushes.  I dropped dollops of paint, one color at a time, onto the grocery bag  and the ki...

It's Oscar Night.  I saw Wicked  in the theatre but only because I was visiting FlapJilly at the time.  Other than that, I'm clueless. People I respect recommend A Complete Unknown , and TBG is taken with Timothee Chalamet after seeing him as the celebrity guest on College Game Day .  I've heard that there's an Ayn Rand architect and some very powerful performances by women I've never encountered.   I may see the films, I'm skipping the awards show like I always do.  It's too cringey for me. ***** Dr. K hosts our Friday mah jongg game, although the game itself frustrates him every week. Dr. K came to paint the ornaments that make up  Ben's Bells  on my birthday.  He did one, then sat back and joined the conversation as the rest of us enjoyed ourselves much more than he did. We've been friends since 1973.  You'd think I'd be able to figure out something he likes. ***** Lots of people from the past have been visiting Tucson recently...