The Burrow

There are so many shootings.   What is wrong with white men in America today?  Can you imagine if these shooters were women?  Commissions would be empaneled, laws enacted, restrictions placed.   I try to avoid going down that rabbit hole, but a  random Substack post  today got me thinking and hurting and ultimately posting a comment about what it's like to experience gun violence on a mass scale in your own town.   Commenting on gun violence sent me back to my early, post-perforation posts.  From the Before Times , I found that I had plans to be in Chicago, celebrating the birth of a grandchild with a friend from junior high and seeing a play at Steppenwolf.    I know that I lost the first three days after not bleeding to death on the sidewalk (which I do remember) to morphine and surgical anesthesia in the hospital.  But the fact that I was going on a trip to Chicago is new news to me. I had no idea.  Not about ...

Betsy West ,  Julie Cohen , and a cast of a dozen or so producers and techies and shleppers came to our backyard last spring, masked and socially distant, to film me telling my version of what happened on January 8, 2011. They offered me makeup (I shouldn't have turned it down) and hair styling suggestions (I went with Little Cuter's idea) but that took up almost no time.  Mostly, they worked on the lighting and the sound and although nothing but my face fills the screen I know that they were conscious of the foliage behind me.   They let me talk and they asked pointed questions and they requested that I use Christina-Taylor's name instead of a little girl, a friend, a neighbor.   She was the hook for so much of the story at the time, after all. The process was fun and surprising and interesting and informative and special.  These women sat with RBG and now they were sitting in my backyard.  This is a movie that will play on CNN and will open in movie ...

We used to watch the fireworks on 4th of July and New Year's Eve with them.  Our family walked, usually in slippers, to the end of our street, high above Richardson Bay.  They drove in from Mill Valley and, every time, ended up standing next to us, oohing and aahing at the flashes of light. We didn't plan it.  It just happened.  Then it became a tradition that carried on long after all our kids graduated from the same high school. We saw them at that same high school's basketball games - both the boys and the girls made runs at the state championships - again, after the kids were gone.  I followed their daughter's music career on Facebook, another way to stay in touch.   They split their time between Marin and Hawaii.  There is always a beautiful sunset or sunrise to be shared on social media but, beyond that, there hasn't been very much until this month when she reached out to share that he was having his hip replaced 5 days after I did mine. Now...

Every day is a new adventure.  Yesterday I was twitchy and achy and slow.  Today I am peaceful and achy and not quite as slow.  I took 2 steps straight forward today without thinking about the walker.  It wasn't a planned experiment, I just found myself at the island with both hands free. I must be getting better if my subconscious let me do that.  But I'm still keeping the walker.  Two steps are, after all, just two steps. After some confusion over the instructions, I've abandoned the fat Ace Bandage hugging my thigh.  It was uncomfortable and I am glad that it is gone.  The TED hose are still on, but I'm making them a fashion statement.  Scarlet said that yesterday's outfit could be taken out to dinner. (Of course, she then said without those socks, of course ..... but I'm pretending not to hear.) My head feels clearer every day,  which is the best part of all.  Not being able to keep two thoughts in m head simultaneously was emot...

My body takes its own sweet time shedding anesthesia.  I live a different life while it's in me, the most noticeable thing being the world's most vivid dreams. Like last night. We watched half of No Man of Her Own , wherein pregnant Barbara Stanwyck takes the full load when she's tossed over by her boyfriend.  The original version was I Married a Dead Man, which gives you some sense of how she found a chance at a new life, until the old boyfriend and his new squeeze show up to ruin it all. We got bored halfway through and went to sleep. And then I was dreaming, and the blonde bimbo was out to get me and I was in the car and she was trying to drag me out of it and it was all in Technicolor and going very fast and I knew that I had to get her to let go so I bit her hand. Only...... Sweetie.... babe.... please don't bite me. Yes.  I had grabbed his hand and chomped down.  This was not a nibble  he said through his laughter, holding his hand and examining the damage...

Every single thing about the experience was exemplary. You know that I am a harsh critic of just about every thing, so that must be surprising for you to read.  But it's true.  Others may have had negative experiences there, but I have nothing but praise for the folks I met at Banner last week. It went seamlessly (what I remember and what I've been told).  I never felt insecure or ignored.  The treatment team listened to me.  They spoke intelligibly, and didn't mind my (many) questions.   And then I woke up and, just as the surgeon and his team promised in his office, the pain in my hip was gone. The pain in my hip is gone. As I wince from the surgical process itself (itching and swelling and pain at the incision and having to sleep on my back and being nauseated by the pain meds and and and AND as G'ma used to say who wants to be around a crabby old lady  so I'll stop kvetching) I have to keep reminding myself that the pain in my hip is gone. The...

He was the opening night speaker at the (virtual)Tucson Festival of Books this year.  I cleaned the kitchen as he spoke.   I really wished that he could have been here in person.  His video was fuzzy and I couldn't watch his eyes crinkle as he laughed.   He laughed a lot.   He takes the mundane and madness it special.  His is not the poetry of inexplicable symbolism.  He's accessible on a first reading,  though more comes through the more times you posts the words.  This is the poem he read to me ten years ago,  at a Literary Society luncheon.  It is exactly how I feel today.  I couldn't say it better,  so I decided not to try.  Days Each one is a gift, no doubt, mysteriously placed in your waking hand or set upon your forehead moments before you open your eyes. Today begins cold and bright, the ground heavy with snow and the thick masonry of ice, the sun glinting off the turrets of clouds. Th...

I am unprepared for the full onslaught of Trump-is-the-President angst I thought I'd put behind me.  I was used to breathing freely, confident that change was possible.  With control of the Senate, real progress was on the horizon. I was a happy girl. ***** I can't believe it took anyone this long to realize that he's not going to get any better, that as the time comes for that-which-is-untenable-for-his-brain-to-comprehend, he will explode or implode and the rest of us will pay the price for a long long time. ***** Susan Collins was right - he learned the same lesson from his impeachment that he learned every time Daddy bailed him out, or he sued his foes into submission.  There are no consequences when you are Donald J Trump.   ***** Cabinet members are resigning and leaving us with this mess.   Invoke the 25th Amendment and then walk away,  if you think that meaningless gesture will do anything to polish your reputation. ***** I woke TBG up wit...

There's a new memorial in downtown Tucson.  It commemorates the events of January 8. 2011 and those who helped and other important dates and people and peoples going all the way back to pre-history.  It includes an archive of mementos left in the various spontaneous memorials which popped up at the Safeway and in front of the Medical Center and at Gabby's office.  It includes a timeline of life in Tucson. It has improved the Pima County Courthouse plaza and the building itself.   The project began as The January 8th Memorial and funds were raised for that purpose.  I understood the need that spawned it.  Those lost souls should never be forgotten.  The first responders and hospital personnel and the community that embraced us in the aftermath (and to this day) should be celebrated. I don't judge those who want to honor them. The architectural renderings were gorgeous.  There's a broad, slanted walkway with names and engravings on the living w...

G'ma delighted in telling the story.  Feeling contractions on February 26th, my mother tried to get me to wait.  "You're missing the opportunity of a lifetime, kiddo,"  she told me as Daddooooo got us to the delivery room. I couldn't agree with her more. I'd have been a great Leap Year Birthday Celebrant. But, alas, control was ceded to a higher power and I arrived just before 2 in the morning, on the 27th. I'm older than I might have been.  10 years ago we sat with The Golden Gopher and Elsa Peretti, toasting the fact that I was on the couch to celebrate.  Tonight, we'll celebrate with more friends from graduate school and from Big Cuter's Lamaze class and from next door. It's the 68th anniversary of my birth, my 11th bonus birthday. All I want is the birthday card Little Cuter promised to mail once she bought stamps, the phone call from her brother, and a few opportunities to thank a first responder or a doctor or a well-trained s...

And what did I do with my aching heart and my weary soul on the anniversary of my perforation? I did what I have done every year - I spent fifteen minutes around 10:10am weeping, then I went to Prince Elementary School. I stood on the playground, spread my arms wide, and announced, to no one in particular, Grandma needs a hug. Thus proving, once again, that it is impossible to be sad when surrounded by little ones. 

(I posted the first version of this post on January 9, 2014; I'm using it 6 years later, once again, as a Day After entry. If it moves you, go out of your way to thank someone who keeps you safe.) ***** In the telling and retelling of the story of my perforation, there is one question that is always asked:  "Did it hurt?" My answer is always the same: "Not until the paramedic said, 'Hang on, Ma'am, this is really gonna hurt,'  just before he plunged a needle into my knee." This is the story of how I we met again, exactly three years later. photo by The Firefighter There have been anniversary celebrations and commemorations and speeches and films and discussions and bell ringings and flag raisings and I can't imagine that any of them were as moving as the simple event outside the Pima County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday morning. TBG and I arrived a few minutes before 10am.  There was a shiny (is there really any other ...

It doesn't have any other name.  It doesn't make the list of mass shootings on the chyrons.  It was a big deal and then not so much of one and every now and then it comes around again. 1/8/19 ***** It feels like yesterday and it feels like history and it's always a fact. It's with me, the prickly pieces usually resting in their box in the back corner of my mind, the consequences tickling the edges of my consciousness, the background noise of my life. I'd do it again.  I'm not sorry we went.  I wish it had never happened. 1/8/18 ***** I look fit and put-together.... and I know that CTG will still have comments. I love that about her; it makes her who she is: a perfect little girl who is quite pleased with herself, with the world, with life in general.  She wants everyone to be just as happy as she is.... and that seems to include accessories these days, at least for this 9 year old. 1/8/15 ***** I stand on a platform held up by the souls of those lost a...

That's the blend of ground beef I buy.  That's also the balance between recovery and disability I face.  On the surface, that's a very, very good thing.  I remember when I couldn't bend over to empty the bottom rack of the dishwasher.  Picking up a plate down there- let alone a stack of three or four of them - was impossible.  Once the plates were out of the machine, turning and walking the two or three steps to the cabinet was excruciating.  It was much easier to concentrate on the top rack and let TBG bother with the bottom.  It's our division of labor even now, almost none years later.  When I'm alone, I can.  When he's there, why should I? That's the dilemma of 85/15.  A physiatrist, looking at my Activities of Daily Living, would be delighted.  I can hear it now:  At my age.... with my injuries.... 85% is wonderful. That last 15% though, that's all the fun stuff. I gardened,   Getting up and down off ...

Sometimes, when I catch a reflection or a mirror's evidence of my uneven gait, it stops me in my tracks. Why is my right hip up at an angle.  There's no way that helps propel me forward. Why is my entire torso angled to the left?  My hips are going forward, and my head is aimed that way too.  But my thoracic spine decided a while ago to turn away from my injured acetablulum, trying to escape the inescapable. In response to a talking head on tv,  TBG wondered if I would ever get over  being shot.    No , and I don't want to. Certainly the physical pieces are constant reminders, so hoping that I'll be able to relegate it to the Oh, yeah, what about that?  bin in my brain would be a fool's errand.  And why would I want to get over something which at its core is evil but whose effects have been quite special? I'll never get over the murder of my little friend, or the hole she's left in the lives of those who loved her.  But I look ...

They've become so frequent that even those who most reliably reached out to check on my welfare have given up the ghost.  I don't blame them.  I'm in overload myself.  At a certain point I put up a shield around my hurt. I held on to the anger and the action; I could talk about who I had called and what I had written while avoiding how it touched me in my hurting place..... the place where I visit with Christina-Taylor.  I like to choose my moments, like this afternoon when, in the parking lot where she left her Juicy sweater on the front seat of my car, I realized that I'd shopped in our Safeway without thinking about her at all.  I marveled, as I always do, at how healthy I am in that particular place, then I laughed as I remembered that denial is my favorite defense mechanism.  Christina-Taylor laughed with me.  I saluted her in the clouds above, and went on about my day.  I was feeling pretty good about the world in general, and glad tha...

Short and sweet, just like this post will be, I now present to you the perfect response when confronted by someone who thinks mental health care will solve our current trend toward daily mass shootings. Acknowledge that, certainly, in some cases, the shooter is mentally ill.  But then wonder, in all seriousness, the following: How many home runs did Babe Ruth hit without a bat? 

I have no new words.  I have nothing more to add to the conversation. I could write about FlapJilly's big cousin, whose team is seeded first in the Final Four in the Babe Ruth World Series. I tried.  My brain kept going back to 22 dead because of the color of their skin. So, I'm posting these photos because I promised that I'd keep you posted on the spire's progress.... and because I just can't write anything else today. It soothed my soul to be outside and take these pictures.  I offer it as an antidote to all those words that have been said before.

Are you overwhelmed by the whole Jeffrey Epstein mess?  Do you wonder who did what - not in terms of his awful behavior, but relating to the conflicting stories the lawyers are spewing?  I can simplify it for you - They Never Told The Victims. TBG and I have been stewing ever since the news came out.  Can you imagine if they hadn't involved us?  came out of one of our mouths every hour or so, whether we had the news on or not.  The Federal Prosecutors all the way up to Eric Holder, the County Attorney, the FBI Victim Services advocates and their Pima County counterparts all kept in touch.  Over the course of the case, they called, they emailed, they forwarded documents.  They always began the same way :  How are you two doing? They cared.  They had our best interests at heart.  They represented us.  We never doubted any of them for a moment.  I find it impossible to put myself in Epstein's victims' shoes.  I tried,...

I haven't felt this way in a very long time.  Coming out of the hospital, everything was scary.  Skinny white boys in hoodies crossing in front of my car gave me shivers.  TBG dropping a pan in the kitchen made me screech.  An unexpected touch made my skin crawl.  Everything was threatening. Over time, my fight or flight reaction calmed itself down.  Adrenaline's metallic taste didn't fill my mouth when seemingly ordinary events stopped me in my tracks.  Gradually, I reentered the world.  Lately, though, I've been finding that scratchy feeling at the back of my neck, a hyper-vigilance response to driving past an awful car wreck, hearing an ambulance's siren, turning a corner in the grocery store and finding a stranger staring at me.  It may have something to do with a fear of falling.  The first question I'm asked when I go the doctor these days is When was the last time you fell?  Not Have you fallen?  or How many ti...