The Burrow

Can I blame climate change?   A transformer overheated and there was a power outage and the cable went down.  The air conditioner worked and so did the lights.  Why were we unable to get a signal on the tv?  And where was my internet?  My phone connected but the computer and the iPad were unresponsive. Before I left the house, I asked TBG if he needed any information.  His flip phone has only text and phone and photo capabilities...... and I'm not sure he has ever taken a picture . Everything was fine by the time I got home, and life went on until this evening, when the cable box refused to let us watch the NBA Finals on our local ABC affiliate. How?  That was what we said.  The what was self-evident - we could tune in the stations above and below but not 211.  Instead of Yannis and DeAndre we saw Peyton Manning, hosting College Bowl*.   This led to exclamations of dismay, and many attempts, none of them successful.  We wa...

I have to work on the email forwarding service since Blogger is no longer supporting it. (If you get The Burrow in your inbox and you haven't sent me your email - now would be a good time to do so.)  I have to repair the plantings in all three of my giant pots and two of the littler ones. I have a leak in the irrigation that must be found and fixed. I am looking at the open tube which needs a goof plug right now.  It sits outside my window as I type.  I found the goof plugs last week.  Why I haven't shoved one in there remains a mystery. I have a shirt which needs alterations; I have yet to do the required measurements. My winter clothes are in a pile on my closet floor.  Their plastic tub is in the garage.  This situation has existed for longer than I am comfortable revealing.  I told Big Cuter that I'd mail his framed college diploma this weekend.  It's Sunday at 5:08pm...... that's not happening. There are bills to pay and a cleaning service to...

He's totally absorbed.  Starting with the Tour de France early in the morning, through the talking heads who finally have something to talk about, to basketball and football all evening and through most of the night.   I've read novels.  I've written Get Out The Vote postcards.  I've crocheted a gigantic round afghan, along with several dozen baby hats.  I've spent too much time playing Candy Crush Saga.  I've written letters instead of emails.   I'm next to him on Douglas, without my hearing aids.  My mind is elsewhere, except when his hand reaches out for mine, or his sharp inhale begs for my attention.   I'm with him and I'm without him.   Before Pandemica, I'd have spent the days with friends, doing the things TBG doesn't do.  During Pandemica,  my options are more limited. I'm really glad that TBG can go to his happy places with just a flick of the remote. Really, I am.  Any return to even a sembla...

Do you have kitchen tools that are older than your children?  Do you have tools which are older than you are? I'm not referring to serving platters and cut glass bowls, nor to hand-me-down china or silver.  I'm thinking about G'ma's blender, which outlived her by a few years before burning out on my kitchen counter, half mixed cookie dough stuck to the beaters. I'm thinking about the apple corer/peeler and the meat grinder, which I donated to a worthy cause before leaving Chicago.  They were handed down to Nannie from her sisters-in-law and for some reason they came to me.  Perhaps it was the apple picking then pie making which occupied The Cuters and me every Fall for one very frantic weekend which made her think this was a good idea. I wandered around several kitchens in several apartments and one house, trying to find a place to attach the things.  I never discovered it. I used the plastic teaspoon measure I've been using since Big Cuter was a glimmer...

I had an over-sized illustrated book of the Tales of Washington Irving. It scared me. If you Google that phrase, the first reference is to Kreepy Kids Corner. It's comforting to know that I am not alone. I was in elementary school, old enough to read chapter books, old enough to feel terror. And it was terror that I felt, every night, as I lay on my bed, reading The Headless Horseman. With my head to the foot of my bed, reading by the light from the hallway, I can still conjure the image of the black horse and the voluminous black cape and the head in the hand of the rider, galloping, black tree trunks and a purple and orange sunset feeling all together too real. I knew G'ma and Daddooooo were there, outside my half open door. I knew it was only a story. I knew I was safe. I was still really really scared. And, I kept reading that book. Most people think of the story of Rip Van Winkle's long long nap with a smile. I know it for the horrifying tale it is Take my word for it....

JaVanka using a personal server to send emails. She using her personal email and not forwarding the messages to her government account. He communicating with foreign officials using his AOL account, taking screen shots to memorialize the occasions. He talking to foreign leaders using What's App. It was just more background noise from the swamp until they got to What's App. Big Cuter was in Athens last week for work (sigh.....).  Before he left, he made sure I had installed, and then messaged me to be certain it worked, What's App.  Apparently, that's how one messages a distant land.  It is also the first piece of the whole email scandal/private server scandal with which I have a personal relationship.  I know about the existence of the screen shot, though I have no idea how to take one.  I have a general notion about the role of the server, but I'd be hard pressed to go more than a sentence or two into it. Auntie M alone among my correspondents...

Don't do anything you don't want printed on the front page of the New York Times. (Daddooooo) Don't be sad in advance. You'll have plenty of time to be sad once you know. Why waste time before then? Right now, enjoy being happy.  (Bubba) Don't hold it inside. It only gets worse.  (Little Cuter) Don't let the delivery get in the way of the message.  (Big Cuter) Tell the truth. It's easier to remember than a lie. (G'ma) Breathe! (Carol Gaxiola of Homicide Survivors) And the very best advice, handed down by the women on both sides of my family to me and mine, advice that I am pleased to say that I have always followed: Never leave the house in holey underwear.  What if you end up in the hospital? 

 Hubs and I have cleared three houses full of stuff, the pictures were always the hardest to deal with. Eventually we decided that slides were out, pictures of people we didn't know were out and that lightened the load.  That's Allison's comment on yesterday's post .  She didn't mention the additional conundrum G'ma and I faced, one cold February afternoon, as she reclined on her bed and I emptied the crawl space in the attic storage behind her. Decades old corsages were easy to toss.  The portraits, not so much.  There were about a dozen of them, painted, in rotting wood frames.   Ever practical, G'ma wondered if I knew who any of them were, because she certainly didn't. She didn't even know if they were from her family or Daddooooo's, and this was well before her dementia robbed her of my name.   Well, there's no one left alive to ask.  Toss 'em. But, Mommy, they're..... They're what?  Look at those ...

It's very hard to ignore the kakistocracy these days, but I'm trying.  I listened to MSNBC as I paid bills and cleaned out my inbox (my desk is still clear!) and as I was wrapping brownies, until I realized that I wasn't paying that much attention to the scandal du jour.  I was telling myself stories about my nieces, my friends-since-middle-school, my Chicago girlfriends. I turned off the tv. There were spatial relations problems to be solved when fitting bubble wrapped goodies into flat rate envelopes.  If it fits, it ships  is the only instruction given by the Postal Service, and neatness does not count.  More than one recipient has commented that the holidays start when the misshapen package from you arrives.  I prodded and folded and used more tape than might have been necessary, it's true, but the damn things get where they are going and that's all that matters. The giant blue IKEA bag I've used in the past to schlep the packages to the Post Offi...

I was wrong .  There are memories to be made while waiting in line at Kohl's . The boys were napping or watching football or some combination of the two when I went to Whole Foods and Kohl's on Friday afternoon.  I needed groceries, so the market was a given. I had a coupon, they had sales, and finding a selection of flannel shirts in Tucson is a challenge anywhere else but Kohl's.  So, I went. The line wound around the eye-catching front of the store displays, through the women's section, nearly touching the housewares at the end of the aisle when I arrived.  It wasn't much shorter when I joined it a while later, my mesh basket filled with gifts, my heart filled with smiles.  It's fun to imagine them opening the bags; I like the lead up much more than the actual event, I think.  Behind me was the world's most well behaved two year old.  Not once did she whine or whimper or demand attention.  She hid behind the long pants and matching jacket...

Amster was updating me on her kids' achievements: their grades are solid, their friends are good people, they are respectful. There are issues, but no one is doing drugs or abusing other humans. “ Congratulations!” said I, and then began to wonder why. I flashed back to tenth grade. There was a reception in the high school cafeteria to celebrate the newest National Honor Society inductees. Standing beside my parents,  I listened to grown up after grown up congratulating my folks on a job well done. I remember the outfit I was wearing.  I remember clutching my new NHS pin in my hand. I remember being really annoyed. “ Why are they my congratulating my parents? I did all the work/” Sure, they fed me and clothed me and made sure I had a quiet place to study and all the materials I needed to complete any project thrown my way. Sure, they set high standards and took an interest in my assignments. But I'd have done the work anyway. That's the kind...

I always had a knot in my stomach.  I always saw the dark side of the story.  I worried.  I often had a hard time getting out of my own way; my irritation took over more often than I liked.  I didn't notice that as extreme or unusual, it was what it was.  It was who I felt I was. In 2001, it all came crashing down on me.  My college freshman was coming home for Thanksgiving.  I should have been over the moon, thrilled, singing Pirates of Penzance  at the top of my lungs.  Instead, I was flat.  Ahedonic.  Lacking in affect.  Absent highs and lows.  Stuck in a corner of myself that showed no exit signs.   I mentioned it to my gynecologist. It might have been related to oncoming menopause, but my slumped shoulders and stories about sleeping the day away concerned her.  She sent me straight to a psychiatrist.   It was lovely.  One hour all about ME.  She listened, she questioned, s...

They were everywhere.  Kids had them on the playground, unless the teacher had already confiscated them.  They lined the checkout counters at the grocery store and the car wash and the hardware store.  They came to dinner with the grown-ups, a means of keeping the kids occupied, obviating the need to include them in the conversation.  They were a fad. The Cuters went through a variety of collectibles - round discs and printed cards, saved in plastic sleeves held in three ring binders.  Some were used in a tiddly-winks like game, but most just sat there, being looked at.  The cards were often disgusting, in a fourth grade blood-and-guts way.  As long as it was just yucky, I let it go.  There was no sense in judging a fad that would vanish before permanent psychological damage could be done. Hula Hoops were a fad when I was very young.  Bubba and Zayde and I went to John's Bargain Store on East 93rd Street in Brooklyn and we each bought one...

Big Cuter arrived this morning.  Texting between the Cell Phone Waiting Lot (the cell phones were surrounded by cars, I guess, since I saw none of them occupying a parking space) and cyber-space, I alerted my soon-to-land son of my location.  Soon-to-land, according to Delta.  Already down, according to the passenger.  Schrodinger's airplane was his reply to my surprise.  I love how my boy thinks. We ate, the boys napped, and Not Kathy came over to loll in the pool with me while Dr. K visited the driving range.  If all goes well, they'll be Tucsonans by the end of the week.  We spent two hours deciding what I'll buy her for a housewarming gift.  Big Cuter and I went to Whole Foods, collecting ingredients which he turned into dinner.  His joy when he discovered the exact brand of pretzel bread led the clerk who led us to it to give me a hug.  (How I raised children who love to cook remains one of the great mysteries of all time.)...

There's a member of the Happy Ladies Club who annoys everyone she meets. That's a real accomplishment.  There are upwards of 400 females in the group.  One would think that some of them would be her kind  of person.  One would think that there would be a few women who found her charming, interesting, enjoyable, worth knowing.  So far, I haven't encountered any of them. What I have found is members consciously avoiding the table she's chosen, looking askance when the only available seat is beside her, refusing to participate in events she's organizing. People roll their eyes as she approaches. She's antagonistic.  She's moved from snarky to nasty.  She's right, always, without exception, and she has no qualms about correcting those with whom she disagrees.  It's her way or the highway.... and her way is no fun at all.  She's not physically repulsive, but her persona is such that it feels like she smells. She was less unpleasant this af...

I worked on the garage yesterday.  It was not easy.  It was not fun.  It was necessary. The boxes were threatening to take over my parking space.  There were newspapers and scraps of paper and loose sheets of bubble wrap all over the floor.  I collected and sorted and organized and threw out and stacked up and swept. Then I sat down on one of the too-heavy-for-me-to-lift-alone boxes filled with books and looked to my right.  There, on top of an open box of memories, I found this: The next time you think-about-but-put-off-for-now-and-then-forget-to-write a letter to someone you love,  I hope you remember the joy I felt when I held my father's handwriting, 48 years after the fact, small rivulets of tears running down my cheeks, smiling at his ability to recognize his own failings, not wanting to be a bother, but sending me a note which is not a platitude. I framed it.  It's in the garage, on the shelf next to the refrigerator.  I'...

The kids read that book, by  Chinua Achebe, in high school.  Today, sitting at my desk, reflecting on my morning, it popped into my head.  Achebe is talking about society and relationships; I'll be writing about inanimate objects. First, my phone.  My replacement phone for the one that ate my photos.   The phone that refuses to make phone calls unless I am standing outside and facing the sun while standing on one foot and chanting...... well, nearly that bad, anyway.  That was aggravating enough, but then it refused to let me hear the caller unless the phone was set to speaker.   Believe me, no one is that interested in my conversation with the HVAC scheduler.   I called *611 last week and spoke with a lovely young man who answered promptly, didn't read from a script, accepted the fact that I could scroll to Settings without a tutorial, and zipped me through the checklist of possible fixes before agreeing with me that the device ha...

I fell asleep last night wondering where my grandmother purchased her groceries.  I knew her neighborhood; G'ma grew up in the house I visited as a grandchild. I remember taking the bus with my grandparents, riding the El with them, walking the neighborhood, but never buying toilet paper or oatmeal or tea bags.  I don't remember seeing a purveyor of those goods.  At the delicatessen, around the corner on Linden Boulevard, the bell rang startlingly loud when you opened the door.  That didn't distract us from the pickle barrel and the giant wedges of french fries, the most delicious taste ever.  Brother and I, feeling quite adult, walked down 93rd Street all by ourselves.  We ordered at the counter and carried our bounty home, oil staining the small brown paper bags holding the fries.  Pride and grease were a delectable combination.  dailyfoodandwine.com The bakery a few doors down tempted me, too.  Not with the breads and the ...

When we moved to Arizona, I made a promise to myself:  You don't have to go to any more meetings. Today, I agreed to steward two meetings a month.  I couldn't help myself.  OFA asked, and I said yes. Our Southern Arizona leader, a woman with the wonderfully appropriate name of Mary Darling, met me this afternoon at Crave , a coffee bar cum gathering place which deserves its own post.  Her husband, the oldest 16 year old you'll ever meet , and another organizer were introduced, and then we retired to our own little table, where she pitched her idea. Filling every paragraph with and you're so good at that , she outlined a series of information sessions and postcard writing opportunities, visits to Rep. McSally's office, and personal commitments by the participants to  further amplify the message.   Amplifying the message means tweets and Facebook posts and Instagram pictures and, more to my skill set and comfort level, letters to the editor and op-ed p...

A high school friend texted, wondering when we'd see one another again.  She's out on Long Island and I'm in the Sonoran Desert; it's not as if we can drive to the diner and catch up.  We have a stronger connection now than we did then, distance not-withstanding. We renewed our teenage friendship at our 40th high school reunion, eight years ago.  Bob Iger was there (he was voted Most Enthusiastic by our Senior Class, back in 1969) but none of the boys I cared about attended.  Not my 9th grade boyfriend, who ditched me when he invited Roomie to the Spring Dance.  Not my Senior Year Boyfriend, who slept around that summer, while I was in Europe.  Not My Best Friend, with whom I played Connect Four for hours on his bedroom floor, with whom I exchanged five page, hand-written letters all through college, whose wedding I attended, and who I haven't seen since. I have those memories stored at the top of my brain's Things To Think About box, directly below the...