The Burrow

.....whether you're having fun or not.   This was the Google doodle today, the last day of June, Pandemic 01.   This Pride Month we honor Black trans women and LGBTQ+ people of color There is so much about this that was unheard of, let alone unthinkable, when I was FlapJilly's age.  There is so much more (though, obviously, still not enough) freedom to be than there was in 1958;  Marlo Thomas's iconic Free to Be You and Me  was published in 1972,   the year TBG graduated Cornell. Amster's boys, who you met in pre-school, are now Messers 15 and 17, high school kids who text to see if I need any help.  I asked Amster how this could have happened; Idk  I seriously do not.   FlapJilly's going to ask the astronauts a question on tomorrow's Zoom AstroHour fund raiser for Mark Kelly.  When I met Mark Kelly my granddaughter wasn't even a glimmer in her parents' eyes.  Now, instead of a in hospital room surrounded by arme...

The toddler is getting into her personal space, and FlapJilly is not amused.  She doesn't want to be aggravated with her funchie cheeks little brother, she just wants to eat her lunch without his hands on her plate.  It's her one meal in front of the television; she wants to savor the experience. Mommy to the rescue.  Out come the blueberry Cheerios Chelle bought them for their birthdays.  Although Little Cuter thinks that the honey nut flavor is far superior, the blueberry box was close to hand.  And so she spread some out on the coffee table and let Giblet loose. That worked for a while, but his sister was still there on the couch, eating salami and grapes (her current go-to meal).  He had only cheerios, and they were insufficiently entertaining.  So, back he went to her plate. She being the charming and thoughtful and kind individual her parents have raised her to be, took pity on the poor boy and placed a small piece of salami on top of t...

Time for my annual rant about school starting before Labor Day. It's just wrong.  Resorts suffer, from a lack of patrons and a lack of staff.  All those summertime jobs - life guard, camp counselor, ice cream man, boardwalk shill - peak in the dog days of August.  the song does say See you in September,  not August. That feels especially true to me this year.  For the first time in a long time, I was once again tethered to a school calendar.  Garden Club met every Wednesday; when I wasn't there, the kids noticed.  I reveled in those totally without entanglement mid-week respites all through the summer.... the summer that I think should still be going on. Not that I'm sad to open up the garden once again.  Not at all.  It has nothing to do with future fun.  It has everything to do with prolonging my current state. Since I was a little girl, I've loved hot August afternoons, the ones with no plans, where a walk down the street se...

Walking to Mr. 14's basketball tournament Friday afternoon, I saw a sign in a display case exhorting the reader to Play Outside An Hour A Day. With all the young athletes around me, I thought the message was a bit misplaced, but it did get me thinking about playing outdoors. Big Cuter was just 9 when we moved from the city of Chicago to the rolling hills of Marin. "Mom, I want to go outside," he said as I was unpacking boxes. I nodded and went back to the task at hand. A few minutes passed. "MOM! I want to go outside!" "So, go. There's the door." "But there's no grown up outside." I stopped in my tracks. A City Kid, my son had never been outside without adult supervision. This wasn't helicopter parenting; a stranger was on the roof of our Buena garage, peering into the backyard one summer afternoon. Our kids were streetwise, but they were also very young. So, when Little Cuter walked down our street later that week to visit a f...

I like an eclectic mix of music, but jazz has never been a big part of it.  My kids know musicals and light opera and rock and roll, but if they've ever heard of the gentlemen in the title of this post it's not through any fault of my own. And yet, in high school, I dated boys who knew all about the inner workings of jazz. One after another they came through my living room, introduced to my parents with the added bit of information that "He loves Stan Getz," or "His parents saw Dave Brubeck," or some other bit of trivia that would get my father engaged on a subject about which he could speak.  Left to his own devices, I never knew what he'd throw at my date; it was always safer to have a conversation in mind before the doorbell rang. smittycars.BlogSpot.com In college, the first male friend I made took me to all the live venues in Ithaca.  He was a senior to my freshman, he drove a blue Kharmann Ghia (though his didn't have those very cool wh...

My summer was planned right through the last weekend in July.  I had appointments with Pilates or Yoga or the gym or walking with Brenda Starr filling the bulk of my calendar.  I was in waiting mode, not signed up for classes or planning short jaunts to cooler climes.  A grand-daughter was coming, and I was in hurry-up-and-wait mode. Three weeks later, I came home for five days, then left again for a long weekend.  We came home on Monday afternoon; TBG had cataract surgery on Wednesday morning. I must have unpacked and repacked and unpacked again, because there are no suitcases in the halls.  I have no memory of any of it. There's not a lot of laundry, because we haven't been around and in the gym and swimming and going out to eat.  Instead, I have several white plastic bags emblazoned with hotel logos sitting mournfully on the floor of the laundry room.  I don't need them right now; I can live out of my closet instead of my suitcase. I'm home....

TBG says it best - "He has the smallest, smartest hands which have ever been in my mouth." Nibbling on our babies' fingers aside, I think he's right.  Dr. Jess (he practiced for a while with his brother, so last names were useless) is thoughtful and gloved before he beginss to manually admire my dentition.  I always know what he's going to do and why.  There are no surprises; he announces noise and spray and discomfort so that I can be prepared. I've written about dentists before  (click here and here) .   I have nothing but affection for the profession.  My teeth are inherited from my paternal grandfather, he who chewed chicken bones right up to his death, where he greeted the Grim Reaper with all of his own, original, un-filled teeth.  The dentists in my life were never going to get right with me as a patient.  I was good for two cleanings a year and x-rays every two years.  I never thought about dental insurance. Marrying TBG ...

It's all been said and I agree with everything - NBA Commissioner Silver did an admirable job in sanctioning Clippers' owner Sterling whose racism was finally public enough to demand attention.  The larger question, why his predecessor did nothing about behaviors which were well-known if not as well-publicized, remains unaddressed. Isn't that the way of things, though?  We look for a quick fix to solve our immediate discomfort, and then we move on. ***** NPR told me that there are rudimentary oil-cans-filled-with-industrial chlorine-bombs being dumped on Syrians.  They don't need much technical skill to put together, so it's possible that the insurgents could be making them except they must be dropped by helicopters and the al Assad regime are the only players with those. Imagine it, as I am right now.  You look up to see what the noise is and discover it is destruction, fire, the wrath of your government. Every time I begin to lose hope in America, every ti...

She was insistent.  She was persistent.  She was annoying.  I couldn't hang up. She was calling from Windows Technical Support.  She'd noticed that I had been accessing sites which were dangerous and she was calling to fix the problem.  She didn't ask me for a password.  She gave me an American name through a thick but understandable accent.  And always, she insisted. Go to Control Panel  and after several more prompts she knew exactly what the code looked like on my screen.   CMI....that is very bad   and that's where it got dicey.  She gave me a string of letters and numbers to type into a box on my monitor.  That would allow her colleague to gain access to my machine remotely.  He would then fix the problem Alarm bells began to go off in my frazzled head. We screen our calls with Caller ID.  If it's an unknown number or a blocked number or a series of unrecognizable digits or the name of an institution to w...

I had nothing scheduled this morning.  I was free to do all the errands which have piled up on the front seat of my car.  SIR has a birthday coming up, and shopping was required.  In the midst of our six week planting season, the garden store beckoned.  I woke up without an alarm or an ache or a pain. It was shaping up to be a great day. Then, I left the house.  There was a person in an SUV parked south-facing on the north-driving side of my little road.  There were no blinkers, no turn signals, no indication that she was doing anything but hanging out in exactly the wrong place.  I sighed, and drove by.  Turning left across six lanes is easy; there's not a lot of traffic on what was once a sleepy two lane road.  This morning, though, every oncoming vehicle seemed determined to travel in the fast lane while proceeding at a lower-than-the-limit rate of speed.  This messes up the flow.  The spaces between blocks of cars are dimi...

I realized the futility of the situation over the weekend.  No matter how hard I try, there will always be piles of stuff in my house. They may be contained on the newly-cleared-and-almost-all-put-away desktop.... the real life desk top, not the one on my computer.  Actually, I probably shouldn't have brought that up, since the icons on my desktop include wedding planning (the event was in 2012) and several shortcuts to the same empty New Folder. They occupy the corners of my garage, and the theoretically-open-spaces where the garbage and recycling bins reside.  Some of them are items meant for those cans; they must have arrived when the cans were full or out on the street.  It's not trash, for that would smell.  This morning, though, I noticed a pile of papers which are of no further use to us.  I suppose I should have bent down and put them in the bin. That's what happens.  I see a mess and I recognize the mess and I shrug my shoulders.  A...

 Two faced, coming in and going out , I've always been a little skeptical of January. One minute we were thankful and grateful and full of love and warmth. Today, I am filled with resolutions and reality and the need to be productive. It's not that I wasn't productive last month. Hardly. I cleaned out an apartment and distributed worldly possessions. I baked and wrapped and decorated. I flew to the East and I welcomed guests from north and west. Still, there is something about those two faces, one reminding me of what is past, still hearing the closing of the door to 2013, the other gazing blankly forward, unknowing, unable to see. There is something of the taskmaster about January. I feel it looking over my shoulder, wondering why I am not doing.... even as I am. It's not the clean slate of September, the start of school. There is a burdensome quality to the days of January. I don't know. Maybe it's just me....

I get Dad because I am frighteningly like him. Thus spake Little Cuter.   It was via email, part of an ongoing conversation about a lifestyle change that makes me antsy but fills my loving husband with joy. I've been trying to lay out my concerns, my objections, my considerations, my rules, and my expectations.  I just seem to drive him further into a corner.  I look like the bad guy, when all I want is to set the parameters before we take the next step. I don't want to be in charge.  I will help, but I don't want to be the First Responder.  I'll do errands if they fit, but I don't want to be the one who thinks of them. I don't want to be the responsible party. I don't want to add one more thing to my To Do List. There will be daily chores and long term planning and clean ups and appointments and I start to sweat just typing them to you right now.  I've done it before and I'm not interested in doing it again. Why my sweet husband can...

The Schnozz needed a check-up.  The little plastic square in the top corner of the front windshield reminded me.  The digital exclamation point on the dashboard reminded me. The new dealership, ten miles closer to my house, had sent me a slew of coupons. So, I called to make an appointment. Close to home might not be the only criterion for choosing a dealership. The girl who answered the phone was lovely.  Incompetent, poorly trained, unable to help me, but lovely all the same.  I couldn't be angry with her inability to schedule an appointment for me, or to find out what service had been done the last time I was in, or to tell me what service was recommended. She had only begun working last for the dealership last week.  Poor baby, she'd been put on the phones without training or education.  It was hardly her fault that she couldn't help me. I give her credit for recognizing the dilemma and seeking assistance.  Andrew, one of the Assistant Servic...

Her kids don't get on the computer without a good reason and an adult present. She works and volunteers and dances and chairs benefits and serves on boards and does pro-bono work and, like most moms who do even half of what she does, she feels guilty all the time.   I try to reassure her that it's a natural state of affairs, reprising MTF's advice to me upon learning of my pregnancy: No matter what you do, you'll feel guilty.  So, you might as well do what you want to do. Or, as Dr. Spock put it, Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. Beautiful Annie sent me the story below to make me smile; I'm not sure she realized how well it fits into my head right now.  I've been looking for a reason to smile while life throws curves at my friends , and I'm not doing a very good job of it.  I try to find an angle from which to approach it... and I fail.  I like the way Thing 1 turns a new diagnosis into a positive ... and then goes on to turn ...

How long do you search before you replace your lost phone? I had it with me before I met TBG for lunch, because I called him to make a plan. We dashed out of Five Guys once again because a patron was packing heat, so it might have been left there, but I remembered putting it into the insulated reusable shopping bag, along with my wallet, when I went into the grocery store.   But, I'd been to G'ma's in the interim, and who knows what would happen if I called her on her phone and asked her to listen for mine.... You're on this phone.... my phone might be there.... listen for the phone... yes, you're on the phone.... I might have left my phone.... no, not your phone.... I had to smile. I didn't make the call. I'd spent the morning with Boethius , considering happiness.  Possessions bring responsibilities and opportunities for mischance; true happiness is self-sufficiency.  Did I really need my phone? Was I allowing the trappings of my life to distr...

The telephone occupied the most central location in the house.  The image of a teenage girl hurtling down the stairs, grabbing the receiver and turning her shoulder to the rest of the family was a staple of 1950's television. By the 1960's there were extensions in the bedrooms, but they were each accessible from the other.  A crafty brother with a gentle touch could lift the receiver in another room and listen in on your personal, private conversations. Such behavior was frowned upon in polite society. Our phone was in the kitchen; I'd sit at the top of the basement steps, the door closed securely  behind me, when I needed privacy.  If anyone lurked and listened, I never found out.  My hunch is that it never happened, because I never did it to anyone else.  Of course, they were younger and, therefore, boring, but still...... I don't know if G'ma listened in to my conversations once I had my own extension in my own room, but I doubt that she did. ...

I suppose it would be considered churlish of me to complain about the weather, but I'm going to do it anyway.  G'ma was cold as we left the pod-castle this morning.   "Mommy, it's in the mid-60's and it's January,"  was met with "SO??? It's cold." I could wax eloquent about how frail she is getting.  Instead, I'm just going to agree with her.  It's dreary and rainy and cooler than it ought to be. There, I've said it. I will move on. ***** This is a slow sports week for my boys.  They are on tenterhooks, following every scrap of information as their 49'ers head toward the Super Bowl. For those of you unable to add your own two cents to the water cooler patter (and you know who you are), here are the highlights: the coaches are brothers who always look ready to surprise the other with a noogie.  No, the Patriots are not playing, the Baltimore Ravens (actually the faux-Cleveland Browns, but that's another tale for anoth...

I brought just the right amount of clothes.  Not too many.  Not too few.  I was Goldilocks with the suitcase and I'm feeling fairly smug. It's a new suitcase, bought to fit American Airlines tiny overhead bins and avoid a charge for bringing a change of underwear along for the ride.  Personally, I'd go for each passenger and her baggage standing on a scale, weighed together.  If we're both over a certain limit, then charge us.  I fail to see the logic in paying $50 to check a bag when it and I together don't come close to the number of pounds the gentleman whose flesh was falling into my seat this afternoon was carrying. ***** One day, I'm going to arrive at the first gate off the hallway to baggage claim.  It was half a mile to the first moving walkway this afternoon at Detroit Metro; I amused myself by reciting "I can't believe I am able to walk this far" over and over and over and over again.  I was lurching (a little) and hitching (a littl...

The USofA is a remarkable place. We are a contentious collection of disparate individuals.  We live in the Deep South and the frozen tundra.  We sport a variety of skin tones and accents.  Some of our ancestors have been here before the European Conquest and some have never seen our shores.  We pray to one God and many gods and no god at all.  We drawl and we chatter.  We are Americans. Conservative and radical, relaxed and intense, we sit beside one another on an airplane, crossing the Mississippi and the Rockies, and we wonder if we’ll see any fireworks from our perch several miles high.  It’s our country’s birthday and we are all, each and every one of us, in a celebratory mood. There are children wearing red white and blue.  There are adults sporting flag t-shirts.  There is a collection of  patriotic headgear on this flight that would make the buyer for Target proud.  We are preparing for our nation’s birthday party and ...