The Burrow

Together, TBG and I have never lived in a place as long as we've lived in this house.  I'd plant gardens and leave them to flourish for someone else.  Every appliance was always new and state of the art, every room freshly painted, every floor waxed to perfection. Like the proverbial car ashtray, we sold when things started to get dirty.  Or so it seemed.   We only bought one "used" house; and I spent one overwhelming afternoon with our friendly repairman who fixed the Thermador double oven, the KitchenAid dishwasher and the pop up kitchen fan before refusing to look at the recalcitrant disposal.  You've spent $900 already today; I can't let you run up a bigger bill.   That was in the late 1990's.  The invoice included parts and labor, with no discount for the lunch I served.   After bopping around the country, and from house to house when we settled in one city, we found our forever home here in Tucson.  That was 2006; the app...

BBVA bought Compass Bank, my neighborhood banking establishment with the friendly tellers and loan officers and managers.  The website experience didn't change all that much, nor did the in bank experience, nor did the drive through experience. This week, though, the on-line banking wouldn't load.  The verbiage told me to update Chrome (it is up to date; I checked, just the way they told me).  I turned off the computer, unplugged it, and didn't restart it for a long time.  I got the same error message. I could access the app on my phone, so I knew I was still a customer.  But it's not set up for paying all my bills at once; figuring out my path through new steps in small print was more trouble than the never found benefits. This was April 29.  I waited for April 30, hoping that a new day would bring a new result.  Nope.  Magical thinking didn't work.  What a surprise. I took a check from TBG and went into the bank to deposit it; I didn't trus...

Queen T announced the news with appropriate affect - concern, alarm, but no panic - the small table lamp was smoking. She'd unplugged it before seeking assistance, reaffirming my son's wisdom in choosing a life partner.   The smell was awful.  The bulb was melted and so was part of the glass shade.  Big Cuter carried the thing to the backyard, placing it as far from the house as he could.   We opened windows and turned on ceiling fans and took the HVAC off automatic and pressed its fan ON.   Although the extension cord was a Daddooooo heirloom, wiser minds convinced me to throw it away.  Apparently, these things may not last forever. We are ever grateful that Queen T was in the library when the table began to smolder.  We are thankful that our house did not ignite.  I feel foolish about some things (apparently everyone in the world except me knew that you shouldn't plug a surge protector into a surge protector to get that little bit...

 Scott's strong and soft at the same time.  He lifted the king mattress and carried it into the house all by himself this morning, right after his eyes belied the strength of his voice as he talked about the heart monitor the VA prescribed. It's diagnostic after he felt faint and had pain in his left scapula.  He'll wear it for a month and then go back to the VA for further evaluation. Somewhere in the middle of that conversation, he began talking about how the current administration had restored some of the benefits he'd lost during the previous 4 years.  His disability benefits resumed, and he got a raise.  He's thrilled that he can now go to any care provider he chooses in an emergency, rather than having to rely on getting to a VA hospital in time.   For a guy who hoped to make the military his life's work, being mustered out left a big hole.  His dad encouraged him to do what he loved, and what he loved was figuring out why things are broken....

A neighbor offered space in his trailer.  I jumped on the offer to move the wine-fridge-now-box-on-top-of-which-things-are-stored out of the garage where it's been since Amster gave it to us. She didn't want it, and she was drinking a lot more wine than I was, at the time.  That was a clue.  I should've noticed it. It hasn't worked since the first summer.  Having no place inside to reside, it spent the hottest months of the year in the garage, which fried everything worth frying.  Since then, it's been a convenient shelf for me, and a constant irritant to TBG.   If Waste Management held a big items pickup this year, I missed it.  We're walking past that relic a lot more than we have in the past, on our way to the real fridge on its right it or the paper goods stored on its left.  I've heard about its existence every. single. day.   Okay.  Maybe every other day.   A part of me wanted to recycle it, but it didn't fit in...

Perhaps the worst part of shelter in in place is the lack of novelty.  I love my house.  I love my views.  I love my pool and my shelves of books and my kindle and my television and my closet of crochet projects and I wish I could see anything but all of them right now. The same old same old is getting me down.  Perhaps that's why I was so pleased on Monday to discover three new ways of looking at three different subjects.  My brain was surprised.  I could feel it expanding to include the new perspectives; my smile reflected the joy inside. Two of my moments came during Nicolle Wallace's MSNBC afternoon hour of what the f** has Donald Trump done now?  Usually, she amplifies my feelings.  On Monday, I turned two corners. First, Richard Stengel, former editor of Time , was talking about Portland and the unmarked camo wearing police detaining protesters.  " The President has it backwards.  The States provide policing.  The Federa...

It started at just before Thanksgiving, when I paid the last set of bills due before the holidaze began.  I created a file to hold my receipts and wish lists, but found that most everything I did was online, and printing out paperwork was redundant and wasteful. When packages arrived, I opened and recycled the envelopes and boxes, stacked the gifts in appropriate piles, and put the invoices in the manila envelope designed to hold such things. Guests arrived. Gifts arrived.  Thank you notes were required, so a pile was started in one corner of the desk, designed to hold such things. Then the library turned into a bedroom and the desk was where I tossed things I didn't want to lose.... all atop one pile on one side, rising precariously out of the wire mesh in/out box, which was designed to hold such things, only not as many of them as were added. It went on like this after the guests left in early January.  I took my time taking down the decorations, and TBG didn't...

My landscapers are coming tomorrow.  They've been coming every month for three years.  It's always the same  guys.  They've told me their names a dozen times.  The answers don't seem to stick. I knew the name of my favorite waitress at Ghini's; her male counterpart remains a mystery even after ten years of tuna fish sandwiches.   First Watch and Margie go together like the roast beef and havarti on toasted bread without cheese crust she brings me without my having to ask.  Why her name has stuck in my feeble brain when the delightful hostess at Grumpy's, our around the corner, neighborhood dive, has never made it into my permanent memory bank? TBG is worse than I am.  When we lived in Chicago we had an ongoing laugh over his  Beth Who???, in response to any comment about our friend Beth,   a woman we saw on a fairly regular basis.  He uses mnemonics to help. Although George Washington and Martha reminds me of the couple he ref...

It started when the stay at home orders were just being introduced.  All of a sudden, I was in a Vulnerable Cohort. I don't want to be in a Vulnerable Cohort.  I don't feel old enough to be in a Vulnerable Cohort.  When did this happen?  How is it that most of the people in my life are also in this Vulnerable Cohort? When the guidelines came out, having to scroll down and down and down to find 1952 while registering for something on-line seemed more ominous than amusing.  Noticing that I was in the Over 65 category smacked me in the face with reality - I am more likely to die than I was 30 years ago. Surprising?  Probably shouldn't be, but it is. I watch Expedition Unknown  on the Discovery Channel.  Josh Gates, the host, is a 21st century Indiana Jones.  He swims into underground caves, climbs ancient ruins, descends (by rope) into venues that normal people would avoid even thinking about.  He travels by pushcart and motor b...