The Burrow

He does it because he almost lost me.  He worries.  A lot. So his look of relief - when I announced that I didn't think I was physically up to walking in January in D.C. with thousands of other people for miles and miles even though were I able to go I would, for sure - wasn't unexpected. So tonight, when I said that if I could get on a bus and sleep all the way to Washington, arriving at just the right time and dropped off as close as possible to wherever we wanted to be and then picked up at a logical location and driven home, he surprised me. After 46 years together, surprises are few and far between. "Well, why don't you go on-line and see if there's a bus company that will do that?" The weather's going to be fine.  JannyLou's going and so is my gynecologist.  She doesn't have a pussy hat, but she has t-shirts in a similar vein. "Will I worry?  Of course I will.  And please don't ask me to go with you (TBG does not do crowd...

Today, as I'm writing this, I'm remembering sitting around the pool at a lovely little motel just a mile or so from my parents' home with TBG and Daddooooo and Nannie and Grandpaw.  Daddooooo looked at the leaves on the trees.... looked at them turning over, showing their undersides.... looked at them predicting the rain that would fall all night lonog.... looking and not saying anything. He didn't want to spoil my wedding day before the weather did. Of course, my sister and my mother woke me at 6am to inform me that it had been raining, that it was raining, that it looked like it would never stop raining, and what was I going to do?   Go back to sleep  came to mind.  The drama was more important than the facts.  What could I do? TBG called at 7, wondering if I were still going to show up, even in the rain.  My oft repeated plan was to elope if the heavens opened, but that seemed like more trouble than it was worth, especially that early in the m...

Certain issues require top notch outrage.  Guns, reproductive rights, education, exercising the franchise .... these are Outrage 1.0.  I wax eloquent on those subjects and I expect that people will listen.  I'm expressing an opinion on topics of vital interest to every sentient being on the planet. Agree with me, disagree with me, but please engage with me in these important conversations; that is what makes our democracy flourish. And then there are those things which just make us nutty.  Asiago Bagels are a prime example.  Along with Blueberry Bagels, they fly in the face of what makes a bagel a bagel.  It's boiled dough with some stuff stuck on the outside..... as long as that stuff is a poppy or sesame seed or an onion.  Beyond that, they are some kind of gluten, but they are not bagels.  This is Outrage 2.0 And so, today, as TBG began to riff on Hat Discrimination, I took notes.  It was classic Outrage 2.0. laughed through every minu...

Updated from 2014.  I've celebrated with you since 1971.  That's  more than forty years of hearing you complain that everyone is always driving home on your birthday.  Forty years of watching everyone else start the new year off by looking forward to new challenges, as we look back on the year just past.  Birthdays are times for reflection for us.  It's just so odd to do it when the rest of the world is focused forward. Thinking of a gift that wasn't given for Chanukah or Christmas is a perennial challenge.  I used to buy you cigars, but they don't seem to amuse you any more. The Sees Candies that greetsyou when you open your eyes and glance at your night stand this morning will be tasty, but they'll also be an echo of the two boxes Santa gifted you last week. It's always been that way.  You'd give me a list and wonder why some of it wasn't found under the tree or near the spinning dreidles, only to stop and remember that you had another oc...

Happy Birthday, TBG!   I've celebrated with you since 1971.  That's  more than forty years of hearing you complain that everyone is always driving home on your birthday.  Forty years of watching everyone else start the new year off by looking forward to new challenges, as we look back on the year just past.  Birthdays are times for reflection for us.  It's just so odd to do it when the rest of the world is focused forward. Thinking of a gift that wasn't given for Chanukah or Christmas is a perennial challenge.  I used to buy you cigars, but they don't seem to amuse you any more. The Sees Candies that greetsyou when you open your eyes and glance at your night stand this morning will be tasty, but they'll also be an echo of the two boxes Big Cuter gifted you last week. It's always been that way.  You'd give me a list and wonder why some of it wasn't found under the tree or near the spinning dreidles, only to stop and remember that you had anot...

Are you liking but not loving your car?  Is it close but no cigar to the kind of performance you'd imagined?  Even if you don't know anything about horsepower or torque or pulling g's as you round a corner, TBG assures me that if you examine your tires your experience will be transformed.  Really, you should believe him.  The man buys cars the way some people take vacations.  He loves them and they love him back.  They smile at him from the driveway and against the background of Lake Michigan and the Pacific Ocean and it's more than look at me look at me because anyone who knows him knows that that is the last thing this most private of people would ever want.  He's always been an under the radar kind of guy, proud of his accomplishments but never one to seek out attention beyond his immediate circle.  He's not driving them to show off; he'd like an invisibility cloak if the truth were told.  Nope, the man loves them as machines.  The...

Watching the less-than-an-offensive-juggernaut that was the faux-Browns vs the used-to-be-Baltimore-Colts on a football saturated weekend, the commercials became a welcome respite from officials reviewing a call. Still, having watched one network consistently over a few weeks (think March Madness or the Olympics or American Idol if you want to experience the feeling and football analogies leave you cold) we'd been reduced to yelling "Not Again!!" at every commercial break. TBG owns the remote in our house; even the Cuters cede it to him. As the cameras panned up from the field and the music swelled, his nimble fingers pressed mute and then, amazingly, he didn't minimize the picture to peruse the on-screen guide. He was mesmerized. Two seconds into a commercial featuring a woman's face turning, the camera doing a slow pan as she is gazing and TBG says "This is a car commercial." There were no logos on the screen. There were no vrrrooooming noises in t...

December 1st is the start of my favorite time of year. For some reason, I channel the stress into more vigorous elf-ing and suddenly I'm smiling instead of grumbling. It's all about the love. Nannie is my inspiration, my role model, my raison d'etre in the Christmas department. And yes, I know that raison d'etre means reason for being ..... it's totally true that I would never have come up with the concept on my own. Growing up on the Jewish end of the street, surrounded by Jewish friends and relatives, participating in Jewish festivities, I never missed Christmas at all. Never lusted for a Christmas Tree, never begged for a Chanukah Bush, never felt excluded or deprived. Santa didn't ask if I was Jewish; I sat on his lap and enjoyed the experience but I didn't mind that he went to Rita's house but not to mine. G'ma let me put snowflakes on the window with decals and some spray-on goo that left dandruff on the rug for months beyond its useful...