The Burrow

I was on the phone with the Secretary of Health and Human Services this morning.  I'm enjoying that sentence.  Really, really enjoying that sentence.  I'm a 60-something blogger with a once-famous backstory. I am a member of the BlogHer community. I completed the Survey Monkey last week and today I had the privilege of being on a conference call with a member of the President's cabinet.  BlogHer lists empowerment as one of its goals.  I am definitely feeling the strength right now. There were twenty of us on the line.  Secretary Sebelius spoke first, then listened as two bloggers shared their stories of life before and after the Affordable Care Act.  There was time for three or four questions and then our thirty minutes close to fame came to an end. Throughout the conversation, women were tweeting and retweeting and letting the world know that we were involved and passionate about an issue that affects everyone. One of my tweets was pick...

Thanks for the love and concern you've been sending my way as the sorrow in Aurora unfolds.  I was heavily sedated immediately after January 8, 2011, so this part brings back no personal memories for me. The loss, the devastation, only exacerbates what's always so close to my heart.  Time passes, and the wounds become less raw, less omnipresent, but never less painful.  I hope that those Coloradans are as enveloped in love as my family and I were; that's what got us through the darkness. ***** There's an interesting discussion on BlogHer  about purple backpacks and long division and the Lands End back to school catalog.  People are all over the map in their responses, but the tone of it all is civil and intelligent while "agreeing to disagree" through gritted teeth.  It's just what on-line conversations should be all about. **** While I'm on that subject, I tried raising gender neutral children and, except around the edges, I ...

The main post is here.   Click on over to BlogHer and comment on what the expert has to say. As an extra incentive, there's a sweepstakes to enter, too. So, BlogHer wants me to weigh in on these questions: How do you practice self-acceptance and find unconditional love for yourself? How does practicing love first help you attract more love and happiness in your life? I'm so glad they asked.  It's a topic on which I've been ruminating since I was shot 13 months ago.   I was responsible for my girlfriend's daughter and something terrible happened before I could bring her home.  I held her hand and I looked into her eyes and I told her that she was loved but I couldn't bring her home.  Typing that used to make me sob.  Today, I am smiling. It's not that I'm not sad.  I miss Christina-Taylor every day of the week.  It's that I have arrived at a place of self-acceptance which, while it may not be unconditional love just yet, i...

She's the feel good story of the day.  I'm honored to be attached to her coattails. "I miss you" was the operant phrase, and for the first time I saw on Rep. Giffords' face just how big a toll this decision was taking.  Saying goodbye is never easy.  Leaving a good job isn't either.  Watching her sit and stand, faux-clapping and looking brave, my heart was heavy. Literally.  I never knew that phrase in such a visceral sense before watching my Congresswoman mount the stairs to the Speaker's chair.  My hip hurt for her as she lugged her unresponsive side up two or three of the biggest highest most torturous steps ever created.  She teetered.... I gasped.... and TBG and I both exhaled "Oh, Mark!" as our brains went immediately to her husband, entrusting the safety of the person he cares most about in the whole wide world to John Boehner and Debbie Wasserman Schulz.  Sometimes you have to have been-there-done-that to know just how anxious eve...

The blogosphere was here when I needed a friend.  It's time for me to repay the favor.  This is a new issue for me, and there may be pieces I'm not considering, but from what I've seen so far, it's pretty much a no-brainer. Except for the piece about the Y's.... but I'll get to that later. BlogHer is having a conference in San Diego next month.  There will be presentations and parties and performances and speeches and socializing and some bestowing of awards.  It's one of these awards which is prompting this post. Seems that a recipient of the  BlogHer International Activist Scholarship won't be able to attend.  Yoani Sanchez lives and writes in Cuba.  She's not that thrilled with the way things are going in the Caribbean Communist paradise, and she's not shy about sharing her thoughts.  Listen:  The reality makes a mockery of the slogans. Her subject matter in that post  would be familiar to any American parent of a colle...

I have been paid for my writing. Let that sentence resonate for a while.  Imagine a background of french horns and cymbals and a timpani (I knew a timpanist in Marin... it came to mind) with wallpaper of a grinning woman.  A hugely grinning almost breaking her face woman dancing around the library, hooting and hollering and making a general nuisance of herself except that there was no one around to complain.  By the same token, there was no one around with whom she could share the joy.  Somehow, it didn't matter.  This was mine, all mine.  Someone with financial resources wanted to share her largesse with me, sitting alone at my keyboard, wondering what to write.  I'd dashed off a post I'd been considering but had not fully created and BlogHer chose that one, written straight from my heart onto the screen, that one earned money.  Cold hard cash for my own inner thoughts.  The things I wonder about, the issues that wend their ways inside m...

Meet Jay. That's J-A-Y. He was one of the many happy shoppers at the Tohono Chul Members Only Plant Sale this afternoon. We began lining up before 2. I'm not sure how much before 2, but I was fifth in line. Apparently, the beautiful woman in the straw hat has been first for as many years as the others in line could remember. I was pretty impressed with 5th. Jay is a very talented man. He created the perfect cart for shopping the narrow aisles of the plant sale. Look at the size of those C-Clamps. There is also an excellent collection of bungee cords, just waiting to secure many wonderful specimens. Jay was about 10th in line. I'm trying a new approach to landscaping this year - I am actually going to plan ahead, stick to a color scheme, and think about the plant's ultimate size before I stick it in the ground. I'm digging holes exactly the right size (just as deep and twice as wide as the root ball), setting the plants down on undisturbed soil, and protecting the mo...

The World Series should be over by now. Yom Kippur has come and gone and they're not even in the LCS (and how long did it take me to figure out what an LCS*is??) . It used to be that all the dads would congregate at the home of the closest congregant during the afternoon recess from prayer and watch the last few innings of the game. There was always a game on Yom Kippur, or so it seemed. Kids were never invited; women were not included. No way was I ever a participant. ******* Making plans for the Cuters to come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's $200 more expensive for them to fly in after work/school releases them, but we'd pay double that for the pleasure of their company. TBG and I do just fine while they're off living their lives, but the house feels much more complete when they're around. We've moved so many times that it's not they're in their rooms and it's just like always . Rather, it's more they wanted to spend their time off wi...