Living on the Edge of the Desert

It's a wildlife awakening around here.

This daddy and his family live under the mesquite and saguaros in the wash below our house.  He and mama shepherd their dozen or so little Callipepla gambelii around the inskirts of our property, venturing close to the pony walls on the ground while Dad keeps watch from above.

Mom was nowhere to be found this afternoon; I like to think she was leaving Dad in charge in a relatively safe space while she went off to munch on insects all by herself.   As much as I think that there is nothing cuter than scampering baby quail, parenting that many of them must be exhausting.

The ground squirrels are busily defoliating the barrel cacti, leaving their detritus behind, sual.

What was unusual was finding migrating ducks on the side of the pool today:

If you're looking for a Zen moment, turn off the sound (it's the Stanley Cup) and watch these two catch their breath before moving on.

Filled with calm and purpose, I came to the library to write this on the laptop, looked out the window to the short wall around the courtyard, and quietly screamed  TBG BRING ME MY CAMERA!

You can see why.

The rest of his family was further out in the yard.  He was keeping watch.  I stayed inside.

Little Cuter has robins, cardinals, black squirrels, and a mole in her yard.  I have quail, ground squirrels, ducks, and coyotes. What a wonderful world.

A Dry Heat - A Snippet

And this weekend the temperatures will be seasonably warm.

I laughed out loud.  Anyplace else, they'd be opening shelters for the un-air-conditioned elderly.  In Tucson, it's seasonably warm.

That means we look forward to temperatures in the upper 90's, sometimes accompanied by a slight breeze in the late afternoon.  With nary a cloud in the sky, being outside for more than a walk to the shady spot in which you left the car requires a hat and sunscreen and determination.  There's not much shade to be found; the leaves on the desert adapted trees have curled onto themselves, minimizing their exposure to the elements.

It's a wise idea.  At this time of year I remember Sister's friend describing her summer in Tucson:  I can feel my cuticles peeling back into my fingers.  I can feel the air sucking me dry.

I'm not complaining about guaranteed sunshine and weather I don't have to shovel or sweep or slip on.   I'm just explaining the situation.

Rocketman

JannyLou took me to the movies this morning; I must remember to reimburse her for the ticket.  Her usual movie partners are gone for the summer, so, on the theory that bad guys don't get up before noon, I agreed to go to a 10:35am show.

So did a lot of other people with grey hair.  We had reserved seats, leather-like plush recliners with plenty of leg room between each row.... even when lying nearly flat.  I know this because I had a grand time with the design during the 30 minutes of commercials and trailers and rambling nonsense from a young woman neither of us recognized.

JannyLou tells me that this is the usual state of affairs in movie theaters these days.  I may have to expand my horizons beyond The Loft.

I saw Elton John in a fairly intimate setting in San Francisco in the early 1990's.  It was a benefit for his AIDS foundation, and he spoke eloquently about the fact that he was still alive, while most of his compatriots were not.  Rocketman is the backstory to that .

That therapy led to 28 years of sobriety is well known.  That any therapist managed to get a handle on his morass of contributing factors is stunning.  As JannyLou and I, two social workers, commented on leaving - He had everything.

His father... his mother.... his sexuality.... the lost little boy (played by Kit Connor, a name to remember) is never far from the surface.  Taron Egerton's Elton John is connected, viscerally, to every character in the film.  We see them through his eyes, just as we see him looking at himself.  If he's exorcising demons by confronting them, the Executive Producer, Elton Hercules John himself, has done a masterful job.

Which would be fine if this were a drama about addiction.

But it's a rock and roll story, too, and a super glam one at that.  The costumes are fabulous, and there are a gazillion of them.  Playing mega arenas or a piano in the corner, the musicianship shines through.  So do the drugs and the sex and the reckless abandon.  The words tell the story, the music brings the emotion

And those words, those Bernie Taupin words. The relationship between the lyricist and the composer is the fulcrum around which the story revolves.  Even when he's not in the scene, his words are. If there's an Oscar for Best Scene I nominate Taron Egerton and Jamie Bell at the end of Mama Cass's party; the whole theater exhaled at the end.

This is a movie that really doesn't know what it is, and maybe that's the point.  Just as I settled into the music and the outfits and the lights, the losses and anguish and self-destruction brought me slamming back to earth.  That Elton John is alive to create this movie is as marvelous as his on-stage persona - highly improbable, more than over the top, and well worth exploring.

Normal is Abnormal

Or so the gerontologist said yesterday, while showing me my DEXA Scan results.  She gave me a sandwich - good news on the outside, the bad news smooshed in the middle.  There were 6 pages of information, but she said the last 5 were less important than the top sheet, the one with the Densitometry Results.

My spine is Normal.  That's abnormal for a person of my age, sex, complexion, eye color, and heritage.  I should be in the Osteopenia range.  I'm not.  In fact, my spine is in 7.9% better shape than it was two years ago when I last had a scan.  That was the good news, surprising to my doctor and comforting to me.  My right side seems just fine, too.

The filling of the sandwich was filled with less wonderful news.  Apparently, my left femur neck is Osteoporotic. 

It's such an ugly word.  It sat on my heart.  My eyes began blinking back tears I didn't know were hiding, up close and ready to drop.  As the physician described why she wouldn't prescribe medication at this time - You're relatively young, and the medication can only be taken for 7-10 years- my shoulders began to drop from my ears. 

I am taking the requisite dose of Vitamin D - 2000 IU/day - already, even though I live in the sunniest part of the country.  Apparently, we don't metabolize our vitamins well as we age.  The D is available at Costco for a nominal price, the pill is small and yellow, it has no side effects.  Continue with that, she said.

Exercise daily was her next prescription.  She loves Pilates - It's balance as well as strengthening - and liked my weight lifting program, too.  She said any exercise except swimming counts as weight bearing, which is what my bones need.  30 minutes a day, every day was her advice.  Yes, walking counts - walking around the garden, walking as I clean out the garage, walking up and down my street early enough in the morning to avoid dying of heat stroke. 

Everybody wants me to move.  I suppose I ought to listen. 

Finally, she came to diet.  Are you taking calcium supplements? No? GOOD! 1200 mg of calcium per day, from foodstuffs not pharmaceuticals, is what I need.  Cheese is good.... who doesn't like cheese?
Since bread, cheese, and Prosecco are my Lost on a Desert Island foods, I was able to smile and agree that this was a good plan.

The other side of the sandwich was that this is something I can stop in its tracks if I follow her advice. Can it be reversed?  If you can reverse it, I'll write you up as a Case Note.  We agreed that that was my goal.  I left with a smile on my face, no new prescriptions to fill, and a diet to reexamine.

At home, I Googled Calcium Foods.  I'm going to have to eat a wheel of hard cheese every few days in order to meet my 1200 mg goal.  I'll have to buy milk (4 glasses a day will cover me) and drink it.  Yogurt, broccoli rabe, ice cream.... they are all 200 mg per gigantic serving.  Even I can't eat 6 yogurts a day. 

Then, again, I do have an abnormally normal spine.  I think I'll concentrate on being grateful for that right now.

Do Your Homework

I thought of the phrase before Big Cuter posted this link to Alexandra Petri's column, the one entitled It Is Increasingly Clear That None of You Read My Report.

I'm on page 92 of The Mueller Report, and I've been outraged for 90 pages. 

Elizabeth Warren came to that conclusion right after the report was issued.  Congressman Amash read it on a plane ride home, came out for impeachment, and was greeted by a standing ovation at a Town Hall a week later. 

If I could, I'd vote to open hearings on obstruction of justice by the President of the United States.  But I can't.  Instead, I called my MoC and left a message - TBG and I have moved from let the voters decide in 2020 to if not for these misdeeds, then for what?

I've spent the week carrying the big, fat, white book around town, exhorting people to read it.  Consider this post my exhortation to you.

It reads like a denser Harlan Coben thriller.  Lots of players, lots of connections, more lies and underhanded behaviors than you think are possible ... until you realize that you're spending an inordinate amount of time reading the footnotes.  Legal citations, interviews, and tweets underpin nearly every sentence.  Director Mueller is right - every one of his words is carefully chosen. 

You should read them.  Read them and make your own decision, without a filter.
 
As for me, after the first 100 pages or so, yes, I'm sure the CIA has done similar things to other countries but that's not the issue.  Russia did this to us and the President doesn't seem to care.  His campaign didn't seem to care.  It would be nice if Congress wondered why.

I'll keep you posted on my reactions as I keep reading.  It may take a while.  I have to break it up with the treats I brought home from the library; there's only so much slime I can stomach at one time.

In the meantime, if you're reading the original (always better than the Cliff's Notes ... which are now called Sparks for some reason) feel free to chime in in the comments. 

It's been an odd day. 

It started out breezy and sunny, a perfect day to open the garage door and try to make sense out of the chaos within.  Now, it's cloudy and the air is full of larger than average flying insects, which the bats, a bit earlier than usual, are competing with the birds to devour.

My printer/scanner decided to dis-invite the computer, or vice versa.  I've unplugged and restarted and removed and downloaded.  I have to re-install and align but I just don't have the emotional energy to deal with what I fear will be not much more progress than I made this afternoon.

The glitch was discovered as I tried to print, scan, and send a secured document.  JannyLou wasn't home.  Amster's office is further than I wanted to travel.  Kinko's seemed the obvious answer, except the secure document wouldn't open on a pay by the minute computer.  It cost me 2 minutes at 59 cents each to find that out. 

I headed to the public library.  It had no restrictions on the opening of secure documents, and, with a little help from the librarian, I managed to get it printed and downloaded and uploaded and sent on its way.  It only cost a dime to print the page.

That was the second time I visited the library today.  On Sunday, the only remaining attractive tome was The Mueller Report.  I took it, and I'm reading it.  You should, too.  Form your own conclusions, without spin or rhetoric. The book I'm using has analysis from Washington Post contributors, but I'm skipping that.  The redactions are as informative as the words on the page. 

By the end of page 4 I was seething.  If Attorney General Barr read every third paragraph, his summary made sense.  There is a lot of exculpatory verbiage, which might lead one to believe that there was no evidence at all.  But each of those paragraphs is followed by one detailing the lies (who made them and when) and the refusal to hand over evidence by those who were being investigated.  The Report is very clear about this - their conclusions might have been altered, one way or the other, but they will never know.

There's so much obstruction, even in the first section, on cooperation/coordination (both terms are defined, as is collusion), the administration thwarted the Special Counsel's efforts.  After about 8 pages, I began to wonder why.

There are so many lies, so many instances of standing in the way of truth gathering, so much conniving - for what?  What were they and are they trying to hide?  What deep secret is lurking behind all these machinations?  An awful lot of effort went into making sure that those who were interviewed were toeing the party line. 

I've been stewing about this all weekend long.  I was glad to be in the library twice today. I found a James Patterson Alex Cross mystery this morning and C J Box's latest installment in one of my favorite series this afternoon.  I'm going to put politics aside for the next few days.  It's getting in the way of my summer.

Annabelle

I had a real job, a social work job, an Agency job.  I needed a car to visit my clients.  I had $663 in the bank.

It was the summer of 1972.  A brand new Mustang went for around $3000 at Fleischman's, our Ford dealership in Long Beach.  They didn't have a used car lot, though.  I had to peruse the classified ads in the newspaper to find something within my price range. 

Did I mention that my family drove Ford products?  My grandparents drove Chrysler's.  My uncle drove Buicks.  We drove Fords, or Mercury's when Daddooooo was feeling a bit more upscale.  The one thing no one in the family drove was a Chevy.

"Only idiots drive Chevy's."

"All Chevy drivers are idiots."

"Look at that idiot; of course, he's in a Chevy."

Naturally, the car I wanted was a Chevy.  Reluctantly, I showed the ad to my parents.  The mileage was right, the price was "negotiable,"  it lived just a few miles away.  But, it was a Chevy.  We agreed to go and look at it.

The older gentleman who greeted me outside his garage was charming.  He dealt with me, though Daddooooo made a valiant effort to take over the proceedings.  While my father examined the tires and looked under the hood, I listened to the car's life story.

She was aqua.  She was huge.  She was a 1967 Impala.  She had seat belts and manual windows and an AM radio.  The upholstery was intact.  I could reach the pedals and see out the mirrors.

He wanted more than what I had.  I showed him my bank book to prove that I was, indeed, spending everything I had, and he agreed to take it all.  In exchange, I took Annabelle.

Without ABS, driving to and from Ithaca in the winter was a challenge.  She barely fit into the parking space carved into the stone wall in front of the house we lived in senior year.  She survived an encounter with a City of Chicago garbage truck - her bumper was permanently askew in the aftermath, but she took a healthy chunk out of the errant truck's tire, and I sued the City and won $125 in damages.

She lasted through graduate school, managing to make it back and forth to New York a few times before her engine began to give up the ghost.  I added a quart of oil before I set out on anything longer than a trip to the grocery store.  I changed the distributor wires (singeing the little hairs on my arm because I didn't wait for the engine to cool) and brought her in for regular oil changes, but she was falling apart when I bequeathed her to Brother as his college graduation gift.

He, a mechanic at heart, kept her going for a year or two.  She died in the front yard of his fraternity house in Peoria, and froze into the icy puddles that winter.  After the thaw, he sold her - for $200 - to a young family.  I still have nightmares about that couple and their children, stranded somewhere, Annabelle having finally fallen to ruin.

Memorial Day

The first iteration of this post appeared in 2009.  

*****

I used to march in the Memorial Day parade. I was dressed in my Brownie uniform, and then in my Girl Scout uniform - replete with those embarrassing anklets. I wore them because the troop leader said we couldn't march without them, they were part of our official uniform.  Marching was too cool to pass up.  I wore them and bore the scorn.

All the school bands marched too, and the moms on Benjamin Road provided the materials and the labor to make the capes the high school kids wore. There must have been a military presence there, but I didn't pay enough attention to notice. I was marching and I knew that, all over America, other kids were being Americans and marching, too.

I belonged.

In Marin, the Memorial Day parade was always good for a controversy or two. Or three. Should the anti-war protesters walk alphabetically in the main march, or have their own march, or walk 50 yards behind the official march? I especially liked this discussion: should weaponry be allowed?

That was fairly disingenuous even for Marin.

There were bands at this parade, too, and with Bobby Weir as the Grand Marshal you know the music was worth hearing, especially at the picnic in the park afterwards. Not exactly your typical VFW-sponsored event, but no one was complaining. It was Memorial Day; there had to be a parade and a picnic and a coming together as Americans.

I've got the flag G'ma bought us for a housewarming present, which replaced the one Dadooooo got us in Chicago.  I'll wear the tie-dyed tank top the Cuters and I made early one July.  I'll remember the fallen and recommit to doing everything I can to make this country worthy of their sacrifice.

We have a long way to go, but I have confidence in the future.

"We Are The Ones We've Been Waiting For"

Retiring the Garden for the Summer, Part 2

Thursday, May 23, 2019 -  The Last Day of School

 A friend is getting on with her life, and Grandma's Garden inherited her "I know I'll use them someday" collection of plastic pots.  I carted them, organized them, and stacked them neatly.

I debated taking on the destruction of the parsley forest, when the big kids, allowed to wander during their last recess before middle school, wondered if they could do anything for me.  

 Yes, I'd be happy to sit on the bench and watch them work. 

 Taking advantage of one of the gigantic trash bags the delightful groundskeeper bequeathed me ten minutes before, I set them to pulling plants. I signed a yearbook or two, I helped them pot the carrots and onions they unearthed, and I repeated the plant care instructions I'd been giving all week - Plants are not fish.  They do not swim.  Water Wisely.

Of course, there were beasties to be discovered.  This small grasshopper

 (trying to creep between the heels of his hands) 

was admired and, mercifully, freed.  

And then it was time to go.  

I began to push my loaded cart.... I didn't get far.  

"WE CAN HELP YOU!!!!"  

And they did.

Making kind humans, one little American at a time. 

Until next year.......

Retiring the Garden for the Summer

School ends this week.  With no one around to tend the raised beds, it's time to retire the plants.

 There was giant lettuce (yes, those stalky things are lettuce run amok)

and an alium looking flower atop what we took to be an onion..... until I remembered that alium are part of the onion family so why wouldn't they share a similar blossom?

As with all good retirements, planning was crucial.  Grandma Suzi thought that 50 pots would take care of all the plants fit to share; she was off by a factor of 4.   There are no 3" or 4" plastic or ceramic pots left in Tucson - unless they cost more than fifty cents a piece.  After three days spent cleaning out all the Dollar Stores within a 10 mile radius,  I can confidently assert that this is true. 

Everyone wanted a plant to take home.  Scholars who had never set food in the garden before were suddenly bound and determined to be farmers over the summer.  Big kids and little kids, they were all interested in a crash course in plant management.

The lesson was simple: Plants are not fish.  They do not live in water.  Do not drown them.

The older scholars heard about soil having its own architecture, and how over-watering would destroy the gentle bridges which allowed air and water to move freely.  

The little scholars were still laughing about their new plants not being able to swim.

There was a wide variety in the pots I found outside the Dollar Stores.  Some were left over from my home garden, some were ordered from Amazon (tiny, because Grandma didn't read the fine print and mistook 3cm for 3", but perfect for seeds),

 and some, by the last day, were some random plastic cups we found in the Garden Bench.

 

And then there was the lizard caught in the anti-bird netting over the strawberry plants.

"Grandma Suzi, there's a lizard stuck in the netting."  

"Yes, I know."  

"Do you have scissors?" 

"No."  

"But, there's a lizard stuck in the netting!!"  

"Yes, I know."  

And so it went until someone found scissors in a backpack and Travon managed to extricate the creature from his prison.  

His tongue is very pink.

No, I did not want to pet him.

There was a lot going on in the garden, and there are still lots of plants to be harvested.  If you're in the neighborhood, bring a container and feel free to dig one or two out for yourself.  There's a trowel in the garden bench and potting soil beside the raised beds.

Have a great time, and remember - Plants are NOT fish.

Happy Birthday, Little Cuter!

Written in 2012, updated in 2019

There's a lot to love about my little girl.  Just ask her husband; he'll be glad to share.  So will her in-laws..... and her brother.... and her co-workers....and I. Watch her childrens' faces when she enters the room and you'll see what I mean.

In first grade she came home flummoxed and out of sorts.  The girls in her class had made up a list to take the guess work out of who would get to sit next to Little Cuter at lunch.  Another child might have been flattered; my girl was annoyed.  Why?  What made them think that she was special? She hadn't done anything to merit such attention. And anyway, didn't she have a say in the matter?

I smiled, remembering TBG's oft repeated advice on how to be cool - just act as if you don't care. Her trick was that she really didn't care.  She didn't keep score.  She was friends with everyone.

Nothing had changed by middle school.  "Mom, why do the kids fight with one another?  If you're not mad at anyone you can sit anywhere you like at lunch.  Why don't they get it?"  It was a good question then and it's a good question now. She still gets along with everyone; it's just easier that way.

A high school carpool conversation ended with "He's so awful even Little Cuter doesn't like him."  Catching up with her later in the day, laughing as I shared the story, I was stopped by her expression.  She was perturbed.  Who did they mean?  She was trying to think of someone she didn't like.

She's a truth teller, in the gentlest way imaginable.  "Mom, I love you, but......" has started many a Mom Improvement Project.  We are honest with one another.  I, brutally.  She, kindly.

Thirty-four years ago you arrived on the scene, somewhat reluctantly if the truth be told.  Today, there's not a reluctant bone in your body.  You embrace the world and its challenges with open arms and a welcoming smile - now and then.

(in this case, the day you started Junior Kindergarten)

  You're doing your best in 2019, and the world is a better place for it.

Happy Happy Birthday!

Who Wants It More?

I've been listening to the NBA playoffs, sporadically and disinterestedly, as the background noise to the rest of my evening.  Big Cuter's devotion to the Golden State Warriors impels his father to follow the games more closely than he might otherwise choose.  I love the boy, too, but that doesn't translate to slavish attention to the nuances of rebounds and free throws and temper tantrums.

Honestly, I don't think that the presence (or lack thereof) of Kevin Durant is all that big a deal.  I can think of many other things with which to occupy my mind.

And so, I have been reading novels and preparing end of year notes for each kindergarten scholar, and playing Candy Crush Soda, all without my hearing aides amplifying that which I've chosen not to hear.

But some things do penetrate. 

Today, Draymond Green credited his mother and his fiance for telling him to sit down, shut up, and get out of his own way.  He labeled his own behavior disgusting, admitted that he was ashamed when his 2 year old son aped Daddy's behavior, after scoring on his Playskool hoop.

This wasn't in his personal journal.  It was behind a podium, speaking on the record, in response to a reporter's question.  His performance had been outstanding; gaining control had a lot to do with it.

And I thought of the impact his words might have on an impressionable young athlete, struggling to find a balance between passion and ego and action.  Stop whining; start playing.  Not a bad message at all.

Overlap - A Snippet

I read two novels this week - Lee Child's latest Jack Reacher (who does not look at all like Tom Cruise) and Jeffery Deaver's newest main character's first book. 

Both feature strong, silent types with a variety of lethal skills and backstories worth exploring.  Both men operate outside the law, in a Paladin role, rescuing the weak, restoring sanity to the universe, then moving on.  Both authors write tight prose, construct surprising plots, and keep me coming back for me.

So, I was struck when, at about the same point in each book, the main characters encounter a feisty female police officer whose orders are the same:  Thanks for the offer of help.  Please leave town now,  and don't come back.

Were Child and Deaver having drinks one night, concocting their plots, planning the overlap?  Or is it merely coincidental?

Inquiring minds want to know.