Little Hands - A Snippet

They wrap scallions around kale around a bright yellow cauliflower, all grown and harvested in our gardens.

a

They examine the roots of a harvested-too-hard-and-it-all-came-out plant. 

And when their tiny fingers aren't quite strong enough, the tip of the plastic pink trowel helps to get down deep.

Their faces are wonderful.

Their fingers are magical.

Mayor Bloomberg's Bus Came To Town

And what a bus it was.

There was an entourage of half a dozen well dressed 30 and 40 somethings, along with a photographer, a videographer and their own audio visual accompaniments.

The fact that the former Mayor of Miami couldn't remember to repeat the questions for those in the back didn't dampen anyone's ardor too much. 

Maybe it was the free barbecue buffet - wings and brisket and salad and slaw and drinks for everyone in the room.... all 150 or so of us..

I'm still all in for Mayor Pete, but I've always liked Mike.

I think he's electable, even if he is late to the game.  He's not perfect, but no one is perfect perfect (nor do I want anything to be described as perfect ever again... and now my anti-Trump rant is done).   

And his wealth is impressive, when viewed up close in my little corner of the world.  

Beto showed up, but he didn't feed us, and we had to buy our own beers.

Today, there were yard signs and bumper stickers for the taking. 

It's shaping up to be an interesting race, isn't it?

SOTU - or not

I'm an involved citizen.

I ought to watch the State of the Union address.  A reporter from the AP once asked to sit next to me on my couch and watch one with me.

Tonight, I tried to listen as I drove home.  I lasted one very long block before I removed his presence from my automobile.  He was killing the lovely buzz I carried after visiting with old friends. 

TBG was apologizing before the door closed behind me; he tried but he just couldn't do it... I just couldn't listen to him.

For a while,  with the sound muted, I focused on Nancy Pelosi.  Her smirk may not have been quite proper behavior for a public official in a public space, but, in this alternate universe we're inhabiting it seemed just right.

Tomorrow those fools who applauded every. single. sentence. will deny their oaths to judge impartially.  Tonight, they looked like foxes in the hen house.

Disgusted, TBG and I gave up entirely.

I'm still a good citizen.... and I will vote on November 3.

Shingrix 2.0

I had an awful time with the first Shingrix vaccine; I was flat on my back for a day and a half.  I was not looking forward to receiving the second dose.  Knowing that I had a 6 month window made it somewhat less pressing than preparing for Thanksgiving and Chanukah and Christmas and New Years and TBG's birthday and my family visiting and school starting and so it went until Saturday.

TBG wanted to make no plans for watching the Super Bowl; he wanted to be alone on his couch with his son on the phone and me by his side.  I had nothing on my calendar for Saturday afternoon and my physical presence would be more important to TBG than any input I might provide. I was out of excuses; I had to get the shot.

I called the pharmacy, hoping that their cupboards were bare.  They said come right down, we'll have it ready when you arrive.

And they did.  And it hurt.

I drove right home, just in case.  I didn't have lunch, just in case.  I changed into comfy clothes, just in case.  I worried, just in case.

Reading didn't distract me.  I kept checking in to see what condition my condition was in, pausing after each pithy chapter of  Girl, Woman, Other to feel my forehead, to listen to my body, to refresh my stay-hydrated-water-bottle.

I tried to nap, but I was too anxious.  I got hungry, so I ate a sandwich.  My arm hurt, but the rest of me seemed just fine.  All through the night and the next day, I kept worrying and kept feeling healthy.  I went to Costco and we watched the game and I made brownies and I kept worrying.  Still feeling fine, I forgot to take analgesics before bedtime and my sore arm woke me up every time I rolled over. 

This morning, I left the house an hour earlier than I should have, fully convinced that I was late until a light bulb went on over my head.  I barely made it up the stairs to Pilates, struggled through, drove straight home, and crawled under the covers.  Everything hurt.

I slept for two hours undisturbed by TBG's comings and goings or the television or the ringing of the phone.  When I woke up, I felt fine. 

Was it my body's last attempt to reject the vaccine?  Was it a migraine without an aura?  Was it a seven hour flu?

It doesn't matter.  It's over. 

And I don't ever need to get another shot of shingrix again.

They're Here, Again

We all recognized it at the same time: there was a lot more traffic.

It happened all at once; a 15 minute trip suddenly took half again as much time.  Those of us who are never late were surprised to find our lunch companions even later than we were.  Normally, we'd be embarrassed; last week we just shook our head and murmured, They're back.

The weather is still dark and dreary up north, so our friends drive back or fly down or come for a week or so to an air b&b on this side of town and that makes us happy.  It's the presence of everyone else that annoys us. 

Restaurant patios are full of diners wearing jackets, sitting beneath heat lamps, but outside, looking at the sunshine through semi-transparent plastic curtains.  Inside, please, we live here and we're cold! is our going out to lunch mantra.... although out of town guests have been known to influence the outcome. 

There are lots of things going on this month - the Gem and Mineral Shows;  UofA basketball home games; the Rodeo; and a variety of political fundraisers for all the worthy causes.  Even this week's rainy prediction won't get in our way; we're going to see Little Women and the exhibit at the Center for Creative Photography and maybe Scarlet will join us, now that she's healthy.

I like it when two pieces of my life intersect, the past and the present doing something new together.  It's just too bad that it takes so long to get there these days.

Spring is in the Air - Random Thoughts

We're surprised that it's cool outside, often neglecting a jacket as we head to the gym in the early morning hours.  Once the sun has been up for a while, we can sit outside and read; it will take many more degrees before swimming is plausible.  There's really no excuse - I ought to be walking outside.
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The roses are pruned back to leaf-less-ness, the canes nicely shaped into an outward-facing bush.  Both Katie at Rillito Nursery and Dr. Google agree that it's hard to cut too much.  Apparently, roses are quite hardy. 
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While pruning, my garden guy and I discussed that orange faced menace (his words) and impeachment.  While the details escaped him, the major facts were at his fingertips.  No amount of Presidential obfuscation clouded his conclusion that the guy's a crook, has been his whole business career, this is no different. 

It was the clearest description of this transactional presidency as I'd heard in a while.
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My rosemary bushes, all 12 or so of them, are, after 13-plus years, finally growing together into a thick hedge.  TBG's desire for an English Garden must be satisfied in small doses; the desert doesn't lend itself naturally to such things.

I figure that by the time FlapJilly graduates from high school the whole thing will be worth photographing for you.
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TBG's watching college basketball on tv.  The sounds feel inappropriate.  Those male voices, those squeaky shoes, the horns and the cheers and the back to the studio's are imprinted on my psyche as happening with a snowy, cold, bleak vista outside my windows.

While there's a little bit of snow on the mountains, I'm watching the purple lantana come into bloom, after lying dormant all winter long.  My ears are saying winter; my eyes are refuting the claim.
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I haven't been keeping track of my books in the sidebar (no one mentioned missing it, so I figured no one cared), but I have one to recommend: The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett. 

It's lyrical, lovely, interwoven but not too confusing, and feels very, very real.... down to the perfect description of sitting in a parked car, with the windows rolled down, on a muggy, summer night.  It's a much happier read than a plot description might lead you to believe.

Following Directions, or Teachers Are VASTLY Underpaid

I thought it was pretty simple::

• Take a plastic cup (no, it didn't matter if you took a red on e or a blue one)
• Use the big Sharpie to write your name on the cup
• Make sure Grandma Suzi pokes a hole in the bottom of your cup
• Fill your cup with soil from a yellow bag
• Come back and I'll give you an onion or 3 seeds

I thought it was pretty obvious:

• The cups were big and bright 20 oz ribbed plastic
• If your name isn't on the cup, how will you know it is yours?
• The hole is either there, or not
• There were two, bright yellow, 50 qt bags in the garden... and it's not that big a space
• FILL.... not Put a Little Bit
• You are not done until you have planted something

I'll grant that the hole in the bottom of the cup was counter-intuitive when they were supposed to fill it up, but the hole was made by a small, pointed pruner, not a lot of soil would bleed through, and the water would make its way out of the cup so the plant didn't moulder and die from drowning.  I was happy to explain all of that.

What made me want to tear out my hair were questions like these:

• Did you poke a hole in my cup yet?  (Um, you are holding it.... look and see.)
• Where's the yellow bag?  (It's right there, almost as tall as you are.)
• Do you have a tool I can use? (No, the cup itself is the tool.  So are your hands. The big shovel is not really necessary for this.)
• Is this too much water? (All my talks about plants not being fish were, apparently, for naught.)

I said nothing, of course, just smiled and pointed and answered and reassured.  But my brain was having a wonderful time answering them, even if my mouth did nothing but recite the same things, over and over and over and over again.

Of course, there were those who listened and followed directions and proudly showed off their finished projects before picking up the rakes and doing the work that earned them a plant.  There were those who answered the questions for me, neither patronizing nor abusing their classmates.  There were even those who said Thank You.... well, there was one of those..... and he got a special Grandma Suzi note with 2 hearts and the word POLITE written with that big black Sharpie.

I have them in 6 groups following one another for 20 minutes once a week.  I'm exhausted afterward, even though I'm always well fed and wearing comfy clothes and can sit down whenever I must.  

Just thinking about running a classroom from 7:45 in the morning through the early afternoon is tiring.  Getting up and doing it 5 days in a row ?  These educators are VASTLY underpaid.  

I challenge anyone who disagrees to try it.  You can start in my garden, if you'd like.

A Report from Friday's March for Life in DC (Updated - The pictures work!)

My Brother participates in life.  He's an enthusiastic and keen observer of the world around him.  He makes me laugh and I love him.  Today, I'm sharing him with you.  Enjoy!

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It was a nice day, so I put on my hat

and went downtown to see what this country is all about. This crowd was much smaller than the first anti-Trump Women’s March. This group was very ruly, walking slowly along Constitution Ave toward the Capitol.

  In 2017, the unruly Womens’ Marchers ignored their assigned parade route, meandered along both Constitution and Independence Avenues, trampled the grass on the mall, and stood in long lines for the hundreds of porta-potties.

I arrived after the President addressed the crowd.  Heavy security (the Secret Service has their own magnetometers) meant an hours long wait to get through the checkpoints if you wanted to pay homage.  Anyway it’s better viewing on tv.

If you haven’t noticed, there is a religious war going on in this country.  And the alt right is highly visible

  

(notice the balaclavas)

  ,

although either ignored or accepted by this homogenous 

 

crowd.

There were lots of pre-printed signs. 

Among my favorites were the “I vote pro life” held by underage children. Can they read, or think?

There was no waiting at the comparatively small number of porta-potties,

but my favorite overheard line was, “It took me forever to find a toilet that had toilet paper.” 

Much singing and praying and loudspeakers for Jesus.  “We love babies yes we do. We love babies, how about you?!” 

Colorful matching hats and shirts helped keep groups of crusaders together.  A distinct lack of either profanity or humor on the signs, but enough of the usual graphic imagery of aborted fetuses, even on large video displays. (I'll spare you those pictures.)

As I was heading home walking away from the march through Judiciary Square, a pretty 30 something woman coming from the courthouse flashed me a knowing smile. Must have been the hat. 

She was the only one who noticed.  It’s a whole other world out there.

(Editor's Note: Most people would stop here.  My Brother is 
NOT most people.)

And so, the country is at a fork in the road

  

And Then There Were Nine

The news got worse as the day went on.  More girls and moms and dads gone in a flash.  TBG was obsessed; I tried to avoid it.  That quickly became impossible; it was on the national news as well as the sports news and on the radio and all over the inter-webs. 

I saw nothing about the civil suit he settled when he was 25 and accused by a 19 year old hotel employee of rape.  A WaPo reporter was put on paid leave for tweeting about it; I suppose it was too soon to look at the whole picture. 

But I wasn't focused on Kobe the superstar.  I was stuck on his family, one sister gone and three without their daddy. 

I couldn't get Payton Chester out of my mind, nor Alyssa Altobelli, 8th graders... just on the cusp.... full of life.... riding to an away game with the coach.... a scene that, perhaps without the helicopter, is familiar to lots of us.
 
I was stuck with all those families who now exist in a Before and After world.

The professional athletes who were forced to face their own mortality made me understand the value of a rueful smile.  That was a break from the awful reality of Alyssa's siblings making their way on their own, of Matt Mauser's 2 year old crying for her gone forever mommy, of the students and players and carpool parents whose lives are forever altered by a single, unlikely event, something that happens to other people. 

Suddenly, they are other people, too, members of a club that no one wants to join. 

They are in my heart.  All of them.

Why?

I've seen almost every episode of Law'n Order aired before 2011; I knew what was coming when I stopped in front of the television.  I don't know why I stayed, why I watched, but I did. 

A perfectly lovely moment doing just what they should have been doing became a woman cradling a shot and dying loved one's head and saying exactly. what. I. said. to Christina-Taylor.

I knew it was coming;  I didn't know it would leave me sobbing.  But there I was,  hanging onto to TBG, having all the feelings that are usually locked up in a box in my head pouring out of my eyes onto the front of his sweatshirt.

I was fine once the feelings were aired out and wiped off and the lip replaced, gently, on the box. 

And then, today, Kobe Bryant and his 13 year old daughter died. 

The lid is going to need a new latch pretty soon.

Are You Watching?

TBG and I were obsessed with the run up to Impeachment.  We watched everything, hearing over and over again the same (to our ears) wonderful arguments.

The President obstructed, and there was proof.

The President broke the spirit of the law, and there was proof.

The GAO says the President broke the law, and there was proof.

Then the Articles were walked over to the Senate and my will was snapped.

I cannot listen to Jay Sekulow.  I cannot spend waking hours watching grown ups willfully misconstrue the facts.

I feel terrible.  Adam Schiff is brilliant, but I've been catching him in the car on NPR, not sitting down for a binge civics lesson.

Am I a bad citizen? 

Digging

They like to dig.

They like to make pies and cakes and piles, 

but mostly they like to dig.  

It makes them happy.

They use the plastic trowels and the plastic shovel without complaining.

Today, they were satisfied with the slow but steady pace the rain-softened soil allowed,

working together to loosen the soil between our trees. 

There were issues regarding the redistribution of the dislocated soil.

Some were brought to my attention with a great sense of urgency. 

Some were resolved by talking it through. 

And some were more possessive of their soil than others.

Digging.

I have to come up with a creative use for digging.

And you thought you had problems?

My Resolution for the New Year

On the theory that I am more likely to keep it if I announce it, here is my Resolution for 2020:

I will look for ways to de-clutter my life.  I will try to give away that which will give others joy.

I'm not going all Marie Kondo on my life, and there is one obvious reason why.  The woman can manage to keep her book collection to "30 at any one time".  That's a non-starter for me.

What I can manage to accomplish, I think, is getting rid of that which is no longer useful, necessary, important, applicable, attractive, interesting, or likely to be touched again in my lifetime.  Having all those descriptors helps when do I want this any more? is too big a question to answer.

Some items are easy.  Those jeans haven't gotten past my hips in years; what makes me think that any amount of diet and exercise will make it happen in the future?  Gravity is not letting go of my abdomen any faster now than it was when last I wore them.  I weigh about the same as I did when I graduated from college; it's all in different places now.  It's time to admit that and move on.  There is no reason to be uncomfortable in pants that don't even look that good any more; it's hard to tuck in a shirt when you can't zip them up.

Out they went, even the fancy ones I got for a song at Buffalo Exchange on a girls' day out with Elisabeth, years and years and years ago.  I'll still have the memory.  Someone else can have the jeans.

Concert t-shirts met the same fate; the memories stayed, the garments went. So did the shorts that are too short and the socks I haven't worn since I moved to Tucson.  Being able to wear sandals for nine months of the year relegates socks to hiking, the gym, and ccccccold wintry nights on the couch.

There is no need to hold onto what will keep someone else warm, so sweatshirts that are dusty from disuse were folded on top of most of the long sleeved shirts I haven't already left in the frigid north with Little Cuter.  I'm not only concentrating on clothing; I have blankets that were swag from conferences and reunions that have been keeping my garage shelves warm and toasty since we moved here. If I haven't unrolled them in 13 years, I probably can find someone who needs it more than I do.

I took advantage of the commercial breaks during TBG's favorite weekend of professional football to drop the contents of his closet next to him on the couch.  Cubby hole by cubby hole, he mourned the departure of clothes that were too tight, not comfy, never worn, don't like.  By the time the second game was ready to begin, he was left only with that which is serviceable, appropriate, and desired.

I started this venture in the kitchen when the kids were here, offering relics as heirlooms, using their height and strength to move things around.  Now, for the most part, what I use is close at hand, what I didn't want has gone to Goodwill, and all the cabinets are clean, inside and out.  They make me smile.  TBG notices the difference; the Tupperware drawer is no longer terrifying.

I was smart to begin in a public space.  I had company while I worked and everyone shared in the after glow.  The closets are now places of joy and wonder as we wear things that had been hidden and are now revealed; these smiles are more private, but no less delightful.  I'm working on it, one section at a time, sometimes 15 minutes at a time, sometimes not til this is done. 

Even if I stop now, I'm ahead of the game.  I think I'll like this resolution.