When Voting Became An Act of Bravery

I took the trouble to register as a Democrat so that I could help Mayor Pete on his road to the White House.  Our trip to Indiana would not interfere with going to the polls, so we didn't need absentee ballots.  It would be a giant loop - to the post office, to the church to vote, to the library - before we left to see the grandkids in person.

Then we opted to shelter in place.  I wore my pajamas.  I made comfort food for breakfasts.  I ventured out to the pool in the back and opened the door for the mail carrier in the front, but that was it. I found myself without motivation; I think it's the edge of depression trying to creep out from behind the Sertraline wall.

The medication can do only so much.  The rest is on me.  So, I've been swimming until my heart is racing and I can't do another lap.  I start my day with Pilates mat exercises (10 pieces for 20 minutes total and in 30 days I'll have a new body!) and today I'm adding a brisk walk in the neighborhood (the Pilates Diva tells me that the parks and the paths are crowded with like minded movers).

Getting my blood going is the best non-chemical antidote to malaise I've found.  Drop and give me 20 is TBG's go-to answer when the kids or I were moping.  It's a cheap, easy, internal locus of control way to reset my brain.  So, when I started to panic about going out to vote, I should have done some push ups.

Instead, I took a box of sanitizer wipes and left the gas pump a much cleaner place than it was when we arrived.  At the polling place, we parked in a socially distant spot and refused to sign the petition gatherer's form.  Trading my license with the first poll worker was only slightly more awkward than receiving my ballot from the second. There were no wipes in the booth but not to worry -  mine were still wet enough to wipe down the pen and the part of the paper I'd be touching. 

I debated taking my I Voted sticker from the final poll worker.  I love those stickers.  I received mine with a wet wipe, debated putting it on my shirt or my purse, then tossed it in a trash can on the way to the car.

This is really impacting every little corner of my world.

Ooops!

I spent Monday on hold.

Not being held.  On Hold.

For the 6th day in a row, I tried to get through to Allegiant Airlines since I booked my ticket to Indiana using vouchers and for that I need to speak to a customer service representative.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

I tried to order groceries on line.  Walmart Grocery couldn't process the order; the swirling circle just kept going round and round and round, but it never connected to Your Order is Completed.

I managed to get the Safeway website to work.  I scheduled delivery for between 7-8pm last night.  At 9:30 I called the emergency number (they closed at 9; who knew?).  At 10:30, we put a note on the front door with a tip for the driver and a plea that she ring the bell to alert us to the arrival of our groceries (TBG is going through serious vanilla ice cream withdrawal) and went to sleep.  There are no groceries in front of my door this morning, and the phone call I made went from Muzak to we cannot accommodate your call right now; please call later.

With all that going on, with nothing requiring the setting of an alarm (I miss the Pilates Diva's private sessions, but......), with endless unscheduled hours punctuated by Facetime with grandkids and phone calls with grown kids, I somehow forgot to write a post.

I better get a handle on all this open-ended-ness, eh?

I promise to be back tomorrow with an update.  There will be more - we have to vote today.

I Understand It, Now

The plague was raging.

Seven young men and three young women, along with their entourages (entourages were big in the 14th century), retreated to a villa outside Florence to wait it out.  Over the course of 100 days, they told 100 stories, one by one, every afternoon, as a way to pass the time.

When I read it several years ago (part of a class of books I really should read), Boccacio's Decameron seemed like a lovely fantasy, albeit perhaps not the most sanitary.  What if one of them brought the disease along to the villa?  They brought their belongings, covered with plague. There was no testing.  What were they thinking?

But the notion of whiling away the afternoon with friends, telling tales, forgetting, for a while, the reason they were there in the first place now holds new relevance.  I get it.

After all, there are all these unknowns.  How long am I going to keep smiling when I can't play with my friends?  We can use video on our devices, but the long pause, the sharing of physical space, smelling and seeing and hearing the same things at the same time, all of that is lost on the screen.

We went to Not-Kathy and Dr. K for dinner last night. Her preparations came straight from her first class in nursing school - cleaning and disinfecting.  We maintained a respectful distance (she leaned back when I got too close with my phone).  There was a plan for filling our glasses and clearing our plates.  We didn't share serving utensils; there was no butter knife.  Our chicken pot pies came in (gigantic) individual ramekins brought to the table by pot-holdered-hands.  If we wanted another biscuit (and we did) we touched the one we wanted while avoiding the plate on which they rested.

I was exhausted just thinking about what she went through to make it possible for us to share some wine, and a meal, and the easy conversation between life-long friends.

If only we had an entourage .....

Not The Post I Planned to Post

I had a happy in life post all set for today.  I was supposed to be in San Francisco all week; I was so proud that I had written a week ahead.

But I flew home two days early, foregoing a trip to Marin to hike and hear some music with dear friends, leaving my boy a day sooner than I planned, refusing to be a vector any more than necessary. 

The airport was empty at both ends. 

The grocery store had all the foods we needed.  The 20-something cashier was surprised that we thought it would get worse.

And now we're home, hunkered down for the duration.  We've heard from every family member on both sides, nice long phone conversations filled with love and stories and reassurances.  There will be a lot of FaceTime and letter writing and closet cleaning going on. 

All in all, we shouldn't be any more worried than any other American who doesn't live paycheck to paycheck or depend on the gig economy to pay the rent.  I can't imagine adding that anxiety to the agita that's stirring my soul right now. 

I have all that I need and the ones I love are safe. I hope that you denizens can say the same.

Stay safe. 

Water in Grandma's Garden

It was warm enough to turn on the hose last week.  If (okay, when) the gardeners got wet, they could take themselves out into the sun to dry off.  At least, that was the plan.  While the new hose works well for the trees at the garden's far end, the watering cans are always in high demand.

 Filling them is a sloppy, complicated affair.

Using the wheelbarrow to catch the water which overflowed was a creative way to fill the watering cans while staying (relatively) dry.

And then, there was The Hole.

Dug by the littlest gardeners for no reason other than they could, 

and filled with water for the same reason

 it softened the surrounding soil enough so that a moat could be created with our rakes.

Of course, the shovel was a big help, too.

Now we have an experiment to watch:

One tree has drip irrigation.

One tree has a moat.

Which will do better?

They aren't the same kind of trees (an apple and an orange).

They didn't come from the same grower.

They weren't planted at the same time.

Still, for our purposes, it's a perfect science experience.

It's pretty 

and the results can be eaten.

Consequences of a Pandemic - A Photographic Snippet

Traveling Through a Pandemic

I figure that if I survived Las Vegas, I can survive anything.

That's the attitude I'm taking along as I travel to San Francisco and Indiana over the next few weeks.  My kids are there.  I miss them.  That's enough for me.

Taos Rainbow and I lived together when we were sophomores in a sorority at Cornell.  When she wondered if I might be interested in joining her on the west coast, I said yes in a hurry.  She's traveling with some family; I'm visiting mine.  There has been nothing but joy and wonder as we planned our week - Sting's The Last Ship, Terrapin Station in San Rafael, Frida Khalo at the deYoung - and friends and meals fit into empty spaces.

Giblet has more words every day, and FlapJilly has so much that she wants to show me, and my daughter needs someone to cook and do light housekeeping, and SIR has a new car and TBG and I can't stand being away from them any longer.  We've been dreaming about Iggy's Pizza and story time at the library and picking Mommy up from Notre Dame.  I'm smiling just typing the words.

Then people started walking around with sanitizing wipes in their hands.  Allegiant Airlines offered to let me change my reservations without charge, even though I made the plans a month ago.  (United is only offering help to those who made plans after March 3rd.) There is no 99% rubbing alcohol on the shelves, and Purell is a fantasy.

I've decided to travel with my own small container of sanitizing wipes, which I'll use to fumigate seat and armrests, offering supplies to those around me because germs don't understand boundaries.  I'm getting better and better at not touching my face.  I know I'm washing my hands enough because my cuticles have peeled away from my nails in protest. And I'm bringing enough of my medicine so that if they close the airports and I have to drive home, I'll be covered.

I'm so glad that President Trump and Vice President Pence have this virus thing under control so that I don't have to worry at all.

One Pill Makes You Happy.....

I'm traveling tomorrow  The whole world is moving toward homebound self sufficiency for a week or two and I'm getting on a plane to go to museums and shows and restaurants land music in venues filled with other human beings.

Some of those humans are sure to be vectors for Covid19. I'll bring my sanitizing wipes and wash my hands and try as hard as I can to keep my hands away from my face, because that's what the experts tell me to do. 

As George Stephanopoulos asked Ben Carson today, where is the plan? 

I don't think my son plans on my being quarantined in his apartment; giving it up for a few days vacation is quite enough for him to offer and for me to accept. Are there plans to cancel air travel?  Being sequestered with the world's best grandchildren and their parents is our idea of heaven; being stuck, alone, in Big Cuter's studio, is somewhat less attractive.  

Of course,  he does have an exceptionally well curated library, double stacked on floor to ceiling bookcases. History, philosophy, fantasy and scifi, from Herodotus through Scalzi, with a detour through Calvin and Hobbes, he's read them all and I've read many. But sitting alone has never been my forte.  Even all those words wouldn't be enough company, unless I got sick. I want to be alone when I don't feel well. I dont like muss or fuss.  Just let me moan and groan at the unfairness of it all and don't try to help. 

So that was my wild tangent this evening. I went round and round, my guts tightening,  spinning scenarios designed to terrify.  There is nothing terrifying to what I'm doing. There's just a little bit of agita going around right now and I'm susceptible to that when it's floating in the air.

Travel makes me anxious in a good way , too. The excitement,  the physical racing of blood in my veins, the wonder of the unknown all compete with terror. Where it comes from is a mystery,  but it's there and it's not doing anything useful. 

There is a solution which allows me to be polite and loving and free of worry. It does not impair my functioning,  it removes obstacles to my success.

So,  when I've packed 3 different bags 3 times each trying  to meet United's size restrictions and come out of the closet with a disheartened look, my sweetie knows just what I need.

The rest of the evening was lovely. I got everything done, and I was pleasant the whole time. 

She's Gone

Elizabeth Warren wasn't my first choice.  She was shaping up to be my second choice after Pete left me high and dry.  Not that I thought she had the delegates to get to the end.  I was resigned to Joe Biden sweeping the field and offering a placid, safe, calm alternative to Bernie and Trump's hectoring.

But I thought that watching a woman ride a wave of pinkie swears and selfies and unbuttoned cardigans would assuage my soul.  I thought that having a woman in the mix might influence the debate.  I had hopes that our nation was capable of moving past old white men telling them what's best.

Apparently, I was wrong.

I heard the news on the radio.  On television, it was somehow less sad.  When all I had was her voice, the sorrow was palpable.

She's right.  The hardest part is the message it sends to little girls, who now have to wait 4 more years before they might see a woman in the White House.  That's a long time when you are 8 or 9 and your grandpa tells you that you'll grow up to be President of the United States of America.  Because when that happens you in 1960 you turn to him and say: That's impossible.  I'm poor, I'm Jewish, and I'm a woman.  

Pete was poor.  Bernie and Mike are Jewish. All the women are gone.

I'm not sure what the point is here.  I've been mulling it over all afternoon and I come up empty.  The facts are before me.  I don't know what to make of them.

And the more I think about it, I realize that I've been mulling over this issue for 60 years and I still don't have an answer.  There were so many good choices out there and yet here we are, back where we were.  I don't want to think that we're stuck there forever, but I don't know why I might imagine that things will change.

I think I'm a lot sadder about Senator Warren suspending her campaign than I realized I was.

Look At What We Grew

We have Sweet Peas ready to pop.

That was the only plant I recognized.

These pretty pink ones 

and this daisy-like white one 

were more useful as ornaments than as a botany lesson.

The big green borage leaves are spiky and thick. and grow blue flowers, both of which overshadow the orange something-or-other hiding in their shadow.

The alyssum grows low and white and seems unperturbed by the overgrowth.

Unperturbed is exactly the way to describe this young gardener's reaction to the scratchy bark in the nook of our mesquite tree, a space normally occupied by Tom-or-Jerry.

Delighted to be here, though,

 

is my favorite feeling.   

I love that the garden is a quiet place to re-string a broken bracelet

or to think deep thoughts.

or to carry all the colors of watering cans in the land.

I'm exhausted and exhilarated every week.

And my heart is full.

Can I Fall In Love Again?

I cried.  I listened and I cried.  Mayor Pete was going home to South Bend and I was bereft.

I wondered about the two separate donations I'd made to his campaign in the last week, until I heard that he was paying his staff a month's severance and continuing their health care while they looked for other work.  That's a good use of my money. 

Vote with my heart in the primary, they tell me.  My heart is empty.

My second and third choices (Harris and Booker, in no particular order) are gone.  It took 24 hours for me to lose Amy Klobuchar, who's supported by some people I admire, and who might have grabbed me.

Mike Bloomberg is looking like a spoiler right now, though I still think he'd be a fine POTUS.  Bernie's hectoring hasn't gotten any less annoying, and I can't see much of Arizona putting up with him. 

I wish, I really, really, wish, that I could fall in love with Elizabeth Warren.  I think she'd be a fine POTUS.  I admire her story and her passion and her smarts and her plans.  I'd be thrilled to have a First Gentleman and a grandmother in the White House.  Many people I respect are in her corner.  I just can't get excited.

Joe Biden is a safe, easy, traditional, comfortable, reliable choice.  In 2017, Little Cuter and I saw him at the commissioning of the USS Gabrielle Giffords.  He was lively and engaging and absolutely refused to leave the orderly group of would-be hand shakers until Jill laughed from the golf cart that she was leaving and if he wanted to join her he needed to be there now.  It was a very human moment.  Joe was having a great time.  It was fun to watch, and I liked him.

But love?  Risking my heart?  I'm just not sure.

I Took a Hike Today

Friends since our oldests were still in utero,  Mary Catherine and I pick up right where we left off,  no matter how many years have passed.  She said that out loud on Saturday night, and we hugged as our yes-we're-still-married-to-the-same-husbands nodded and smiled. 

Our babies were babies who lived down the street from one another, and their mothers were, for the first time in their lives, neither working nor going to school.  We tried to figure out this new role while pushing our strollers, while marveling that our husbands seemed to enjoy one another, while being surprised at how unusual that was, then, in the early 1980's. 

I like to think that she needed me as much as I needed her.  I do know that she's as happy for me about this as I am for her about that.  We revel in the successes of the kids we've watched grow up, albeit from afar.  We suffer when they suffer, and offer advice, solicited or not, which is accepted in the spirit in which it is given....we've known each other forever,; I know that whatever is happening is not your fault. 

As a couple, they are smart and accomplished and true social justice warriors, giving new meaning to failing at retirement.  The world is a better place with them in it.

Plus, they have great taste in repeat vacation destination decisions. This is the third year in a row that the weather and the cycling and the food and their snow bird friends have brought them to us.  We opt into as many open slots as they have on their calendar. 

And so twice this week we sat outside in our backyard, drinking prosecco, watching the beautiful and absolutely-provided-by-us-especially-for-them sky as it changed colors, geeking out over Steve Kornacki's khaki pants.  When Mary Catherine suggested a slow and pleasant walk for Monday, it felt natural to say yes.

She was overly familiar with the first path I suggested, so I drove us to the Sweetwater Trailhead. Little Cuter and SIR and FlapJjilly hiked there in December.

I thought if a 5 year old could do it then I could, too.

And I was right.

We followed the excellent signage for a little more than two miles, up and down gentle grades, with just enough uncertainty beneath our feet to remind us that we were out in the desert.  We kept the same pace, slow and pleasant, stopping to admire the mountains (she took pictures) and the cacti (she took pictures) and to examine the maps.

It may have been a long time since I took someone on a slow and pleasant hike, but it came back in a flash -  share the trail, uphill trumps downhill, and check your map time the trail branches.  I recognized the jojoba and the creosote; the mallow and the LYT's and the LWT's (Little Yellow Things/Little White Things) and the fairy dusters' red feathers gave us plenty of reason to oooh and ahhhhh (and for her to take pictures).

The stones she kicked out of the way reminded her of her brother, the rock hound.  I was thankful that someone else was also looking down, checking the terrain for obstacles as well as treasures.  But that was as far as my worries went.  Nothing hurt until we were going downhill at the end, and downhill never felt great, even before I was perforated.  This wasn't any worse.

Without poles, without pavement, without a lot but still with some elevation, I took a real hike today. I'm so glad she came to visit.

Undertaking Preparations

In California, we were issued a notebook filled with What To Do If We're Stranded information.  Our town was on a peninsula which might have been cut off from the mainland in an earthquake; we had to be prepared to shelter in place. 

Some had generators.  I had candles, flashlights and batteries, and a bag of charcoal for the hibachi if we really needed to heat something up.  Blankets a plenty, bathtubs always ready to be filled with water for all sorts of necessities, radios powered by a variety of sources (solar, battery, a wind up crank), medications and safety supplies ..... we were always prepared.

Then, we moved to Arizona.  No one worries about earthquakes in Arizona.  I stopped thinking about emergency preparedness.

Then, my go-to-friend-for-science referred me to this Scientific American article which reminded me that it is my civic duty to be prepared in case there is community disruption.  

I went right to the grocery store for shelf stable supplies.  I drove to Costco on Saturday afternoon to get two flats of water, braving the crowded parking lot, receiving a cart swiped with an antiseptic cloth, preparing my household for the day the government asks me to avoid public places.

I have trips to San Francisco and Indiana planned in the next few weeks, with the Festival of Books squeezed in between.  I really hope there is no community disruption planned.