Is This Really Necessary?

At our 4th of July celebration yesterday, I was introduced to the notion of a piston powered golf ball.

After a nice long laugh about exploding club heads and volatile golf balls they were able to explain the concept to me.  

Apparently, lining up the club and the ball and the hole is the secret to success.  Most people lose that connection on the down stroke.  They lose power, they tilt the club, they yank it one way or the other, all while trying to connect with an object that doesn't move.

This handy dandy, $1100 gizmo solves all that.  You figure out your line, put the club head in position, and push a button.

WHOOOSH! 

For courses that eschew carts, this presents a whole new dimension in assisted golf.  

Or, is it AI taking over the golf world?  Will we need our bodies any more?

The whole thing seems fairly ridiculous to me, except as an adaptive device in rehab.

Isn't the whole point of sports to move?.

Another Anniversary

It was a beautiful day.  She was surrounded by family, on a blanket next to the parade's viewing stand, perfectly situated so that they wouldn't miss a thing.

Then the bullets started flying.

She is a friend from our Chicago days.  She is having her moment in the spotlight, as the one year anniversary of the devastating injury that's up-ended her life throws yet another spotlight on yet another human tragedy.

Someone on NPR made a point this morning, one I've been mulling over all afternoon.  It brought me back to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, where he hopes that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from this earth.

If we are a government of the people and for the people then why are 8 mass shootings in two days still a thing that happens?  Seems that the people, 70 or 80 percent or more, want sensible gun legislation - that's the of the people and for the people part.   But that whole by the people thing needs some work, don't you agree?  

The people who are writing the laws and making the rulings don't seem to have incorporated the for the people part into their decisions.  

So we go back to where it all starts - in the voting booth.  I'm stocking up on pre-stamped postcards before the rates go up on Sunday; I'll be sending Get Out The Vote reminders as the requests from organizers come in.  I'll be sure to share the links when they arrive.  

After all, we have to do something.  This situation is just untenable.

Happy 4th of July

  reworked, revised, revisited...yes, you've read parts of this before

The sky is pure blue,  painted that way as G'ma said every time she looked up.  The occasional fluffy white cloud drifts by, and I'm hearing G'ma remark on that, too.  The flag in front of the house is swaying, the pole wedged between the base and the capital of one of the front columns, secured with thin, silver, crafting wire.  

It's an elegant solution to TBG's reluctance to put holes in his house;  I feel like Daddooooo every time I wrap another ring around the post.

Daddooooo was big on ingenious remedies to intractable problems.  He was also big on flags and the 4th of July.  We always went to the beach.  We always stopped at Custom Bakers on the way home, where the owners always let us go back and stick our fingers in the vats of frosting.

We always went to the Boardwalk in Long Beach, arriving as the sun was setting.  Skeeball and mechanical fortune tellers and the smell of the ocean, too black to be seen but too noisy to go unnoticed, occupied us as we waited for night to fall.  We practiced our ooohs and aahhhs; we were in fine form by the time the booms and the bangs began.

Through it all, the flags were flying.

There was a big one in the bracket beside the garage door, until the house was painted and further holes were frowned upon (is this some kind of male thing I just don't get?). A pole-holding-tube was sunk into the flower box, and while it was neither sturdy nor attractive, it did the job and as far as Daddooooo was concerned that was that.

There was always a plastic flag attached to the car's antenna, and all our bicycles had flags on the handlebars.   

I'm not letting the tradition fade away. 

Wearing my red white and blue tie dye - the dress, the tank top, the even bigger tank top - as I go through my day, bringing red and blue berries with whipped cream to the new next door neighbors who've invited us for late afternoon snacks, I'll be remembering what we always did.   

Happy 4th of July, denizens!  Let us live to continue to protect and create a more perfect union.

This World

Blasting affirmative action but leaving legacy admissions in place is probably not the best way to reduce the lingering effects of systemic racism.  Then, again, my guess is most of the justices haven't read the book.

Here's a long but relevant passage, from page 437

In the 1970's newly emergent "conservatives" as they self-identified, broke from the liberal past/future refrain that the nation still had a ways to go.  They pointed to the legislative gains of the preceding decades to claim that the nation had arrived; Black people in the here and now were no longer facing racism  Conservatives framed supporters of affirmative action as "hard-core racists of reverse discrimination" against while people, as Yale Law professor Robert Bork claimed in 1978.

Let's not address the wealthy parents who endow a building or donate to the athletic department to aid and abet their applicants.  The Cuters went to school with those parents.  It felt just as unfair as the letters other kids received, urging them to apply.

In 2001, the year Big Cuter was applying to college, white people became a minority in California.  My son wondered if he could apply as a minority now.

I never thought of myself as white.  I was Jewish.  One of our family's foundational bits of knowledge was that Daddooooo's youngest brother was one of the four Jews admitted to MIT, getting in despite the quota.

It's never seemed like a good idea to me, but I can't come up with a better one.  

I always tell the applicants I speak to about Cornell that what you study is less important than who you meet.  Expand your horizons.  Learn something new.  Join something weird.  Make different friends.

It helps if there are enough differences in the student body so that everyone has a chance to make a different friend.  The Supreme Court seems to disagree.

It's Not Getting Any Cooler

Our local NPR outlet ran a story about the increase in burn cases seen in local ER's.  Apparently, asphalt in full sun in triple digit temperatures without a cloud in the sky reaches either 150 or 180 degrees Fahrenheit.  

That's enough to cause second degree burns, which they are seeing on addicts who fall asleep on the pavement and on the elderly, who fall and cannot get up.  Just thinking about G'ma's thin skin on the hot sidewalk makes me cringe. It would separate like tissue paper in a flame.

There's a lot to be worried about as we age.  I don't think that burning sidewalks ought to be one of them.

The Babe Ruth League Indiana State Champion 8U Eastside girls are driving from the Chicago area to Louisville for the Regional Tournament.  They haven't been able to practice outdoors because the smoke from the Canadian wildfires has caused their air to be unsafe.  They are on their way to a Ring of Fire,

with heat advisories galore.  

Climate change?

We're going to look back on these beginning days of the planet overheating as naivete run amok.

Happy Anniversary

I've been spending a lot of time with my parents in the past few weeks.  With a new baby in the family, there's lots of kvelling (delighted bragging over good news) to be done.  Daddooooo would really appreciate this.  

They were married 73 years ago today, June 29th, a Thursday.  Just like today.

I don't remember many significant gifts they exchanged, beyond the custom jewelry from Daddooooo's silversmith friend.  But I do remember the green glass vase he bought one Mother's Day, while we were at the nursery buying her annual gardenia corsage.  

G'ma could never have something fragile; it'll just get broken.  She said it.  We assumed she meant it.  That morning, we held an impromptu family meeting decided to prove her wrong.

The vase sat on an end table in my parents' living room from my pre-teen years until the house was sold.  It moved with her to New Jersey and two places in Tucson, and then, when she died, I took it home.

I'm really glad that she had that vase. 

Some Days...

On the plus side, I did remember to bring the 30 pairs of new socks to my friend at Pilates this morning.  She'll distribute them to the women who live on the street and find food and comfort where she volunteers. Those socks have been waiting to be delivered for a month; it felt good, finally, to send them on their way.

I was feeling pretty good about life in general this morning.  The bagel store had perfectly toasted lovelies to go with the lox and cream cheese I had at home. The line at the post office was just long enough for me to browse the card selection and select a smiley note for my grandson, who, his mother informed me, will be happy to receive mail addressed to him and him alone.

There were lots and lots of pretty new stamps to buy, and I did.

Tomie dePaola's Strega Nona, endangered animals with glossy, sticker like pictures, Roy Lichtenstein's Pop Art, and some elephants and flowers just because.  The sailboats are for postcards.  After making my purchases I learned that the price of postage is going up once again, on July 9th.  I left the post office feeling quite smug.

The bagels, the stamps, and I then went to the library.  They were closed yesterday, a fact which was noticed but forgotten by me and by three or four other cars and their occupants yesterday at 10.  They reopened today, to a healthy crowd at 9:58am.

The new shelving that caused the closure is lovely.  So was the stack of books I grabbed.

I've started at the top.  Lessons in Chemistry has been on the NYTimes Best Seller list for 32 weeks. After 30 some pages, it was easy to see why.  The day just kept getting better.

And then.....

The last call you want to make in the summer in Tucson is to the HVAC company.  But TBG discovered that the air on the far side of the house, where his spin bike lives, was stagnant.  There was no cooling air coming from anywhere.

I pushed the buttons on the thermostat and called the HVAC company.  Tomorrow was the soonest they could come.  Our service contract would cover the trip charge but our warranty was for 1 year and that ship has sailed.  We were resigned to feeling good about tomorrow and not Thursday or Friday when the phone rang.  A technician was in the area and he cold come right over.

Smiles all around until he showed us the cause of the problem - packrats have eaten through the wires to the condenser.  They nibbled so close to the connector that a temporary fix was impossible.  The tech had no condensers in his truck.  He ordered one from our hallway.  We hope to have it installed tomorrow. 

For that, we will have to pay.

We'll also be paying Mr. Pack Rat to come out once again for a search and destroy mission.

TBG is spinning and sweating as I type this on the cooler side of the house.  I'm trying to decide if this has been a good day.  The sun came up and I was here to see it, so, by definition, it is a good day.  But the fact that our house doesn't work is disconcerting.  

We have a plan in place.  It's a good plan.  We won't be crushed by the cost, though we will certainly notice it.  

I ought to be able to read that and smile.  Unfortunately, anxiety seems to be my default position.  

I need to work on that.

Summer in Tucson

The leaves on the trees have folded in upon themselves, exposing as little to the air as possible.  

I've done the same, wearing as little as possible and interacting with the sun only when I must.  If I'm not out of the pool by 9am, I'm not going in at all.  By then, the water temperature is in the mid-nineties; there are days when I wish for a shower of ice cubes to cool things down .  

Despite slathering lotion and spraying SPF50 on every available surface, just walking through a parking lot leaves me with tingly arms.  Taos Bubbe and I went to the Grateful Dead Meet Up movie in a semi-abandoned mall on Saturday afternoon.  Google Maps couldn't find the theatre and neither could we. 

We wandered past empty big box stores, deterred by security fencing from exploring further.  Plus, it was really really hot, too hot to do anything but get into my car and drive around the parking lots until we stumbled on the building.  We parked 3 spaces in from as-close-as-we-can-get.  We were sweaty when we went through the doors.

I love Tucson in the summertime.  The 18 minute drive to pilates took me 11 minutes this morning, and I was dawdling. Most afternoons, I'm the only car on the road until I reach the major north/south streets.  Sunday morning felt like driving during Pandemica.  There was no one else out.

Securing a dinner reservation is never a problem. Venues are uncrowded.  Cashiers have time to chat.  It feels like a small town filled with people who have chosen to be here..... even when the outdoor thermometer registers 112 degrees bumping languidly into one another.

State Champs

They are the Indiana State Champions.

They play in the Babe Ruth Softball 8U Division.  After a weekend of elimination games, sometimes coming from behind, sometimes crushing their opponents, they proved themselves to be the best in the land.

Much excitement ensued.  

They move on to Regionals next weekend..... in Louisville, Kentucky.  Air fare from Tucson is more than $1100 per grandparent.  It's a 26 hour drive.  Just looking at the map is exhausting.

We'll be relying on live updates from the excellent app Little Cuter, channeling my thoughts, just sent me.  

Should they win it all and move on to the World Series, the games will be held on  Florida's Treasure Coast.  Fort Pierce,  home of the Federal Courthouse in which Donald Trump will be tried, anchors the northern end of the Treasure Coast.

I'm not considering attending in person.  

It's not only the fact that it would hurt my soul to spend money in Ron DeSantis's state. It's that the temptation to wear one of my woke t-shirts in public would be, I'm afraid, overwhelming.... and incredibly dumb. 

There will be live streaming of the World Series games.  I may even learn how to cast it from my phone to the tv.  We won't miss a single play and my I can remain happily on my high horse.  It's a perfect solution.  But, as Little Cuter says, one step at a time.

Right now, we are reveling in the wonder of it all. State Champs!!!!!

It's The Weekend

We're watching Stewart Granger movies, starting with The Prisoner of Zenda (a scene for scene recreation of the original).

We are in sports deprivation season, the time when the Tour de France is TBG's only opportunity to watch grown ups participate in sports. 

If we lived closer, we'd be spending time at the softball field, watching what could end up in six games on the way to a state championship and a trip to Regionals in Kentucky..

Instead, we'll rely on our favorite photographer/wife of the coach/mother of the player for updates, and consider taking a trip to the Bluegrass State.

Little Cuter and I relived memories of her travel soccer team's trips to Ft. Bragg and Ukiah (twice in 8 days) and Los Gatos.  She told me that a middle school teammate's daughter was now playing on the same field their moms once called home.  

What goes around comes around, in lots of wonderful ways.  I've been smiling about this all day.

Brother

I have the best brother.

Don't argue with me.  It's true.

He's the glue that binds me to my sister.  She doesn't read The Burrow.  Therefore,  I'm free to say that she's often been a difficult presence in my life without running the risk of her not talking to me for months.  I enjoy her company when she's not being a lunatic.  I'm sure she'd say the same about me.  But every year, Brother creates a conference call so that we can sing her Happy Birthday.

He laughs when I promise to hang up when she misbehaves.  He doesn't scold.  He understands.

He understands that we are all screwed up in our own little ways, but that the common thread running through us is one deserving of respect.  I'm glad someone is alert to keeping the flame alive.

He's a collector of interesting pieces of wood, which he turns into interesting decor

or alligators with wheels and a jaw that opens and closes as it rolls along.

He's the occasional drop-in-for-dinner guest at Little Cuter's house.  It's just off the highway when he's driving to visit his daughter in Chicago; he calls from the road and leaves when the kids go to bed.  He's the perfect guest.

He came after my perforation and, for a week, he caulked and replaced and repaired and improved and installed, all while keeping us amused with what are now called Dad Jokes but which will always be, to me, Oh, Brother! jokes.

Every once in a while he'll send an edition of his personal newsletter, filled with riddles and conundrums and absurd articles from arcane sources.  Every part of the parcel is decorated.  I always learn something, even if I didn't know I didn't know it.  

He is the most comfortable-with-himself human I know.  

And today is his birthday, so raise a glass.... a beer.... a whiskey.... water with no ice, and celebrate.

Politics - Random Thoughts

Among the more inane defenses the talking heads have come up with for the lying liar, maybe he just didn't understand is the most infuriating.

The man was in charge of the whole country for four years.  Will his lawyers say that he's really that dumb?  Let's look at what he might not understand, shall we?  

He keeps insisting that the papers are his.  Can that possibly be construed from the verbiage of the Act itself?

(3) The term "personal records" means all documentary materials, or any reasonably segregable portion thereof, of a purely private or nonpublic character which do not relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.

Seems pretty obvious to me that maps and plans and documents marked Classified would relate to Presidential duties.

*****

Hunter Biden is a troubled souls.  So is the lying liar.  

Hunter Biden struggles with addiction.  The lying liar struggles with the truth.

Hunter Biden's lawyers worked out a plan; he's not going to prison.  The lying liar didn't listen to his lawyers, who then left him; there are a lot of judicial districts who are vying to be the first to send him up the river.

*****

I'm no fan of Hilary Clinton.  She shouldn't have been using her private server while doing the government's business.  

Then, again, neither should Ivanka.

*****

A tweet that rang true to me :

"please vote for me instead of donald trump bc i support donald trump the most"  

-gop presidential primary field for some reason

*****

Seems that Kamala Harris is starting to run for President in 2028 while reassuring the nation that she's qualified to step into Joe's shoes should the need arise.  Joy Reid is one-on-one with her tonight.  

I'm not tuning in.  

There's really only one functioning party in America right now.  Without drama, why bother.

 

 

 

Summer Vacation

School always started the Wednesday after Labor Day and ended right around Brother's birthday, the 22nd of June.  For some reason, schools here in Tucson think it's wise to let the kids run free when it's 104 degrees in the shade and no one is playing outside.  Summer Break starts in mid-May and school begins again the 1st week in August.

So, vacation is halfway over this week, and I haven't begun any of the Grandma's Garden projects that are on the To Do List.  I haven't called the irrigation specialist nor ordered the cedar planters nor figured out where the tubing is for the hanging baskets we received from a Federal grant program.  

It's a matter of an hour or so, and then the actual work.  I just kept looking at the calendar and seeing May and June and feeling like summer vacation was a while off.  

Wrong-o, Turkey Toe as the Cuters and I used to say.

What's the rush, I wonder?  Who stole summertime, that lazy space between 4th of July and Labor Day?  Personally, I want it back.

August afternoons, hot and unscheduled, used to make me smile more than any other time of the year.  After camp, after my summer job, before school began, there was a hiatus.  I promised myself on one of those afternoons that I would always, each and every year, take a walk and feel the sun and the heat and the lack of anywhere to go or anything to do. 

Knowing the scholars are at their desks interferes with the whole notion of down time.  

Wouldn't it make more sense, if you're sticking to a 9 month school year, to start in January and end before Thanksgiving?  Families could travel and visit and be with their loved ones over the holidays without worrying about missing school.  

Plus, here in the desert Southwest, you can actually enjoy the outdoors for extended periods of time during the Fall and Winter months.  Why not keep the kids in air conditioned comfort during the hottest months of the year, and let them enjoy their time off without sweltering, many of them in un-airconditioned homes.

Just a thought.