The Burrow

As I wrote in 2012 and still believe today, it was always confusing.  Was Columbus Day the 12th or was it the 14?  And which was my father's natal day?  I've been mulling this all weekend, celebrating the general time frame, and rereading what I've written about him. It's been wonderful. Here they are, if you want to go with me on a Magical Mystery Tour of my relationship with my father. http://ashleighburroughs.blogspot.com/2010/10/telling-stories.html https://ashleighburroughs.blogspot.com/2012/10/happy-birthday-daddy.html https://ashleighburroughs.blogspot.com/2014/10/happy-birthday-daddy.html

It was a balmy 98 degrees.   I parked in the high school's covered lot, walked past the vendors, and waited near the front of the line, in the shade, with tables nearby if we got tired.   Big Cuter, upon seeing this photo,  was struck by the fact that I was, once again, waiting in line at a political event.  I should have taken pictures of the police and fire and Secret Service people protecting us.  They were ubiquitous.   Entry to the entrance to the event required presenting the emailed ticket, which was checked to be sure it came to the same person on the picture id I handed over to the nice lady at Table C, who examined both quite closely.   Down the ramp to the gym door, passing between a row of security on either side, I emptied my pockets and surrendered my small purse to the Secret Service agent on the other side of the table before setting off the metal detector with my bionic hip.  While another Secret Service agent ...

Tim came to Tucson and I was there to see it. It was a 7 hour experience and I'm hungry and tired and have no energy to edit the tons of photos I took.  They will appear tomorrow, with verbiage.  

The Golden Gopher and his bride left Tucson for the mountains outside Asheville, North Carolina. My cousin, the only Jewish firefighter I've ever known, lives on Florida's west coast. The PhD's live on the east coast of Florida. Overflowing rivers.  Piles of uncollected debris just waiting to become projectiles at 155mph.  A water delivery system whose main pipes and the redundant pipes (there in case of emergency) were washed away.  An "un-survivable" storm surge.  Lies (not "misinformation" as the news is sane-itizing it) about the government taking your property if you don't pay back the $750 temporary expenses money within one year are harmful and hateful and everywhere as things go from bad to worse. And the Orange Would Be Dictator and Threat to Our Nation is aware of it all. "That was a tough storm, one of the wettest we've ever seen, in terms of water."

I read the whole thing while TBG watched college football. Yes, I read every single one of the 354 pages. There are 13 Propositions on Arizona's ballot, and each one is printed in full, given a Legislative Analysis and sometimes a Fiscal Analysis, and followed by Arguments "for" and "against" each issue. That's a lot of space that can be taken up by lots of different people, some of whom are writing from the same script.  The National Restaurant Association likes a bill that changes the amount of money an employer can pay a tipped employee; from my reading it is a money grab by businesses that will reduce tipped workers' pay by about 75 cents an hour, as long as they earn $2 more than minimum wage. I've had this conversation with many tipped workers after I first read about the bill.  I'm not a tipped worker; I wondered what those who were thought about it.   Unsurprisingly, all but one of the many had no idea such a thing was on the ballot.  Tha...

I've done a lot of reading this week, none of it in books.  Most of it has been quite upsetting. 100 of these beautiful postcards arrived from momsrising.org , a non-partisan advocacy group for mothers and children.  The verbiage on the front is also beautiful, and non-partisan in a Get Out The Vote way:   We love our kids more than anything.  Vote for our freedoms, our families, our future.  It's the back that gave me pause.  After VOTING DAY IS ON OR BEFORE NOVEMBER  5TH! #Moms Vote in Spanish and English, there is this: Who you vote for is your secret, but if you vote is public record and will be cherished by future generations. After hours of pondering, I came to believe that a non-English speaker left out a word or two that would lend coherence : Who you vote for is your secret, but if you vote, there is a public record which will be cherished by future generations. That's a beautiful sentiment.  I am a citizen and I voted every time I c...

Guy the Garden Guy is working on the irrigation at Grandma's Garden.  It seems that the main which feeds the middle school also feeds Prince, which makes sense since they share a campus.  But when the middle school needs the irrigation turned off, no one remembers to tell us.   This is a problem since it's time to plant onions and carrots  - two of our favorite veggies.  I can create ollas from clay pots, but that's not much help for the mandarin orange tree, which needs a deep watering every two weeks.  I carefully curated the donated seeds , saving the ones that have proven themselves worthy of another chance and returning those that other schools might like.  Once the temperatures moderate, we will be able to get to work. At home, I have different problems.   My rose tree is looking poorly.  The rose bushes along the front pathway look even worse.  The one potted rose in the back is blooming a third time.  Perhaps I sho...