The Burrow

You know the food is delicious when there's barely room for the turkey on the plate.   After the feast,  we came home to this.  Wishing you a happy and peaceful Thanksgiving weekend,  filled with local shopping (using cash) and lots of love.

FlapJilly didn't need a jacket because it was only 44 degrees outside. Her Cubs sweatshirt would be fine, if only she could find an umbrella.  In Arizona, we'd be sending her to wait for the bus in not only a jacket but with a scarf, a hat, and mittens.  The humidity is 98%, according to one of the many electronic listening and informing machines in my daughter's home.  The air is thick and almost visible.  Back in Tucson,  it is also 44 degrees and 98% humidity. But it's warming up to the 70's and there's not a scintilla of rain in the forecast.  But there's no puppy in Tucson, no grandkids or adult kids, no swarm of hugs or pleas to play hide and seek or follow a treasure map, no tween discussing algebra or the Revolutionary War.  It seems like a fair trade. 

We are flying from a small airport to a small airport, albeit that our pilots are protesting poor wages and benefits. We are leaving sunny and 65 for overcast and 31. The plane begins boarding 45 minutes before takeoff; considering the number of wheelchair passengers that usually travel this route that is a very brief window. I paid an extra $32 for extra leg room, an extravagance once upon a time but now more of a necessity as old body parts require space. We land mid-afternoon, late enough for Little Cuter to get us at the airport and early enough that the grandkids will be home from school and awake.  Given the bizarre flight schedules Allegiant Air creates, this is a highly unusual and thouroughly delightful situation. If I am dilatory about posting, please forgive me this week.  There are a lot of hugs to be gotten and given. 

Ken Burns is at it again.   His PBS series was ten years in the making.  It's voiced by Josh Brolin and Meryl Streep and Michael Keaton and Amanda Gordon etc etc etc. reading letters home and Pennsylvania's Constitution and military communiques.   Without photographs he relies on portraits and interpretations new and old; the project exists on many levels all at once - narration, background music, and the visuals.  It's hard to do anything but watch the screen; multi-tasking is not advised. He brings you real people with real flaws.  Enslavers wrote about freedom and independence and liberty.  Personal slights, giant egos, recalcitrance and inaction on the field and in the Congress - some of it is really hard to watch.   I found myself wishing for the story I learned in school.  I wanted ideals and courage and victories without any of the disturbing pieces shattering the illusion.  Too bad, that ship has sailed.  What I go...

It sprinkled and then it drizzled and then there was an outright downpour.  A gardener draped her jacket over my head because I don't want to see you be wet  but it was all to no avail.  I was soaked and I was going home. I checked to be sure it was possible, then met TBG at honme to share the plan.  Flu (extra strength) and COVID (Moderna) shots at Albertsons, then lunch. No appointment or prescription or co-pay needed,   just come on over.   So,, we did.   We filled out the paperwork so Medicare would accept it, waited for five minutes while it was processed and the vials were prepared, sat one after the other, and took our medicine like grown ups.... much to the amusement of the similarly aged couple on the two other chairs. We laughed about what a lunch date looked like these days.   Rememberinng the instructions from our first COVID vaccination. we kept our injected arms in motion as we drove and then ordered and ate....

There were so many similarities and so many contradictions to the images. There was friendship and solidarity and speechifying.  It was the same and it was different. Le Monde Gulf News The same but different. My head hurts.

Sixty or so years ago, TBG made this pump lamp at summer camp. Today, the squiggly light bulb (which replaced the regular kind of light bulb we'd been using our entire lives) burned out.   That's what we used to say when the filament in the regular kind became disengaged and discolored.  I don't know if the squiggly bulb has the same internal mechanism; its surface is opaque. I use burned out idiomatically these days,  I guess. I went to the light bulb drawer in the garage and found this: The pump lamp lives on TBG's nightstand so. a soft,  2700k output is perfect.  The Estimated Energy Cost of $0.96/ year made me smile.  So far, so good.   I unscrewed the squiggly one and inserted the new one and unfolded the box to recycle it. As Big Cuter often reminds the world, if there are words, we will read them.  And so,  walking to the kitchen,  I read the verbiage.  There were instructions.   This was not a "how many o...