J Is For Jeremy

 

Jeremy was my student back in about 1987. He was part of an English 10B class, or sophomore basic English. In that level of English, students were not college-bound; they could have mild to serious reading deficiencies; they were often discipline problems; their attendance could range from perfect to chronic absenteeism, and coaches loved it for athletes. Teachers were urged to make each day a complete lesson so that any kid coming in on any day wouldn't feel like he had missed anything. He could pick right up and get to work, completing it in class and turning it in for a grade.

I found quickly that a routine worked well. Mondays were vocabulary days; Tuesdays were reading and answering question days; Wednesdays were grammar days, etc. The students loved knowing ahead of time what to expect, and they thrived. The class that Jeremy was in was a nice group of kids who got along well and liked each other and me. We had a mutual respect.

Jeremy asked me on the first day of class if he could sit in the front row. He explained that his father and he felt it kept him attentive, and I obliged. He was tall, with long legs and a basketball player's body. I often had to navigate those outstretched legs as I wrote on the board at the front of the class and talked. "If those legs get any longer, I'm going to put you by the door and watch you trip people in the hallway," I used to say. He'd grin and blush a little under his freckles.

He was a good-looking kid, mixed race, his skin the colour of coffee with too much milk, brown eyes, an impeccable fade, and the kind of lanky, loose body that was born to be athletic. His smile was wide, winning, yet shy-looking somehow. He was a hard worker who could have a short fuse if he got frustrated.

One day a new student was added to the class. He arrived late, and I could see by his swagger and demeanour that he was going to upset our community, or at least try. Nonetheless, I greeted him warmly, accepted his pass, and assigned him a seat. Immediately, the rest of the class began to react to him, and not very positively, by rolling their eyes and mumbling under their breath.

"Here's what we're doing," I said, handing him a book and a copy of the worksheet. "If you need anything, just let me know."

"Shit, I don't need nothin'. I just got out of Indian River. This is my class now. You--" 

Quick as anything, Jeremy was up and out of his seat. "This is Ms. D's class. You're gonna treat her with respect. I don't care about where you were or why you were in prison. If you're in here, it's Ms. D's class, period. You don't like it, you can leave. And there's lots of us can help you."

I'd like to say that I immediately took charge of the situation, but I stood there, open-mouthed and stunned for a moment. The whole class had turned toward the offender, staring him down. Jeremy was still standing. After a moment I grabbed an incident report and started writing and said to the new student, "I think you'd better head down to the office. That's enough for today." 

He stood up, remarked that he was just about to leave anyway, and walked out the door. Another student took the incident report to the office, and I never saw that kid again.

In the aftermath Jeremy apologized for standing up and speaking out of turn. "But no way was I gonna let him disrespect you!" Others spoke up indignantly as well. The best thing was that they all wanted to keep our class dynamic as it was. 

Jeremy tried out for basketball and made the JV team and went on to play Varsity as well. His dad was a fixture in our school. He was an involved parent, making sure Jeremy was doing well and keeping the grades up, staying out of trouble. 

For many kids like Jeremy at our high school, it's tough to get into college. Passing the ACT and/or the SAT is a huge barrier. Then, affording college is another hurdle. Athletic scholarships help, but even then, they're often to small, faraway colleges that take them a long way from their families. That's often an insurmountable obstacle, especially when the colleges aren't very diverse.

I lost track of Jeremy after his senior year. I had my second baby, and life got so busy. The next thing I knew, I was reading his name in the newspaper (June 27,1991), but not for basketball. He was arrested for the death of a man at a gas station. The man had been beaten so brutally that he had died from his injuries; the newspaper said that it was a drug deal gone wrong. He was twenty years old.

Jeremy, I later found out from someone who had been in that English class, had gotten involved with drug dealers. It was the easiest and fastest way to make money. He was twenty years old. He's fifty now, and he's in prison for the rest of his life. 

My heart broke when I read that story in the newspaper. How could he? I wondered. What happened to him? What went so terribly wrong?

Sometimes I think that what I did for thirty years of my life didn't make a damn bit of difference. But I realize that I'm a tiny part of a huge environment. Jeremy deserves punishment, of course, but I mourn for him nonetheless.

I Is For Ice Cream

About a hundred years ago when I was in elementary school, our class went on a field trip to The Home Dairy, where we observed milk processing and bottling. After that, we all got to order an ice cream cone and sit outside on a little curb in front of the building. Imagine a long row of little first- or second-graders, all sitting down with single dips of chocolate or vanilla ice cream at their faces. Brown, white, brown, white, all the way down the line. Suddenly, a vivid orange flecked with yellow disrupts the sedate pattern. That, dear friends, was me, the only little classmate to order her (and her father's) favourite flavour, orange pineapple.

My dad used to take us to Home Dairy once in a while, and they had terrific ice cream, homemade and scooped generously. They had lots of flavours, and a neat art deco building. There was no indoor seating because they were primarily a processing plant, but their ice cream business did well. I can also remember a couple of times when my scoop fell right off immediately upon my first lick. After that, he used to take the first lick of my scoop himself and press his tongue down hard on top of the scoop to make sure it was set well into the cone. I watched and learned, soon doing that myself whenever I got a cone of hard scooped ice cream.

My taste in ice cream has changed many times over the years, and I doubt that I'd like orange pineapple very much now. I used to like mint chocolate chip ice cream, too, but now even the thought of it makes me shudder. Same with caramel in or on ice cream. For some reason, I am anti-caramel. Maybe it's a case of being ill shortly after having it and having a bad association. I don't know.

For a long time I was a huge fan of Ben & Jerry's ice creams and their sinful chunkiness. Those are ice creams you actually chew. There's a lot of extras in there! Now, I just see it as Too Much. I want ice cream, not a bunch of other stuff mucking about in there. 

Perhaps I am an Ice Cream Purist. I'd rather pay more for good, smooth ice cream in small containers and feel the richness of all that butterfat. I don't eat ice cream all that often, so I don't feel too guilty when I do. I like Haagen Dazs very much, but they don't have my all-time favourite flavour, chocolate marshmallow. For that, I have to slum a little and buy Turkey Hill, a very good brand despite not being a premium ice cream. Haagen Dazs does have an addictive chocolate peanut butter flavour that makes me forget myself and chocolate marshmallow, however; I've been known to eat the whole pint once or twice. Not recommended. Especially before bed.

The little ice cream and pizza place on the way to the lakehouse has very good soft-serve ice cream. (And chocolate is back! as of Memorial Weekend.) Unlike Dairy Queen's "ice cream," it does not make me double over with terrible gas cramps. The best soft-serve is still frozen custard, however, and if you've never had it, you're missing something wonderful. 

When I was little, I was also enamored of sherbet, which is not, of course, ice cream. I think I loved it mostly because of its lovely colours, then because it tasted so fruity. I still love fruity sorbets, especially mango and lemon. So refreshing! (And yes, it drives me nuts when people pronounce it SHER-BERT, tossing an extra R in there for no apparent reason.)

Do you have a specific childhood memory of Ice cream? What is your favourite flavour?

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H Is For Hair

 

An article I read not too long ago proposed that most women cycle among three hairstyles. They don't stray from these three, and if they do, they try to make the errant haircut look like one of the three styles they are more comfortable with. 

I absolutely get that. 

Every so often, I used to get a restless fussiness about my hair, usually in the late spring, and I'd decide to Try Something New And Short(er). This almost always resulted in either A) Disaster or B) Immediate Regret the next morning when I'd try to style it myself and my hair would refuse to cooperate. I'd call my stylist and book a recut, or more often, I'd sit in front of the bathroom mirror with Rick at my side and point to wayward hunks of recalcitrant hair while he used his barber scissors and tried to Do Something. These unhappy incidents are all duly recorded here in my archives someplace, of course.

I've been at war with my hair for more than fifty years. Ever since my mother first decided that I would have long, long hair that she would braid every morning, my hair has been almost a separate entity. I wanted to wear it long and loose; that was not an option. And like most people with straight, straight hair, I longed for naturally curly hair. I remember watching The Wizard of Oz with particular longing:  Judy Garland had dark hair like mine, and she wore it in the most beautiful curls. That (and those red ruby slippers) nearly killed me with envy.

Remember the book Little Women by Louisa May Alcott? In it, the sister Jo has her hair cut off short and boyishly in order to sell it for twenty-five dollars. She wants to raise money so that her mother can bring their father from the war and nurse him at home.  When Jo reveals her shorn head, one of them cries out, "Oh, Jo! How could you? Your one beauty." I read that book when I was about eight years old, and that quote stuck with me. Your hair is part of your beauty and your femininity. And it's not like history and the media didn't agree.

"Nance," Rick will say, after I've gone on a tirade about my dissatisfaction with my hair, "I think your hair looks nice." And because I have been working on Accepting Compliments Graciously Without Negating Them, I try to simply thank him. Without sighing and rolling my eyes and saying something like, "Oh, Rick. What the hell do you know? Don't you see how flat it looks? Do you know how much time I spent with the round brush, and it looks like all I did was roll out of bed after sleeping for fifteen hours on this one side of my head?" 

It's not easy.

Why can't our culture be one in which women shave their heads and write clever slogans or cute drawings on them in Sharpie markers? Or have haircuts like men, who mostly walk into some place and don't really care all that much because It Will Grow Out In Two Weeks And Look The Same Anyway? 

My eldest granddaughter is 19. She dyes her hair all different colours, sometimes several at once. My son Sam's girlfriend walked into her stylist and said, "I'm sick of messing with my hair all the time and trying to make it something it's not. Give me something short and trendy that suits my hair." And he did and it's awesome. My son Jared's girlfriend has wonderful wild curly hair that descends in spirals and makes me want a crazy perm. 

But I know better. I'm currently on #2 of my 3 Usual Hairstyles. And I'm actually having a Good Hair Day. 

That's today, however; tomorrow could (and probably will be) an entirely different story.  Talk to me of all things Hair in Comments.

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G Is For Good, Not Great

I have to tell you, it's been kind of a Lost Week here at the Dept. A chronic and relentless migraine hit me--hard--in the middle of the night last Friday (or was it Saturday?), and nothing was kicking it. By Monday, I had to alert my hero neurologist, Dr. B, who called in a cycle breaker course of steroids for me. Today is the first day I've felt even remotely normal, but I'm still feeling fragile and tired. 

Undoubtedly, it was stress-induced. In the days leading up to that, the bathroom floor was finally installed. That meant the entire bathroom was housed in my office and the dining room. We had to use the little half bath upstairs. The new floor is porcelain tile, so the installation, while relatively brief (a day and a half), was noisy and dusty. Rick is always my general contractor, so he tears out and puts things back together around his full-time job schedule. Needless to say, it's almost done. In an old home like ours, a new floor means new baseboards, new moldings and trim, and refitting cabinets because now the level and fit of the floor has changed. So much work, and all custom.

At the same time, my washer broke down. How dare it, after only thirty years of service? (I love my Maytag!) As of today, I am still awaiting the repair, finally scheduled for Monday. Yes, the part was out there, in Kentucky, available, but shipping is a nightmare right now and yada yada yada. I have to manually advance the cycles for each load I do. I refuse to dip into the second-string undies, so I stand there in front of the washing machine, waiting to crank it to Rinse, then Spin. Ugh.

The whole week I was down with migraine, I couldn't do much. It's a very impotent feeling, knowing if I tried to push and do too many things, I'd only make recovery take longer. It hurt even more to know that the burdens on Rick were huge. In addition to the bathroom, he is replacing the floor and rebuilding parts of the boat, anxious to get it done and get it in the water. Projects at the lake await him constantly, and many of those are compromised by backorders and shipping problems, too. Weather is yet another challenge, and he can only do so much on the weekends.

Still, I have to say, things are Good. I got a badly needed new bathroom floor, which I love. It is exactly what I wanted. The drawn-out nature of the project isn't Great, but overall, a Good Thing.

Repairing my original Maytag--Good. The newer ones are now made by Whirlpool, and they aren't as good, nor built to last like original Maytags. The repair will cost less than a third of what a new, basic washer will cost. Being without a reliable washer for all this time has been Not Great, but no tragedy, either.

Everything else? Good. Being without a boat right now for quiet lake time is Not Great, but there will be many, many more times for that. And the refurbished boat will be terrific. Better than Good. Taking time to be gentle with my recovery from this headache was Good. I'll be back to myself by the end of the weekend, hopefully, and having a steroid blast has been such a relief from my arthritis (a little bonus). Those aches will come back as I taper off the drugs, so that's Not Great, but the respite has been nice.

Sometimes, I need to focus on Just Good, Not Great. Life can't always get five stars, you know? There's a lot to be said for the gentle grace of a Good Day. "Okay," you say, "that wasn't all bad. I felt pretty Good about this or that. I put in a Good Day."

How do you feel about the concept of Good vs. Great?

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F Is For Fingernails

 I've kept my fingernails quite short for awhile now, so short that there's plenty of finger above the nail at the tips. It makes for easy typing, easy prep and cooking, easy everything, really. And my Fingernails are so thin and bendy when they grow out now that having them long is a hazard. They tend to bend backward if I'm digging at something, tear awkwardly, or break off because they're dry and papery. (Don't suggest biotin. I was on that and it caused some unpleasant intestinal effects.)

Back when I was teaching, I used to let my Fingernails grow out long as part of My Look. I filed, base-coated, polished, top-coated and took pride in them. I favoured Revlon nail polish, and I had the bottles all lined up in my night table drawer. Do you remember the Chanel nail colour that everyone was knocking off there for awhile, that deep, deep black cherry? You'd swear it was black, but upon closer inspection, you could see it was actually a sort of midnight red. I loved that and wore it often. I also loved a colour that looked just like dried blood. Those Fingernails made my hands look terrific. 

How on earth did I find the time (and patience) to do all that? I had two kids, a demanding teaching job, and a home and pets. Ah, Vanity, thy name is Nance.

If one of my Fingernails would break, I'd cut them all down to match the broken one. I was ruthless and brave. (I've always been a Symmetry Junky.) I'd use a more muted colour--Sand Beige, or Pearl--until they were long and beautiful again, and then I'd celebrate with a bright red. 

Acrylic Fingernails were a big thing among a few of my friends, and at one point, I was tempted. It had been a long time since I'd had my long Fingernails (I'd given up the drudgery due to one thing or another), and I mentioned to a friend that I was thinking of going to a nail salon and getting a set put on. "You'll hate it," she said. "It involves maintenance. Do you know you need to go back every few weeks for a fill? When your nails grow out, they'll need to fill in that gap at the base of the acrylic where your real nail shows the growth. And--"

That was enough for me. It sounded worky, like getting hair colour and dealing with roots, another thing I've never done because of the maintenance. What a lot of bother and expense. And Bossiness, and if there's one thing I detest, it's being Bossed Around by obligations. The last thing I need in my life is my Fingernails or my hair telling me what to do or making me drive to an appointment. Sounds terrible. 

Do I miss my long, stylish, sexy red Fingernails? No. I really do not. That part of My Look was easy to give up. So were earrings. Let's not talk about my high heels, though. 

Sigh.

Talk to me about your Fingernails, past and present. I want to know.

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E Is For Eggs

 

I find that I want--no, Need--to talk about Eggs. I have a problem with them, and now you're going to hear about it.

For some reason, I grabbed two dozen of them with no purpose in mind a while back and had to use them up. We don't eat breakfasts, and I rarely bake anymore, and I find that overall, I'm not fond of Eggs in general. I settled on a big batch of Egg salad for Rick and Sam's lunches, and that's where all my irritation and resentment sprung to life anew.

Because peeling hardboiled Eggs is, in short, a colossal pain. Everyone in the universe knows it, and that's why there are innumerable tips--excuse me--hacks all over the internet telling you a million ways to prepare your Eggs or your water to make this crappy job much easier and the finished product much nicer so that your peeled hardboiled eggs don't look like they fought their way through a thorn bush. 

Here are the tips/hacks I've learned in my years of valuable Egg Research:

Add a pinch of baking soda to the water. Add vinegar to the water. Add salt to the water. Use fresh Eggs. Don't use fresh Eggs. Start the Eggs in cold water. Add the Eggs to already vigorously boiling water. Don't cover the pan. Cover the pan. Poke a small hole in the large end of the Egg. 

And all of those are even before you cook the Eggs. Once you've gotten your Eggs hardboiled to the stage you like them (dry yolks? fudgy yolks?), the advice continues for those of us who still struggle to peel:

Shock the Eggs in ice water. Don't use ice water. Cover the pan and vigorously shake the Eggs in a small amount of water. Once the Eggs have cooled, place each in a small sealed container with water and shake. Strike the Egg on the top and the bottom and submerge in cool water. Peel a small chip out of the top and bottom, then blow hard on one end and the Egg pops out. Roll the Egg on the counter firmly.

I've tried almost all of these, and let me say this:  They are all a crapshoot and all of them are bullshit. You should have seen me the other day with my fake pearl corsage pin, painstakingly poking a hole in the big end of over a dozen Eggs whilst my water was coming to a boil. I probably looked like an idiot. And the result was the same as usual--about 60% of the Eggs were a complete pain, and all of them still retained the little flat end, the flaw that was specifically mentioned would disappear with the Pin Method because Science. 

They all went into the food processor, though, for Egg salad, with some tarragon and seasoning. I like tarragon in my Egg salad; it's a vastly under-utilized herb. I finished up the salad in time for Sam's lunch, but not before thinking about another Egg Irritation, and this it is:

I hate the saying "Walking on Eggshells." It seems like a stupid metaphor to me. What's the big deal if you break Eggshells? Wouldn't it make more sense if you said "Walking on Eggs"? That seems more descriptive to me. You really have to be careful if you're walking on Eggs; one bad move and you break the Egg, ruin it, and your foot is covered in slimy goo. And we all know what it's like to try and clean up raw Egg. 

Another reason to feel cranky about Eggs.

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D Is For Diving Lesson

 Long ago I often took off in the summertime for solo vacations, visiting friends all over the place. I'd take advantage of cheap airfare back in those days and spend time in Chicago, Denver, Orlando, and southern Maryland. Years later, when air travel felt like Prison Intake (take off your shoes; place your metal and valuables in these bins; stand here while we look at you in Naked or XRay Vision; no liquids, etc.), I hopped in my Prius, set my GPS, and drove.

My most regular destination has been southern Maryland, to visit my friend Leanne, she of Banana Price fame. She has a spacious home on top of a hill, backed by woods, and a luxurious in-ground pool. She and her husband are also gracious and generous hosts, and they have a charming and boisterous Boston terrier with whom I have a pleasant friendship. In the mornings when I awaken, I pad over to her mother's adjoining apartment for coffee and conversation. It's a wonderful place.

On one particular summer visit, her daughter, then a teenager, was out in the pool with me. She had been trying to conquer an absurdly large floating shark, but gave up and turned to practicing dives. I was doing what I always do in pools--bobbing close to the edge in the deep water, buoyed up by some small floaty, enjoying getting cool down to my very core. I watched her dive several times, then offered a few observations.

"You need to keep your legs together. They're drifting apart as you head into the water. Try to focus on that, and pointing your toes."

Lauren executed a couple more dives and looked at me expectantly. "How was that?"

"That was way better," I said. "Now, keep that up, but this time, focus on aligning your head with your arms. Your head is dropping down farther than your arms. It's like your head is entering the water before your hands. You should be one smooth arc. One line. Your head shouldn't break the plane of your body."

Lauren nodded and walked onto the diving board again. By this time, Leanne, who had been wandering around the gardens with her sunhat on, stopped to watch. Lauren shook her shoulders and arms loose and prepared to enter the water. I could see she was thinking about what I had told her. In a few moments she tried her dive.

She broke the surface of the pool and spun around to face me, shaking the water from her ear. "I could tell my hands came apart a little on that one, but what about my head?"

"So much better," I said. "But you're still dropping it. Your legs were perfect, and your toes were pointed, too. But keep in mind that your neck and torso are almost functioning as one unit. You want to make a clean entry into the water."

"Nance," she said. "Do you think you could show me? I probably would do much better if I could see it. If I could watch you do the dive, I'm sure I could understand better." 

I looked up at Leanne who was staring at me from her chaise, suddenly alert. It was as if she had been waiting for this.

I smiled at Lauren and told her. "Oh, honey. I've never done a dive in my life. I don't even know how to swim."

 

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C Is For Candy Dish

Don't let my Banana story lead you to believe that I am a Joyless Crabass when I go grocery shopping. I am not, truly. I love my funny grocery store where I not only buy groceries, but occasionally, thanks to the Closeouts section, come home with things like socks, shoes, cute shirts for the little granddaughter, mattress pads, lawn furniture, and--if I wanted to--a rabbit hutch or a pet staircase or a futon. 

Someday, I'll show up and there will be cars for sale there, and I won't be one bit surprised.

But I digress.

A few months ago they set up a display of candies for three bucks a bag. Thankfully, none of it is candy that I like, but there are several varieties that Rick really likes. He has a weakness for any gumdrop sort of candy, due in large part to his late grandparents. They kept a ready supply in a charming little crock marked For Grandchildren Only, or something like that. It was usually full of spice drops, those wee little multicoloured gumdrops in flavours like clove, cinnamon, spearmint, and whatever the white ones are supposed to taste of.

I love surprising Rick with little treats that he loves. I bought a couple of bags of candy for him and fished out a suitable Candy Dish, after much careful deliberation.

Put the candy in a flat dish, and the sugar will be all over the place as he scoops them out. One with a lid? That lid will never be put back on the dish. A deep bowl? He'll eat them all in one sitting, no problem.

Here's what I came up with:

This was full to the brim the day before

It's like one of those puzzle toys for dogs or cats who eat their food too fast. He can't fit his whole big hand into it all at once. He can't grab a huge handful and still get his fingers out of the dish. You can see there is some sugar on the end table, but not very much. 

However, Success is limited. Rick will eat from the Candy Dish instead of having an actual lunch. He'll eat half the candy in the dish after dinner and then berate himself about eating all that candy. We've had several Adult Discussions about it:

Nance:  I was under the impression that you were a grownup and could control yourself with a Candy Dish next to your chair.

Rick:  And I was under the impression that I was a grownup and could eat what I want.

Sigh.

He's really ruining the Fun, Loving Thoughtfulness behind the whole thing for me.  

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B Is For Bananas (And My Belligerence About Produce In General)

A great deal of advice exists about Food Shopping. Don't go to the grocery store hungry! Shop the perimeter of the store! Stock up on great deals on meat and nonperishables! Honestly, I ignore all that. I find that I have my own Internal Rules about Food Shopping, and most of them can be distilled to these two:

1. I'm not paying that; they're crazy.

2. I will buy this no matter what it costs.

Produce falls into the #1 category constantly. I am weekly dismayed at the price of some items of produce, and will happily (but begrudgingly) do without until Those People come to their senses. If They think I am okay paying $1.50 for a single English cucumber, They are insane. That is Madness. Likewise, my threshhold for a bunch of broccoli is $2.50, but it had better be some damn goodlooking broccoli. And do not get me started about mushrooms or avocados. I'll need medication.

Pretty much every week, I snap a photo of the sign overhanging the tableau of Bananas and send it to my friend Leanne in southern Maryland, who never looks at prices and simply buys whatever she wants from Peapod, the online grocery service. Or sends her saintly husband Jim to the store for this and that. They buy Bananas weekly, and I often fuss via text message about how the price continues to go up on Bananas here. Here is today's sign:

Good heavens! I remember not so long ago when Bananas were 39 cents a pound. Then they went up to 47 cents a pound. Each time, I communicated my outrage to Leanne. "We just paid 98 cents a pound," she said airily. "That is criminal," I texted back. "No way in hell I'd ever pay that. You're being robbed." Ever philosophical, she replied, "But we don't have snow here."

Which made me wonder, would I trade better weather if it meant higher-priced produce? 

For those of you who wonder about my Grocery Rule #2:  I will buy this no matter what it costs, that is reserved for things for which there is no substitute, such as certain wines, Hellman's mayonnaise, Philadelphia cream cheese, Heinz ketchup, Campbell's tomato soup, Old Bay seasoning, and such things. You have things like that, too, I know. Store brands or other labels will simply not do. 

I haven't bought Bananas in a couple of months. I am resentful about how fast they become overripe, no matter how many tricks I use. I've also developed a particularly bad habit of craving peanut butter with my Banana, and we all know how irresponsible I am with peanut butter. 

 And I'm not caving in to Them and paying Their heinous high prices. It's flagrant Produce Profiteering, that's what it is, and I'm not going for it. 

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A Is For Appliances: This Is How Far I Have Fallen

Here is a rather Sad Commentary about what my life has become:  I got excited because Rick bought me a leaf blower. I'll pause now while the Absurdity and Dismay wash over you like a Tsunami Of Pity.

Sigh.

Allow me to forestall your eye-rolling outrage about Leaf Blowers In General, too. Few things annoy me more than the cacophanous legions of Leaf-Blowing Men on Saturdays and Sundays, relentlessly walking up and down their yards and driveways, stalking leaves, herding them into swirling rows, and noisily guiding them all the way down to their curb lawns. For hours. For all the months of Autumn. Starting at 8 AM. And never, never ending.

I don't use my leaf blower like that. My leaf blower means I will no longer have to drag my vacuum cleaner out to the porch, wrangle the cord, lie on my stomach, crane my neck to see under the flap of the GFI outlet, and finally get it plugged in to vacuum the rug so that I am not surrounded by detritus. Or, snake the vacuum and its cord through the front door and let bugs in and perhaps a cat out. My new leaf blower is cordless and quiet. It sounds no louder than a hair dryer. It's wonderful.

I love it as much as I love my new vacuum.

I know; this is equally as pathetic, coming from me. I detest vacuuming. Everything about it irritates me:  the incessant noise; the fact that you never stop having to do it; the boring repetitiveness of it; the dragging around of a machine that only does one thing. Our previous vacuum was a nice little vacuum that did a great job. And! It had an automatic cord return that saved me the insult-to-injury of having to wind up a bigass cord after I was done doing a hated job. But recently, I noticed that the vacuum cleaner...wasn't. I was going over and over and over places, and cat hair and stuff was still there. 

It had to go. And fast. After a day of research, we got my new vacuum, and at that point I realized how how much of a slacker my old vacuum had been. It had been getting away with doing a half-ass job for years, and I had merely put up with it. This new machine makes my dining room faux Persian rug look like new. It plucks up the nap again on my carpets, making them feel cushy and deep. Its low profile gets way underneath furniture without me having to move it. It has suction settings! And no more sitting on the floor with scissors and pliers, ripping our long hair off of the brush roller; it has a self-cleaning roller that hair doesn't tangle around. It's almost the perfect I Hate To Vacuum Vacuum. 

Alas! It has no self-winding cord. And believe me, I do miss it.

I have a Love/Hate relationship with many of my appliances.  I've written here before about my infuriating can opener, which I still have. And let's not forget the time my icemaker attacked me, and yes, I still have that fridge, too. And, finally, my beloved coffeemaker, which, thanks to Rick, is still brewing after sixteen years. My old vacuum and Rick's heavy leaf blower did not inspire my love. They had to go. (But I still don't know why I have that damn can opener.) 

All About Me(me): The Spring Fever Edition

 

NEO is enjoying some very Un-Marchlike weather, and I'm revelling in Early Spring. Each day of my walk brings new Joys:  tufts of bright purple and yellow crocuses; clutches of sturdy golden mini daffodils; a sudden burst of a flowering tree; lawns transform into emerald carpets; brilliant blue skies highlight the red, burgeoning buds of the silver maple trees that line the streets of the neighborhood. I am impatient for my patio and porch furniture, even though I know the odds are stacked against me; we are likely still to get snow in April or even May.

All of this is to say that I am outdoors and not indoors, and not given to much discipline as far as writing here. So, I'm taking advantage of a series of questions (I'll customize them a bit) that appeared over at Ally's place not too long ago. It's Old School Blogging, and it's easy fun. Here we go.

1.  What's something you're looking forward to doing once you get your vaccine or things open up after the pandemic is over?

I'm vaxxed and hit my efficacy date. I'm still leery of going out to dinner, but we're looking forward to going to our favourite restaurant and plan to do it more often. We miss it! I'm really looking forward to not having to mask all the time, mainly because it irritates me when people wear them incorrectly and stresses me out.

2.  What simple thing made you happy recently?

Oh, so many! I am easily made happy, really. My parsley wintered over and is ready for cutting. Likewise, my chives. And so did my celery, which I started from the bottom of a grocery store bunch!

3.  What was your favourite subject and worst subject in school?

Advanced Writing and all math. 

4.  Which of your blogposts is your favourite?

This is impossible because my posts are like my children. But I will give you a few from my Archives that I love:  Personal Jesus, Flamingos: They Don't Teach You This In Teachers' College, Watching And Thinking Of Blueberries. The last one is the first of what became a five-part series. I love how the series developed, and I hope you read all five parts. Just search the title in my blog's little search box.

5.  Coffee or Tea? Beer or Wine? Hard stuff?

Decaf coffee (half and half and real sugar), but some mornings I drink tea. The tea is herbal only, and cannot be lemon. Hot tea with lemon was the drink I was given when I was sick, which was all the time when I was little, so I associate that with illness. I cannot drink beer, nor abide its smell. I drink both red and white wine--also rosé. I don't drink spirits much anymore, but sometimes a martini is a necessity--up, slightly dirty, bleu cheese olives. 

6.  What movie, if you happen upon it while channel surfing, will you always stop and watch?

The Birdcage, Napoleon Dynamite, Caddyshack.

7.  When shoe shopping, what's your biggest problem?

My left foot is almost an entire half-size smaller than my right.

8.  Ice cream cone or cupcake?

This is a no-brainer for me. I hate cupcakes. They are almost always dry and they are almost always a disappointment. The flavour might say "peach daquiri," but it will taste nothing at all like that. I will take the ice cream cone every time. Unless it is mint chocolate chip, then forget it. I'll go find a place to buy peanut M&Ms.

9.  What have you learned about yourself during this pandemic?

That I'm calmer and less prone to panic than I thought I was. That I can adapt and roll with things better than I imagined. And that I'm daily grateful that I am retired and not trying to teach during this time. Bless the teachers; I think of them every single day.

10.  Does your family think you're the eccentric one?

Oh, I'm sure they do about some things. I know they think I'm the curmudgeon because I don't participate fully in every single family function. That stuff wears me out. I just made up my mind a long time ago that, in some cases, like kid parties, I'm simply Not Doing That Stuff. I also do not eat meals outdoors, or go camping, or care to know all the extended relationships in the family intimately, which also makes me sort of the Oddity. I'm generally okay with that.

That wraps it up. I look forward to your Comments, as usual. And I hope Spring has found your neighborhood, too. 

The Clutter Of Memory

Decluttering has ultimately led me to the Final Frontier of Desperation in my house. My nightstand's bottom drawer, until it became jammed with stuff, was where I put things that I honestly had no idea what else to do with. A few days ago, I decided to finally tackle it and Be Ruthless. 

I won't bore you with the inventory except to say that I still have more decisions to make. Do I keep everything my kids ever made or gave to me? Can I lovingly say goodbye to the many senior pictures of former students? Do I still need my high school diploma?

One thing I found was probably returned to me by my mother at some point. I don't remember. But it brought back a flood of memories. I hope you'll indulge me here because once I share this, I may let the photos and this narrative be my record and toss the actual items.

Growing up in the sixties, we used to play with paper dolls quite often. Some women's magazines even included them for girls, and we could even buy little booklets of them with perforated, punch-out dolls and clothes. Those were flimsy, however, and we didn't get to any store often to buy them. I decided early on to make my own, and I used to make them all the time. I especially liked making the clothes.

Here are two paper dolls I made long, long ago (more than 50 years ago!), in the style of Raggedy Ann dolls. I found them in a plastic bag along with some of their clothes, lying in that horrid drawer.

The one on the left is named Ginger and the one on the right Ann, according to what is scrawled on their backs. They're coloured with crayon, and they appear to be made on box cardboard. I only vaguely remember them, but I recall lots and lots of other paper dolls I made.

They had all kinds of clothes, from coats to jammies to pantsuits. They each even had a flower girl's dress. Here are some of the outfits I made for them:

The Halloween witch's costume is intact, but the clown costume is missing, except for its hat. I love the little 60s Mondrian colorblock dresses! So stylish.

And rompers (back then, I probably called them sunsuits), and pantsuits, and even a skirt and blouse. Check out the psychedelic patterns on those pantsuits. Cool. Some of the paper tabs have either Ann or Ginger written on them. And you can see that there are Almost Twin versions of most things.

These are the last odds and ends of what remains. I'm sure that there was another striped dress in a different colour, and an outfit to match that beret. There also had to be a top to match that blue and red pleated skirt. 

Here are Ann and Ginger dressed up for you, just so you can see that I knew what I was doing.

There's that cute hat! It just matches that sunsuit, doesn't it? I had so much fun making my own paper dolls and their clothes when I was a kid. 

As I was looking at the clothes, another memory struck me, and that was that we always had paper--lots and lots of paper. My dad worked at US Steel, at one point also known as National Tube. He was a safety clerk there while we were kids, and he used to bring home old documents/copies. We used reams of that recycled paper for all of our artwork. When I turned over my doll clothes, there was my dad's writing. 

So many memories! Later, when they did away with that job, he became a security guard at the gatehouses where workers clocked in and out and trucks did, too. He used to bring home stacks and stacks of old timecards, and those became our family's mode of correspondence for notes, lists, reminders, and brief memos and signs. I'm smiling right now, thinking of it. 

For now, Ann and Ginger are back in the drawer with just a few other things, awaiting a final decision. I will be Thinking Hard. Thanks for letting me share them with you.

I'm Finally Thawed Out, So Let's Catch Up

 

Oh, hello there.

Thanks for waiting. It would seem I was semi-hibernating, waiting for the March Thaw. It has arrived, and gloriously so, here in NEO. We even hit 70 degrees and full-on sunshine one day. Every single mound of snow has melted, and on my now-daily-again walks, I have been greeted by eager crocuses. The red buds of the silver maples are swollen, and in some cases, have already burst into yellow fringe. In a single day, my daffodils and tulips suddenly emerged from the ground a full inch. March is a fickle lady, however; we may yet have more snow. My snow shovels will stay out of the garage and at my back door until April, lest I tempt the Fates.

So! Here's a little hodgepodge of what you missed in my world since I last checked in here.

1.  Walks:  It feels so liberating and rejuvenating to be back out on my daily walks. I was starting to get quite edgy and claustrophobic. After my two falls, I wanted to be absolutely sure that there was no ice to create a hazard. I will admit that the presence of some lingering Christmas decorations is irritating (Come on! It's March!), but I take deep breaths and make allowances due to the pandemic. After all, some people may need them for that last bit of--no! Screw that. Take them down.

2.  I Have A Graphic For That:

by Mike Luckovich

Let me just say that watching President Biden's speech last night reaffirmed for me the admiration  (and love) I have had for him lo, these many, many years. Could you feel the empathy? the sincerity? the authenticity? Did you feel--finally--that perhaps your government could possibly do the Right Thing by you and your family? As soon as the speech was over and we watched him walk away from the podium, Rick said, "Say it. Say it, Nance."  And I did. I said, "I love Joe Biden." Rick smiled and raised his wineglass. I am so grateful he is the President, and I cannot thank Georgia enough. 

My vaccine story is one of great fortune. Like so many Americans I jumped online and registered with several providers. Ohio's is a tiered system by age and special considerations, such as chronic illness and certain professions. I was in the third tier, which opened up on March 4. On that day, my brother Bob called me and told me he happened to be at a Sam's Club close by; they had 20 doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccination, and he had signed Rick and me up, along with himself and his girlfriend and two of his friends. Our appointments were three days later, that Sunday morning. I couldn't believe our luck! The pharmacy called the next day to confirm and get information, and we got our vaccines Sunday morning without incident. To say I'm grateful is an understatement.

3. The Un-Dinner:  Rick and I have embraced what we call The Snack Board for weekend dinners. Neither of us has been very good about food lately, feeling bored and not having much of a taste for anything. On the weekend we like to keep things casual and simple, so we've defaulted to assembling trays of fruit, veg, cheese, crackers, leftover tenderloin slices, braunschweiger (aka goose liver), olives, or anything we find hanging about in the fridge. Sometimes I make some dip, like spinach dip, or sometimes I warm a little brie with fig jam. We grab some wine, and that is dinner. Other times, I toss together some sauteed onions, black beans, and refried beans, then pour some enchilada sauce over it. I top it with some shredded sharp cheese, then put it under the broiler for a bit. We dig into that with tortilla chips, and that's dinner.  Sometimes, after I've planned, prepped, and cooked a meal, the last thing I feel like doing is eating it. This feels more like grazing to me.

What's been happening with you? Are you vaxxed yet? Are your Christmas decorations down? Do you love President Biden's compassion and policy? Do you cook on the weekends? More importantly, did you miss me? Give me the real deal in Comments.

Snow Business: I Have A Problem

Greetings from the snowy depths of NEO in February. We have had snow on the ground here for approximately eleventy thousand of February's twenty-something days so far, most of which have been below freezing. And cloudy. If you listen closely, you can hear the screaming inside my head.

Because it is far too treacherous to take my daily walks, I happily shovel the snow from our driveway, sidewalk, front porch, and walkway. As I said in a previous post, it offers many rewards besides good exercise. Only when it is a particularly heavy or six-inches-all-at-once kind of snow am I not out there shovelling.

There is, however, a Dark and Unseemly Side to my snow shovelling habit. My sense of satisfaction at a job well done has turned into a fetish, a compulsion almost. My driveway must not just be shovelled. It must be completely clear of snow, scraped clean of ice, and a paragon of snow removal. It must be the Example By Which All Other Driveways Everywhere Are Measured.

Let me illustrate what I'm talking about by showing you a few photos. Here is what a normal person's snowpile looks like along the side of her driveway.

This is my neighbor's, two doors down.

See how the snowpile is just snow? There are some clumps here and there from a snowblower. For those of you who don't often see snow, you might even think it "looks pretty." (I'm trying hard not to hold that against you.)

On the very same day, here is the snowpile alongside my driveway after I had been outside shovelling.

Not so pretty, is it?

I cannot Just Shovel. Part of the problem is that my driveway gets driven on early in the morning when Rick leaves for work. This packs the snow down into tire tracks. Sam also comes for lunch, and if it's still snowing, his big truck tires pack the snow down even more. But once my shovel hits bare concrete one time, the Sickness takes hold, and I can't stop. Pretty soon, I'm scraping and chipping, and my snowpile looks like this:

Isn't it beautiful and awful at the same time?

Once those big pieces start coming up, I'm hooked. I'll stay out there until my shoulders are on fire and my hands and feet are numb and dead. Rick's at work; there's no one to stop me, to appeal to what's left of my sense of Reason. I'm on a Mission, and that Mission is a completely clear driveway. Even if there is a forecast for more snow that night--or even that same afternoon!--I do it anyway. I have no idea why.

I have come in from a bout of my Crazed Shovelling and gone straight into a hot shower, my whole body aching, only to get out and seek the comfort of a heating pad on my back and shoulders. More than once, my son Sam has caught me at my task, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. Today, Rick called me from work specifically to tell me NOT TO EVEN ATTEMPT TO GO OUT AND SCRAPE ANY ICE FROM THE DRIVEWAY. I was mildly irritated; it was definitely something I had planned to do today. (There's no way a shovel would do it, but we have a different tool in the garage that would be perfect.)

Honestly, though, look at this stuff. Look at the layer of ice on the bottom and how compressed the snow is. That stuff used to be on my driveway!

Good riddance!

Am I alone in this? I definitely am the only Afflicted one in my family. No one else is so crazed about snow removal/driveway grooming in Winter. I know how nuts it is. Help me through it in Comments.

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What's Your Sign? I'm Taurus, So I'm Loyal, Emotionally Strong, And Into Decluttering Kitchen Items. And Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream? (Heck No)

Sometimes, the Interwebs can bring us things we didn't even know we were looking for. I love when that happens. Even better is when I have No Idea how I got to where I arrived, having completely lost the thread of Where I Was Going in the first place.

This particular twisty-turny journey led me to an entire search page of zodiac signs. Let me say here and now that I do, in fact, read the Horoscopes every single day. I read mine, Rick's, and my sons'.  It benefits me in no way whatsoever except to occasionally laugh when it says things like "Tonight:  out on the town" or "exotic travel is favored". Oh, and once, a friend who dabbled in Astrology produced a chart for both Rick and me. There. Full disclosure.

But I digress.

This search page was fascinating. I had no idea that Astrology had branched out so far. It has moved into so many realms. As a Taurus, I was used to hearing about things like Tauruses are loyal, emotionally strong, independent, creative, practical. Our weak health is usually concentrated in our necks/throats. But all that stuff is Old School now. For example, did you know that your zodiac sign can also determine what you should De-Clutter?

bhg.com

Point taken. I promise to get right on that. And Rick, a Leo, does need to weed out the wardrobe. I keep telling him that. To be fair, he also hoards old receipts. 

Your birthdate also rules your ice cream preferences, supposedly. 

addiebusola.com

This is wrong, wrong, wrong. I detest mint chocolate chip, and Rick would not eat birthday cake ice cream. Actually, what the hell is going on with some of these flavours anyway? I advise everyone not to eat or drink blue stuff. You just never know.

Let's see how we fare with something else that's sweet.

tasteofhome.com

Yes! Out of all these candies, I would always pick Reese's (NOT Ree-sees; please pronounce it correctly. It rhymes with Pieces.) Peanut Butter Cups. Rick, however, would not ever pick Skittles. And Jared, who is NOT a Gemini, loves Swedish Fish. I know; I don't get it either.

Our zodiac signs also drive our footwear decisions. Take a look.

yahoo.com

Nope. Nude pumps? Not when there are patterned kitten heels or pointy-toe flats available. Now if they were red pumps, that would be perfect. I've owned dozens and dozens of heels in my life, and not one single pair was nude. For the record, Rick has no ankle-bow heels. 

Hey, if you're ever wondering what sort of book to pick up next, just consult your astrological sign. 

epicreads.com

This looks a little YA to me, but I used to read a lot of Stephen King, so it's pretty accurate there. I don't read much of any of these genres, except Historical. I like history, nonfiction, and some of what I guess would be called historical fiction. Rick has no interest in reading books, especially not fantasy. I would love to hear from all of you Aquarians who love to read Steampunk. I really would.

Finally, after all we've been through (and are going through), here's an astrological chart I like a great deal. See what else your birthdate can determine?

themindsjournal.com

I have no problem being designated as Hulk. My temper is mellowed quite a bit, but if you provoke me enough, I will, as my sons say, "put you on blast." I do not, however, turn even a little bit green. Rick is Superman, without a doubt. 

Had you any idea of the New Age Of Astrology and its incredible influence over our lives? How accurate were these new categories for you? Tell me who you are, according to the stars.

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Words And Sunday Sundries

 Sigh.

January, I must tell you, has seen me surpass Pandemic Fatigue and stride purposefully into Pandemic Burnout. The weather has been shitful:  grey, freezing cold, windy, sunless, icy, sleety or snowy or wintry mixy off and on, and cloudy. Did I mention there has been almost no sun? Well, there hasn't. One night, we threatened to have cherry pie for dinner. Another night, ice cream. One day, I stayed in my jammies until two o'clock. 

I've discovered that there are Words now for some other Pandemic Things I can relate to. I'm not the only one who is Pangry a great deal of the time. Have you heard of Pangry? It's the term used for the anger you feel for people who are ignoring the pandemic, who are engaging in risky behaviours and prolonging this agony for the rest of us. You know them--they're the ones who are still gathering in large, unmasked groups, sitting shoulder to shoulder in bars, having parties, throwing big weddings, and defying mask mandates. 

And speaking of Masks, why is it that a vast majority of men cannot grasp the fact that Masks Are To Be Worn Over The Nose? This is absolutely a Man Thing, and I do not want to hear any Excuses posing as Reasons for it. Men can wear masks properly, period. They just stubbornly refuse to do so for some ridiculously idiotic male reason. I see it constantly, and I call it out constantly at the grocery store, the pharmacy, or anyplace I have to be. (Luckily, my grocery store has become Militant About Proper Masking, and I do tattle.) Writer James Gorman of The New York Times has invented a new word for this phenomenon, this proclivity of men sliding their masks below their noses; he calls it Manslipping.  Manslipping, he says, "is like manspreading. We — some of us — do it because we are, well, men. And you know what men are like." Yes. Yes I do. 

It is here that I must say all three of the Dept. Men wear masks properly.

Before this final post of January becomes completely snarky and unrelentingly grumpy, let me move on to the Sunday Sundries.

^*^I read with great excitement the news that two dwarf giraffes were discovered in the world. I immediately thought of how fun it would be to have little giraffes, like miniature horses or mini cows, just wee little things, like pets. My joy was dispelled somewhat when I read on and saw that they were still 9.3 and 8.5 feet tall.

^*^On my way home from the grocery store Wednesday, I saw five fat robins in someone's tree lawn. Since robins are usually a harbinger of Spring in NEO, I was startled. Last year, they arrived early, but not this early. Yesterday, two fluffed-up robins sat in my barberry bush, eating berries in the cold wind. I smiled, though, thinking that I had not taken their nest down from last season, only cleaned out the dangerous fishing line from within it.

^*^Today's obituaries in the Cleveland Plain Dealer yielded last names of Downer, Dingle, and Funk. Once again, I thanked my husband for not having a last name that would have made my career difficult.

^*^One last interesting Word, this one newly added to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:  sapiosexual--sexually or romantically attracted to highly intelligent people.

(I'd like to believe I married one of those.)

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Time For A Catch-Up

 

Greetings from NEO, where we are currently cloudy, cold, and now experiencing that less than delightful weather occurence known as The Wintry Mix. It is raining, freezing-raining, and big globs of snow are plopping down as well. My front porch railing is full of fluffy sparrows huddling against the wet and chill. I'm not giving them much sympathy; they have turned up their beaks at the shredded wheat remnants I scattered for them yesterday. 

As a sort of harbinger of this weather, I was visited by a strange vertigo yesterday. For most of the day, any time I walked or looked upward, I immediately got dizzy and could not get my balance. It was accompanied by heavy pressure in my head and ears. It was a shame since the weather was terrific for a walk:  almost no wind at all; bits of sunshine here and there; temperatures in the upper forties, so no need for my heated coat. Needless to say, I didn't attempt it.

This weather today is suited for Domestic Goddessing, so I've been doing laundry, brushing the uncooperative cats, and general "redding", as my grandmother and mother would say. (Redding Up is one of those mysterious terms Grandma used often, and its provenance is murky. We always chalked it up to Pennsylvania Dutch, but apparently its use is relatively wider spread than that. ) I'll finish up with this post, then likely knit some more on my mitred square blanket, which I've pulled out yet again. 

I'm trying to stay away from The News in general, as are many of you, I know. It's exhausting and ugly and dismaying. It gives me zero satisfaction to think/say I Told You So about any of it. So I move on.

Mikey asked me to share a few of the Good Things from my 2020 jar. And Julie wondered what kinds of things I wrote on my pieces of paper. If you'll indulge me, I'll list a few of them here.

1. So far, no snow in January, and temps are mostly in the 40s--even a 50 & a 60!

2. 60 degrees on January 11! I opened up the whole house and aired out!

3. Jared got a promotion and a new job title! So proud of him!

4. Had a fun evening at Sam & Emily's: wine, pizza, wings. Z was super well-behaved & cuddly.

5. Z is doing really well at Sam's and meeting new people.

6. Found really cute shoes for 5$--regularly 40$!

7. Great weather at the lake for Sept. Nice long visit w/family.

8.  Got catered food for the family birthday. No stress! Great decision.

9.  Avos on sale! Decaf on sale! Got the last bottles of Frei Bros. Zinfandel and Insurrection on sale! Happy Day!

10.  Found out that we have not dipped into our savings or retirement at all during Rick's recovery time off. Yay!

And you know what? I'm glad I saved 2020's Good Things. Reading through them again made me smile. It makes me think that if I can look back at 2020 and smile, 2021 has that very same potential. I hope you're hanging in there with me.  Good Things come to those (of us) who wait.

Have a happy weekend. It's not long now.

Real Talk: January 6, 2021

 

I did a lot of back and forthing about writing this post, not because I worried about its content being too inflammatory, but because I already feel so consumed by the shock, outrage, and anger I've felt over the events of January 6. Sometimes, writing about it simply rekindles the flames, and I'm left feeling a renewed sense of indignance with nowhere to put it.

But I almost feel hypocritical not talking about it here, where I express myself about virtually everything, and where The Politics have certainly been a constant topic for me over the fifteen years of this blog's run.

What galls me most is that a pathetically large faction of republicans (and I will never, ever capitalize that word, ever) will not only continue to serve as apologists to the person who outright fomented and encouraged this insurrection, but will also blame it on others and rewrite history in order to do so. They will carry on as before, perpetuating their lies, merely to salvage the support of the reprehensible individuals who overran the Capitol, planting bombs, looking to take hostages, overthrow the government, and, according to at least one source, hold daylong executions. 

Even after the Capitol was retaken, order was restored inside, and the process of affirming and certifying the Electoral College votes was continued, arrogant and tone-deaf republicans still objected, adding fuel to the criminals' fire. They did this, knowing full well that it would not change the outcome. They did this for their own selfish interest, merely to court the votes of the animals who had stampeded into these politicians' sacred grounds of their own bastion of Democracy, hoping to keep their jobs for another term. 

They make me sick.

As do all supporters of this maniac. I have no use for any of them. The so-called christians (they don't get a capital letter anymore, either), evangelicals, and right-to-lifers who called him a godly president and thanked Jesus for him--they have the blood of thousands on their hands, including those who died in the coup attempt on January 6.  They have been fools and idiots, but that does not excuse them. Willful ignorance is no excuse. They got what they asked for. Sadly, we got what they asked for, too.

As I write this, the movement is underway to remove this horrifically dangerous individual by impeachment. Again. His cowardly cabinet slunk away under a flurry of resignations, and his bootlicking vice president is too beholden to that same trashy constituency to invoke the 25th Amendment. Is there any single republican individual who will do the right thing and help save this country? That is asking too much from republicans, who care only for themselves and their jobs. It is a sickness among them, this selfishness, and their supporters are too stupid to see it and too dumb to switch the channel away from Fox and OAN and other poisonous, treasonous outlets that are their opiates.

I have decided that my New Year will begin on January 20th, the exact moment that Joseph R. Biden is sworn in as President of the United States of America. I won't breathe a peaceful breath until that happens. I am not a believer, but I beseech the Universe provide him with safety. I keep thinking of President Lincoln's Inauguration and the snipers on the roof, their long guns at the ready. Like President Lincoln, President Biden is a man born for these times, a man born to unite this country.

I grieve the ideals of President Lincoln's party. How far they have fallen. 

Welcome To 2021 And My Good Things Jar

Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to 2021, and welcome back to the Dept. of Nance. Like so many of you, I am looking forward to this year bringing a refreshing and much-needed change of administration in Washington DC; a kind, compassionate leader who cares about more than himself; and a return to adult behaviour from at least the President of the United States.

Aside from that, I have other reasons to look with hope to 2021. Rick will be starting a new job, one which will put him behind a desk and ease the constant wear and tear on his reconstructed back. He'll be working his brain again instead of his brawn, doing construction estimating and project coordinating from his own office. I cannot begin to tell you how incredibly grateful I am.

My entire family have thus far been safe from the virus, despite my sons and husband having worked steadily throughout, all of them being deemed Essential Workers. Jared's partner, who works in a medical field, has been safe and has received her first dose of the vaccine. Sam's partner has quarantined twice due to exposures from work and family, but has been safe both times. My grandchildren are also healthy and safe. My extended family, most notably my 90-year old mother, is healthy and fine as well, due to the excellent care of my brother, with whom she lives, and my younger sister, who faithfully goes over (fully masked) every day to exercise her.

All of us are ready to get our vaccinations as soon as possible. As my husband's grandfather was so fond of saying, "We can't wait fast enough."

Now, on to my Good Things Jar, which I started a year ago today. I decided to write down Good Things as they occurred/occurred to me all year long and place them in the jar.  Last night, I read them aloud (most of them) and Rick and I reminisced about the Good Things that happened to us in 2020.

There were 80 slips of paper in the Jar, and I think that says something. Granted, a few were relatively trivial; they had no significance to anyone but me. But as I was reading them, I started to notice something--so many were about Jared and Sam, or about neighbors, or about Zydrunas, or about others.

One of them made me tear up, and I decided to do a little experiment for this post. I counted out how many of the slips were about others and how many were about me. Of the 80 Good Things, 33 pertained to me, and 47 were about others. 

Here's the one that brought tears to my eyes. I didn't date the slips, so I don't know what prompted it, but it's so very, very True.

Welcome, 2021. I can't wait fast enough to see what Joys you bring.

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