MountainMornings

It’s been a busy weekend.

Looking at houses we know we’ll never get, unless we promise our first-born child, and having the Grands sleepover! Bob measured the Love Bug on our wall and guess what? She’s tall enough to sit in a car without a child seat, but not quite old enough. It’s the age old story of being a pre-teen – wanting braces even though your teeth are straight. And the L’il Pumpkin told me he’ll be glad to be back in school so he can do harder math problems?!?!

Obviously, the red hair is the only thing he got from me.

But we’ve had a grand time grandparenting. The Bug helped me feed our ravenous birds and she also helped PopBob make ravioli! Her brother gave me a hand with the pesto, wanting to know exactly how a Cuisinart works. I mean I can barely work my vintage machine! Will he be an engineer or a chef? Only time will tell.

I’ve realized lately that my obsession with our sideyard birds is nothing new. We started our little family in the Berkshires on the edge of a wildlife sanctuary for birds called Canoe Meadows. We had Guinea Hens and Cardinals galore in our backyard. When we moved back to NJ, we had migrating waterfowl like Herons, Osprey and Egrets flying over our house on the Shrewsbury River. And of course when we built our small house in the Blue Ridge, it was alive with Woodpeckers!

Here in Nashville, in our city farmhouse, we have Mockingbirds, Cardinals, Wrens, lots of Mourning Doves, Finches, Bob Whites, and even a red-winged Blackbird. I’ve managed to also feed a few squirrels! In fact when we went glamping a few weeks ago, bird song was almost non-existent in the forest – it was too quiet. Here in the city, the symphony begins at 4 am, and never stops! It blends with construction noise and leaf blowers, it wiggles the leaves of our holly bushes.

Here we are already, mid-summer and six months into the Joe Biden Presidency. I’ve tried to extricate myself from the news cycle and read up on “what to do with a hundred zucchinis.” The Olympics have started, and we love to watch, but I’d rather just see the personal stories of the athletes. This one was homeless for two months, that one overcame depression. Today I watched the US women’s rowing crew team beat the Romanians. And I saw the small crowd at swimming cheer for “DR JILL BIDEN!”

I’m glad she is there in Tokyo, but maybe she could Zoom with Joe. She should tell him if we don’t pass the “For the People Act,” making it easier to register to vote, expanding mail-in voting, and making early voting the law of the land, we can say goodbye to our democracy. Should I repeat that, because it’s true.

“Should it become law, the legislation would effectively set a national floor on ballot access, requiring all federal elections to start with an identical set of rules. States and other federal jurisdictions could tweak them to provide more access, but not less. Some states like Colorado and Minnesota have rules that are more generous that the bill mandates; others, like Texas and Tennessee, make it much harder to register and vote than the bill envisions.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/us/politics/voting-rights-law.html

Since many Republicans are still addicted to Mr T, and they are enjoying restricting voting rights in many southern state legislators, the time to act is NOW.

Because if we can’t make voting our constitutional right and duty, if we can’t assure voters that their vote was counted, nothing else matters. Nothing. The GOP will keep a stranglehold on any progressive agenda, like gun violence. Even LGBTQ rights and Women’s rights, HUMAN Rights will suffer. Our planet will suffer! Do you want to go back to the good old bigoted days?

Tonight I made the famous mid-summer Triple P – Pesto Pasta Primavera, with my basil and Bob’s bounty. Zucchini, peppers, onions and peas, plus some asparagus from the store. We’re heading over to a friend’s house because life is starting to feel normal again. If only this crazy housing market could slow down!