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Olympic Dreams

July 31, 2024 by mountainmornings

It was forty years ago in LA, the Olympics that is, when we were living in the Berkshires and I was about to give birth to the Rocker. We lived in a farmhouse on the outskirts of a bird sanctuary. Idyllic and terrifyingly beautiful, surrounded by cardinals, chickadees and grouse, there was a dairy farm up the road. I had picked the date of his birth, a repeat C-section was scheduled; Reagan was president, I remember watching the Olympics live while nursing my newborn baby boy.

“Synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics debuted in Los Angeles as Olympic events, as did wind surfing.”

There is a picture of us at the Bris, tall gladiolus of every color stood guard while friends gathered. Two rabbis came and Grandma Ada was there. She would drive four hours from NJ, always bringing food, “Did you eat?” and a cousin or two. We loved to sit on the swing in the big screened-in porch; the bassinet was on that porch because babies need fresh air. I looked so young, so peaceful. Or maybe I was just exhausted.

“John Williams composed the theme for the Olympiad, “Los Angeles Olympic Theme” later also known as “Olympic Fanfare and Theme“. This piece won a Grammy for Williams and became one of the most well-known musical themes of the Olympic Games…”

I’ve just returned from LA, from visiting the Rocker and Aunt Kiki. My baby grew up to be a talented musician and composer. His company debuted two new trailers while I was there – one for a movie and one for an Apple series. I told them about the Woodstock themed 40th birthday party I’d planned for Bob’s big day, and we talked about my son’s generation – listening to Kurt Cobain, learning to design and create websites. Somewhere between Gen X and the Millennial Generation, the Rocker is a Xennial, a unique subset.

“You have a childhood, youth, and adolescence free of having to worry about social media posts and mobile phones. … We learned to consume media and came of age before there was Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat and all these things where you still watch the evening news or read the newspaper.” https://www.bos.com/inspired/xennials-what-you-need-to-know-about-this-micro-generation/

Their California home is like a tree house, perched on a hill with lush tropical plants. We watched the Paris Olympic skateboarding finals on Peacock, a streaming platform. I thought about my son doing tricks on a skateboard, playing rollerblade hockey, moving effortlessly through my dreams. He is tall and lanky like my brothers, Po the Cat drapes herself along his legs while we critique the athletes. And we cooked and played together in the kitchen to fantastical music Kiki curated. My baby is turning 40.

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Deja Vu Again

July 22, 2024 by mountainmornings

Why am I always in the kitchen when momentous things happen? I was prepping for a small dinner party last night, slicing cucumbers and washing berries, when my phone played a series of bells that meant only one thing – Aunt Kiki sent a text!

“Biben Drops Out of Presidential Race.”

It was a NYT’s headline. I had to sit down. My reaction was visceral, nausea followed immediately by goosebumps. The family text chain began, my adult children all weighing in with the Rocker’s digital sound from LA and the Bride’s iconic melody from Rehoboth Beach pinging from my phone as Bob pivoted from making (yes making from scratch) pasta and turned on the TV. It was finally official, our President bowed out after succumbing to Covid and the incessant pressure of his Democratic colleagues.

The family didn’t have to take the car keys away, he gave them up willingly. I started to cry just a little with relief from the last month of speculation and an impending sense of doom. I had wanted Biden to stay the course, I wanted to believe our country would be able to differentiate between a mensch and a conman. But my son, one of the original Bernie Bros, and my daughter, a Mayor Pete believer, have grown into good Democrats with a capital “D.” I knew the younger generation was right, and I could feel the excitement rising as I dressed the salad.

Our friends walked in with a gorgeous peach pie.

I remember when Bobby Kennedy was shot in a hotel kitchen in 1968. It was the end of an era. I was 19 years old; bereft, about to marry the rebound boyfriend, and still grieving the loss of my ‘one true love.’ I stood in the long line of mourners at St Patrick’s Cathedral to pay my respects to the Senator from New York. It was a beautiful but exceptionally hot day in June; I nearly fainted from lack of sleep and a simmering depression.

“He was, of course, an extraordinary man, a complex one; each time we saw him there was more to see. He could never be accurately measured, especially in terms of the past; he was always in the process of becoming. He was responsive to change, and changed himself. These changes were always attributed to his driving desire to win—except by those who knew him, who were aware of his great capacity for growth, his dedication, the widening of his concern. The people around him, we found, adored him—there is no other word. They would do anything for him, go any distance—and part of it was because they were convinced he would do the same for them.” 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1968/06/15/When-New-York-City-Mourned-RFK

This was written about RFK, but it describes Joe Biden as well. Remember that he kickstarted marriage equality, that his first years on the Hill were forged through pain and loss. That he took the train home every weekend from Washington to be with his two young sons. We all know his story, an Irish Catholic from Scranton, just like my birth family. The Bride wrote Joe a letter when she was in 7th Grade, asking him to run for President, and he wrote back to her.

We Democrats are NOT a cult of personality. We do not blame God for political assassinations, or for surviving them intact… with maybe a little cartilage missing. We do not think there are good people on both sides of a line in Charlottesville. We don’t separate refugee children from their parents. We know where to draw that line, at corruption and sexual predation. We knew this election was an existential crisis for our country, some of us whispered this fact and some shouted. But the fear of violence, the fear of banning books and eroding our public schools, our public TRUST, the fear of a SCOTUS that would allow our fundamental human rights to be challenged is starting to abate.

Families fight, and they forgive. They also visit unexpectedly with four Scottish Deerhounds! Democrats are energized, and we are hopeful once again and for that Mr President, your country thanks you.

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A Rallying Cry

July 14, 2024 by mountainmornings

It was a Saturday like any other weekend day. Bob and I took a very early walk around the greenway before the unbearable heat of the day. Then I jumped in the pool to do my exercises and the Bride joined me with the Grands. Later, I made plans to get together with a friend and was washing up the dinner dishes – which is to say the dishwasher was going as I cleaned my ancient wok. It was nearly 100 degrees in Nashville yesterday. I’d just returned from rinsing and refilling the birdbath with fresh cold water when I stopped to sit down and catch my breath.

Something was amiss on CNN. My muted TV had a video on repeat, red hats and shirts ducking, black suits encircling the speaker like crows with wings outstretched..

The family text chain began almost immidiately, from Cali to TN, we all registered our disbelief. Was it just fireworks, a stunt by a reality TV star gone wrong? How could this be happening, again? Finally, the Rocker sent us an X interview from an ER doc on the scene – it was very real. One person was shot dead, and Mr T was injured, clipped by a bullet to his ear.

We don’t really know much more this morning. It was a 20 year old, with an assault rifle on a roof. I don’t need to know the name of the shooter, or his motivation, as I’ve said countless times before. Like most mass shooters, it was a young man with a gun. The media will interview his friends and his family and they will say he was always different, bullied, shy, didn’t like women… and so on. All the usual tropes. Except this obviously troubled individual lived in the USA where we have 120 guns per 100 people on the street. He lived in a country where the right to bear arms is a given, and no number of school shootings can change that.

We Americans sacrifice our children on the altar of freedom.

I’ve lived through JFK, MLK and RFK’s assasinations. I remember when Reagan was shot – nobody blamed the other party for these horrendous acts of violence. And yet, the Speaker of the House this morning mentions that our President said, “it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye” to some of his donors. FOX news is all about blaming Democratic rhetoric for the assassination attempt yesterday, when in reality, a man with an AR15 can show up anywhere he pleases – at a shopping mall, at a school, at a Vegas concert. He could walk into a church or a synagogue.

What did Mr T say as he was escorted off the stage at his rally, once the Secret Service found his shoes? “FIGHT!”

What are we fighting each other for Mr T? Tell me why hanging your VP seemed like just another option for your followers? Pumping your fist in defiance is noteworthy, but will it help unite our country? Everyone will get behind you now, calling for an end to “political” violence, and the need to tone down our speech. And this is just my humble opinion, but what if you and Joe decided to ban assault weapons forever? Now would be the time to do something magnanimous, something tangible for the people you want to lead.

Who is willing to give up the baby, rather than have it be torn apart?  

 

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The Grandmother Hypothesis

July 9, 2024 by mountainmornings

My daughter called me yesterday to rave about a new book she’s reading, it’s all about menopause! My immediate thought was, why is she reading about menopause, and then I came to my senses. My little girl is rapidly approaching this phase of life, and like everything else she does, the Bride will gather all the evidence-based information she can find before she plots her course through peri to post-menopause with the utmost care. And this book, “The Menopause Manifesto” by Jen Gunter, MD, begins at the beginning.

What do we humans have in common with killer whales? Homo Sapiens (and Japanese aphids btw) are among the very few females in the animal kingdom to live well beyond childbearing age. Why? Well some researchers have studied this phenomena – after all, evolutionarily speaking once you’re finished reproducing, you’re finished. But women can live half their lives in their golden years; and according to Darwin’s theory there’s a good reason.

“The first hard evidence for the grandmother hypothesis was gathered by Kristen Hawkes, an anthropologist at the University of Utah who was studying the Hadza people, a group of hunter-gatherers in northern Tanzania. Hawkes was struck by “how productive these old ladies were” at foraging for food, and she later documented how their help allowed mothers to have more children.” https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/02/07/692088371/living-near-your-grandmother-hasevolutionarybenefits#:~:text=If%20being%20close%20to%20grandma,same%20parish%20as%20their%20mother.

Pretty simple right? The grandmothers know which mushrooms are poisonous; how to treat mastitis in a nursing mother; where to dig for water. They can also simply watch over their grandchildren so that fewer wander off into the rainforest. But what about today? Factoring in birth control and hormone replacement therapy (HRT), is the modern Grandma still as useful as her predecessor?

The Flapper taught me how to wash a newborn’s head, how to gently nudge a baby to sleep during the night and not let them sleep all day, how to stay calm in the midst of it all. She ordered a dryer and had it installed because she didn’t want me hanging diapers out in the sun, like she had to so many years ago. She told me how my brother Michael started coming into this world while she was hanging out the wash. How my sister Kay had to run through backyards to fetch the doctor, running through our neighbor’s laundry.

“You are in your perfect place,” my Mother told me time and time again. A mantra I repeat to myself, and to my children and grandchildren. The Flapper embraced Buddhism in her later years. I often wished she didn’t live in Wayzata, MN, I longed for her every single day… the Mother I lost when I was 10 months old and found again when I was the Love Bug’s age.

But there was Great Grandma Ada to the rescue. Once we moved from the Berkshires back to NJ, Bob’s Mother took on the role of Supreme Grandchild Spoiler and Snuggler. She fed the Bride her first solid food, chopped liver, and she encouraged the Rocker to explore and expand his horizons. I remember when he was five and played the violin on her deck for all her friends! They fed the ducks in the park, went swimming in her pool, and accompanied us to the Big Apple Circus every year.

It’s good to know I have a purpose according to the Grandmother Hypothesis. Of course, I’ve always known that loving and caring for my babies was the one thing that mattered most, my one raison d’etre. Now that we live only two houses away, I try not to be too intrusive, but I love it when the Grands just stroll in without knocking. “Hiya Nana!” they say.

“Are you ready for breakfast number two?” I ask after a big hug.

It’s too late for me to take HRT for my osteoporosis, but if you’re in your forties and wondering about it, here’s a good place to start – https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/menopause/in-depth/hormone-therapy/art-20046372

I am the luckiest Grandmother in the world!

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Nana Camp

July 2, 2024 by mountainmornings

There are no day camps this week for the Grands. No sailing, Taylor Swift, or pottery camps. Plus, on July 1, all the brand-spanking-new doctors have started their rounds, and so the Groom has a lot of teaching to do in the MICU, and the Bride gets to explain how to write a prescription to an intern. It can be taxing, and so I cook dinner for six people just in case they get home in time. On July 4, we’ll be relaxing by our dear neighbor’s pool while the “little doctors,” as Grandma Ada called them, save lives.

This Fourth will be the 75th anniversary, if you want to call it that, of the Flapper’s car accident. Dr Jim has been doing some soul searching around the event that left our Nana, Mother, and Sister lying bloodied and comatose on the side of the road. He was only seven years old, and so it was up to him to tell the police their names and where they lived. It is an early memory, but not his first. That was the day, earlier that Year of Living Dangerously, when our Father returned from the hospital after brain surgery, his head wrapped in bandages.

Sometimes I wonder what memories our Grands will keep with them. I’ll bet they will remember their parents coming home from their hospitals during the pandemic and having to shower before a hug. Will they remember seeing the David in Florence? Or will they remember a feeling of ease, an all encompassing feeling that everything will be alright when they arrive at Nana Camp? That it’s not all action and adventure all the time. Sometimes we bake muffins with abandon, or we swim in the pool. Sometimes we take field trips to museums and then we watch Jeopardy! There’s a rhythm to life in this house, and my grilled cheese sandwiches often hit the mark.

Today the Bride is home and so we are off duty. I try not to think about the recent SCOTUS decisions. Like the presidential debate/debacle, I put those thoughts into the “things I cannot change” basket. I can put the basket in a river and let the water flow through it, or I can unpack the basket on the riverbank and perseverate about our time and place in history. I’m not a Monday night MSNBC type. It’s hard to imagine changing course so close to an election, and I know Joe Biden.

Like my birth family, Irish Catholics from Scranton, PA, he will never give up. When the going gets tough and all. Like the Flapper telling her doctors she’ll not only walk again, she’ll dance on their graves. We come from a strong line of strong, smart women forged by coal miners. I’ll bet Dr Jill has ancestors just as tough and resilient. We need a Democrat in the White House now more than ever, so I’ll be voting accordingly.

Have a safe and uneventful Fourth of July. Steer clear of the naysayers and knee-jerkers. Look at the long view. America is still that beautiful shining city, our democracy cannot topple over!

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Bird Facts

June 24, 2024 by mountainmornings

“Bird” is simply working class (UK) slang for a woman. It’s not pejorative, but it’s not respectful or flattering either.

The Groom has developed a funny habit. Whenever he gets an advert text message, he texts back a random bird fact! Usually it’s a bot and he immediately stumps it. But sometimes it’s a human, and sometimes there’s a tacit recognition, a glimmer of humanity between the sender and the sendee. I wanted to tell him all about the crows making a racket next to my pool PT this morning, but then I remembered the family drove to Memphis at dawn..

They are being interviewed for Global Entry passports: “Global Entry is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) program that allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States. Members enter the United States by accessing the Global Entry processing technology at selected airports.” https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/global-entry

When we flew British Air to Italy, we breezed right through TSA checkpoints while the kids had to wait in long lines. It’s definitely worth the effort to apply for Global Entry if you fly out of the country. You feel a tiny bit royal coming back to the US. Being an avid Anglophile, I was delighted to be served “Coronation” tea sandwiches on board. I didn’t even mind being called, “Mum” by the flight attendants. When the pictures of Taylor Swift hit social media over the weekend, smiling with the Prince of Wales and his two oldest bairn, I was positively gobsmacked.

Then today I read (cue the lights) that Travis Kelce picked Tay Tay up like a bird on a London stage and carried the Queen to her throne chair.

The Love Bug had a fantastic week at Taylor Swift camp. She made a gorgeous tee shirt, lots of bead bracelets, and dove deep into the Swiftie phenom. I’m sure Yale will be offering the definitive course on Taylor soon enough.

Well, we’re all wilting aren’t we? Bob and I walked to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday for the first fresh garlic and barely made it home. It’s less than a mile, half up a gentle hill, but the heat index got me. Not so much the temperature, which was mid 90s, it’s the “real feel” as Aunt Kay calls it; a combo of humidity in the air and the subjective, apparent temperature we perceive. That was at least three digits! Nashville has been experiencing the same heat dome as everyone else, only I guess it’s pretty normal for us, except…

“It’s not even July yet people!”

The Pumpkin enjoyed robot camp too, and I’m just happy the camps were indoors during this heat spell. Naturally I’ve been keeping the Pumpkin’s bird bath refreshed twice daily. I love watching our robins, yes I believe these two are our babies recently hatched above the patio, indulging in water aerobics and taking a drink every now and then.

Yesterday I stood by the window marveling at our bird’s ingenuity and determination to get a berry. Bob covered the blackberry bush with mesh this year, hoping we’d actually have a harvest, but the birds have outsmarted us. The robin jumped up on a lawn light, squared off, and then hovered for a few seconds whilst plucking a berry through the mesh! This went on for quite awhile. I didn’t know a robin could impersonate a hummingbird. There’s another bird fact for you!

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Dearest Gentle Reader

June 17, 2024 by mountainmornings

Good Morning! Spoiler Alert about Bridgerton – the jig is up!

We now know who Lady Whistledown is and that Pen gets her man. Amidst all the lies and deceit, love wins! And all the while I’m thinking this Bridgerton husband, fresh off his European tour bedding as many French women as he could find, will surely be giving his new bride an STD of some sort. Why must reality cozy up with a SIX minute sex scene? Maybe when you raise your children during the AIDs crisis, pragmatism kicks in.

I wonder what future generations will say about this time – climate change is a chronic, existential crisis; European elections are tilting to the Right; and America is debating the rules of a debate between a nice guy named Joe from PA, and a delusional, twice-impeached felon named Don! Could Bridgerton be the escape we all need? After all, in the end three new babies are born to fathers who will presumably mend their wicked ways.

Yesterday we celebrated Father’s Day with lunch and a movie, “Inside Out 2.” Temps were in the mid 90s so air-conditioning was an essential part of the plan. As we were walking out, the Love Bug asked me what emotion I liked best? “Ennui,” i said. I thought she should have had a bigger part. I also loved how Joy put Anxiety in a recliner with a cup of tea! Then the Bride said she loved Ennui also, and did we notice she was French? Mais OUI! The Pumpkin wanted to know what Ennui was, and while throwing out our candy boxes at the back of the theatre, I attempted an explanation.

Like the flat, bluish-gray animated character said, she is bored but rarely boring. She was distanced, lethargic like a noodle always lounging around. It’s fascinating that Ennui always had a phone in her hand. While the main character, Riley, is trying to fit in with her peers, all of her “old” emotions are literally bottled up in a jar! Could Hollywood be telling us that suppressing our emotions never works? Notice that Envy, a new emotion for Riley, is kinda cute with sparkly eyes and without a phone in her hand; maybe teens are not so envious of their friends’ social media feeds?

Another Spoiler Alert: Ennui joins Joy to save Riley! Key the eye-rolling, the shrug, the insidious “FINE!”

The good news is that Inside Out 2 is the number one, record breaking film of the year so far. “Pixar’s Inside Out 2 has broken box office records over the weekend as it brought in an estimated $295m (£232.6m) around the world.That makes it the strongest global opening by an animated film of all time, parent company Disney said. In North America, ticket sales hit about $155m, dethroning Dune: Part Two as the holder of this year’s top box office opening weekend.” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd114gg38xpo

Hooray! People are getting out, going back to the movies with candy and popcorn, even if it is an animation. I tried watching “Poor Thing” on the plane back from Heathrow, but it just wasn’t sitting well. I turned it off after she killed the toad. I remember the Flapper idolizing Veronica Lake, and Greta Garbo. Garbo’s “I vant to be alone,” was the synthesis of Ennui, and very much like Lady Whistledown. A smart woman, who’s been overlooked and underappreciated with a biting wit and a poison pen. We all need a break from the constant noise! Not the cicadas, those are gone thankfully; the pings and dings of our phones, the podcasts and songs in our ears, the stories we tell ourselves in order to soldier on.

It’s spending time alone, getting to know ourselves, listening to our intuition, that will help teens forge an identity. Ennui is never bored with herself! On the wall is a picture of my Foster Father Jim when he was in the Navy. He’s looking over The Love Bug on ProCreate; we like to get creative in the Snug!

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Disconnected

June 11, 2024 by mountainmornings

As we approached the medieval city of Pietrasanta last week, I was surprised to see a giant sculpture of a teddy bear laying down outside of a church with a knife through his heart. Marco and Claudio had told us this place has long been a haven for artists – from Paul Klee and Joan Miro to Henry Moore and Fernando Botero. But I had no idea the exhibit we were about to see, including large busts of cherubic angels with their mouths taped shut inside the deconsecrated church , was by a sculptor connected to the Jersey Shore, Rachel Lee Hovnanian!

“Hovnanian’s “Poor Teddy in Repose” sculpture shares a powerful message. “Poor Teddy is a reflection on the ways in which childhood playtime has changed in the contemporary era,” Hovnanian shares about her work. “Children are no longer interested in teddy bears and other tangible toys – the smartphone seems to have eclipsed all other toys as the ultimate pass-time for children, a knife to the heart for Teddy.”…Hovnanian goes on to share that her choice of raw material – bronze – was deliberate. “It emphasizes the industrialization and commercialization of childhood,” she explains.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/janehanson/2024/05/28/how-one-artist-is-using-teddy-bears-and-angels-to-redefine-the-way-we-communicate/

It was a July day in 2002 when Hovnanian’s 15 year old son, Alton, drowned in his jet ski-type watercraft in the Navesink River. Word spread quickly in our Rumson-Fair Haven community, Hovnanian Enterprises was the number one building firm in the state. Alton was taken to my husband Bob’s ER in Red Bank, NJ. I had friends who were good friends with the boy’s grandmother. His grandfather, Kevork, was an Armenian immigrant from Iraq when he started his company.

Now the silent angels stared down at me, more menacing. I felt a chill inside the dark vestibule of the Complesso di Sant Agostino, maybe it was my fever? We turned a corner only to find another gigantic, lonely teddy bear surrounded by floating, electric plugs that looked like the tentacles of an octopus. The Love Bug said it made her feel sad, and we talked about the meaning of art. The Rocker told me the artist herself was in the next room.

It was an accident that night when Alton plowed into a moored sailboat. The Rocker was 17 and had just graduated high school, we were packing him up for college; while Rachel was burying her son instead of sending him off to high school. Luckily, I had stopped writing for the local newspaper the year before. And here we were, in Tuscany, in a room with another Poor Teddy having a solo tea party.

When we arrived home, I handed over my iPad to the Bug for her Design Camp. She is an artist like her Aunt Kiki! You see, I thought I would be the Nana with a basket for devices by the door; that Grands would be required to drop their screens and connect IRL. This was my fantasy. But instead, I am the wild Nana who says “Anything Goes” when the kids come to our house. My daughter and her Groom said “NO” to screens until thirteen!

At first, we went along with their Luddite ways. I hated to see a toddler in a stroller clutching an iPad while sucking a pacifier! But lately, social media seems to have creeped into the Grands’ lives nonetheless. After all, mostly all of her friends have either a cell phone, a tablet or a smart watch. While we were walking through the ancient streets of Pietrasanta, I noticed the Love Bug, who will turn 12 this summer, doing a little dance move of her own here and there. I asked her where she learned it.

“Oh, it’s on TikTok,” she said. “All my friends are doing it.”

Poor Teddy

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Buona Sera

June 3, 2024 by mountainmornings

We are finally here in Italy, touring the country again with Marco and Claudio, but this time from their home in Viareggio. We awaken to church bells and cafe Americano in the garden. Flowers are blooming amid buzzing Vespas and even the sidewalks are arranged like quilts. A baby girl, Bianca, was born next door the day before we arrived and so her front door is festooned with pink ribbon.

We stroll just a few blocks to the Ligurian Sea where the sand is not too hot, yet. Only the Pumpkin has jumped in the gentle waves. We visit ancient cities and discover small, Bronze Age statues of people in a province of Lucca. Castle walls surround this whole town in Tuscany, as if to say we value every one of our people, not just royalty. Art is everywhere.

Did you know that because of the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834), Jews brought the tomato to Italy?

Of course we are learning to cook the traditional food. Yesterday we made green lasagna noodles with two different sauces – a Bolognese and a Bechamel. The grands are enjoying the desserts, tiramisu and bignes, like profiteroles only better. Today Bob and I finally ordered a pizza for lunch on the Promenade, but it was like no other with fresh prosciutto and funghi.

If I were to define happiness, it would be now, this time with my whole family. Watching the Bug fill tiny ravioli while the Pumpkin works the dough through a pasta machine. Sitting on the sofa with Pietro, the truffle/rescue dog, and discussing design with Kiki over an Aperol. Walking in the rain with the Bride and Groom, and suddenly the Rocker takes my hand.

And Bob, forever mi amore, celebrating today our 45th Wedding Anniversary by doing laundry and caring for me. This cold I brought with me has turned into an infection. It’s OK. It’s life, I guess even this virus wants to survive in this beautiful country.

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Compelling Speech

May 27, 2024 by mountainmornings

There is a movement afoot in our country that is downright dangerous. A friend recently told me that silence is best, whenever Israel and Hamas and college protestors might come up in polite conversation. But as I’ve said before countless times like a mantra – it is silence and indifference that led to the Holocaust. At first with small things, like where Jews could go to school, and later with bigger things like where Jews could live and finally sending Jews off to “work camps.” It doesn’t happen all at once, genocide is a big word that begins slowly, with small changes in rules and regulations.

Between packing today for our twice Covid-Osteoporosis-delayed Italy trip, I happened to read about PEN America cancelling our country’s highest literary award ceremony. Why? Half of the participants dropped out of the running because they wanted PEN members to sign a petition stating that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. And an anonymous group on X has created a spreadsheet, titled “Is Your Fav Author a Zionist?” complete with color-coded categories like “pro-Israel/Zionist!”

“Over the past several months, a litmus test has emerged across wide swaths of the literary world effectively excluding Jews from full participation unless they denounce Israel. This phenomenon has been unfolding in progressive spaces (academia, politics, cultural organizations) for quite some time. That it has now hit the rarefied, highbrow realm of publishing — where Jewish Americans have made enormous contributions and the vitality of which depends on intellectual pluralism and free expression — is particularly alarming… Compelling speech — which is ultimately what PEN’s critics are demanding of it — is the tactic of commissars, not writers in a free society. Censorship, thought policing and bullying are antithetical to the spirit of literature, which is best understood as an intimate conversation between the author and individual readers.” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/27/opinion/publishing-literary-antisemitism.html

Compelling a literary society to speak in a certain way, to denounce a whole group of people, (and believe me at least 80% of Jewish Americans believe Israel has a right to exist, which makes us Zionists I guess) is using the same playbook as banning books IMHO. There have been over 4,000 book bans in schools in just the first half of this year! Parents, going to a public School Board meeting to try and weave their ideology or religious views into the curriculum, are misguided at best and malicious at worst. Our Founding Fathers would roll over in their graves because our very liberty is dependent on separation of church and state.

Of course being able to speak and write what’s on your mind presumes we live in a free society. But do we? Over 339 writers are being held in jails around the world, mostly in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. In this country, an ex-President can denigrate a judge’s family without being thrown in jail, he can mock reporters with cerebral palsy and talk about grabbing women by their privates. Nothing happens. In fact, he just might get re-elected. But when a comic, say Kathy Griffin, put a bloody picture of T’s head on social media, she was investigated by the DOJ and the FBI and was cancelled. Still, the twice impeached ex-Prez can call for a bloody rebellion…and that’s his free speech I guess.

This morning Bob only scooped five cicadas out of the pool, instead of 50, so maybe we’re over the hump? They should be gone by the time we return from Italy. Last week, Bob and I attended a 6th Grade debate in the halls of the TN Capitol; Hamas and Israel didn’t come up. But I was proud to hear these 12 year olds discuss AI and gun control. Our future Activists are bright and engaging, compelling even, and gave me hope. If only we could start a middle school through high school for Palestinians and Israelis.

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