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Posts Tagged ‘Election’

Fingers OUT

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 19, 2024| 3 Comments »

The past two weeks have been surreal. One moment I’m toiling away happily at the NYTimes Strands puzzle, and the next I’m laying flat out on the floor. Time and bones fractured. I like to blame things for my maladies – the mosquito for West Nile, the coughing stranger on a plane to Nice for Covid. But this time, I can only blame myself. It was early morning, I was holding my phone and rushing to the door to corral an escaped Little Emperor when my Ugg slipper caught on the rug.

The day before the election I spent in my daughter’s ER. That whole day went by in a blur of x-rays and a neck MRI. The spine NP wanted to admit me, but the neurosurgeon showed up and discharged me into the care of two ER docs! The next morning I woke to the election results – “President Elect Donald Trump.” My cervical collar, my splinted hands, was this all a nightmare? Was I still dreaming? I didn’t want to believe the news and so I told myself that I’d wait until all the votes were counted. Besides, I was due in surgery for my left hand, no coffee no food just Gatorade. I turned off the TV. I couldn’t handle (get it, handle) anything other than the next step in my recovery.

We had to wait a week for repeat scans, thankfully I wouldn’t need neck surgery.

Denial is a powerful tool. Bob would not listen to any election post-mortems, and our daughter is following suit. I’m not willing to go into the weeds of WHY Kamala lost – numbers, ethnicity, socio-economic standing. But this is who we are… this is who we Americans are and where we are right now. The Bride helped me to understand this on a cellular level one night early on when I was going out of my mind with panic, feeling choked by the C-collar and imprisoned by pain. She talked me through in her physician/yoga voice, telling me to embrace my suffering because this is where I am right now... right now… but not forever.

We are still on a news sabbatical, watching Netflix and The First Ladies on PBS, walking outside for exercise whenever possible. I have the best neighbors, delivering the most delicious soups, breads and treats and of course the Bride shows up every day mainly to support her father who has been the real hero in this drama. Along with my left hand, my right wrist is also fractured so Bob right now is both of my hands.

If you recall, he had to wear a C collar for months after his neck surgery that resulted in a cerebellar stroke and I now have a new respect for his strength and resilience. If all goes well, I should be out of my ‘cone of shame’ by mid-December. Meanwhile, my emotions have run the gamut from self-loathing for wearing fancy lug-soled Ugg slippers, to such incredible gratitude for my network of friends and family.

I heard one interview on CNN of a middle-aged couple who came here illegally from Mexico and were granted asylum under Reagan. Their adult children were living the American dream – college educated, good jobs etc. when the reporter asked them why they voted for T they said, “Because these immigrants are criminals!” Can you guess where they get their news?

We Democrats are all suffering through the stages of a collective grief; but my reality right now is singular. I am grieving the loss of my youth when I could slide into second base at Camp St Joseph with ease. I remember vividly twirling around on my knees and sweeping the floor with my hands at the Martha Graham Dance Studio. My body has betrayed me and now my country seems to be hell bent on doing the same.

The only other time my body wouldn’t cooperate with my brain was when we were trying to have baby number two. I had to learn to let go, I had to become the trapeze artist and trust in the safety net beneath me. The Rocker’s birth was a miracle and I have future grandbabies to consider, I need to practice dancing to Adelaide’s lament. “I love you a bushel and a peck you bet your pretty neck I do.”

We took the Harris-Walz signs off our yard but kept the American flag flying on the porch. You can still love your country even when it seems to be slipping away from its foundation right now. I can remove the left splint and move all my fingers so I decided to get a manicure – a rare luxury for me. But we must practice gratitude this Thanksgiving and every single day. Now more than ever.

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Florida Man

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 10, 2024| Leave a Comment »

No, not that Mar-a-Lago guy who thinks he can ‘debate’ a former prosecutor. I know everyone will be watching CBS tonight to see what insanity Mr T spews forth, and I’ll be reluctantly watching too. Who can resist a train wreck? But I’ll be visiting with friends at least; Bob and I will be heading over to an election debate watch party which should cushion the blows of this farce. I can only hope Kamala doesn’t spend all her time correcting the former Liar-in-Chief.

But the Florida guy on my radar this morning is good ‘ole Gov Ron DeSantis. Did you know that he has an Office of Election Crimes and Security, aka the election police? Bob said of course he does, and didn’t I remember when he started rounding up felons who thought they had had their voting rights restored after the 2020 election?

Florida is one of the few southern states that allows previously incarcerated people who’ve paid their debt to society to apply to have their voting rights reinstated.

But in the small print you cannot vote in FL if you were convicted of murder, a sexual offense, OR you have outstanding legal costs associated with that past felony conviction. Or maybe you just didn’t jump through enough hoops? The Gov’s roundup out of the blue had the police officers apologizing to the people they were arresting!

But wait – today the WaPo is reporting that election police have been showing up at people’s homes to question them about signing a petition they had signed months ago! One person reported having ten pages of personal information displayed on her dining room table! What was that about you might ask? Oh, just a little Amendment number 4 coming up on the ballot in November that would nullify the 6 week abortion ban the Gov signed into law last year…

“They want people to stay home and to not vote,” Democratic state Rep. Fentrice Driskell said at a virtual news conference Monday. “They want people to read these articles and hear it on social media that the police showed up at somebody’s door and intimidated them and made them feel bad about signing an Amendment 4 petition.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/09/09/desantis-election-abortion-referendum-fdle/

Isn’t it rich that Mr T says a vote for Harris will make us a banana republic, while his minions are incrementally toilng away to make it so. Shame, intimidation and threats of arrest are the tactics used in the sunshine state to keep people away from the polls. Nearly 70% of Floridians believe abortion should be legal in most cases, and a 6 week ban is too strict. If asked, probably most American women would say, “Mind your own damn business!” And yet, this Florida man is using the power of the state to twist our free and fair elections to his own whim.

This was a gut punch, reading this article actually made me sick. I kept thinking of SS police knocking on doors to find Jews.

The other night Bob and I joined the Bride and Groom at their election letter writing party. I had a list of potential voters in Arizona and I was supposed to write a bipartisan message urging them to vote this November. The Groom was writing that he worked in healthcare and believed in healthcare for all. I only needed to write one or two sentences per letter. Instead I wrote about gun violence to the men and bodily autonomy to the women. Who knows, maybe someone with an open mind will listen.

I hope you and your friends are throwing parties! Are you talking with your neighbors? Maybe just this once we can come together as a nation, blue and red, black and white, and say enough is enough? Here is my new Fall knitting project, shades of pink and purple with just enough grey to add gravitas.

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Early Bird Voting

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on August 29, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Naturally, the Nashville mayor’s race had to have a runoff. So instead of jumping into the pool for morning aquatics, followed by sitting down at my desk to write, Bob and I jumped into the car and drove to a swanky neighborhood for early voting. There were also many councillors on the ticket and we could choose four, except my little red, plastic coffee stir-stick would not work on one of them. I must have ‘tapped’ the name Burkley Allen ten times before it registered.

I alerted one of the election people afterwards because of course my mind thought ‘conspiracy.’ Every other councilor’s name popped right up as soon as my stick hit their box. Bob said he’s always used his finger on the monitor, it’s much easier and better for the environment. The red stick was simply a Covid precaution…VOTE FREDDIE for MAYOR!

I hate that my mind thinks of subterfuge first – that my trust in so many things has been slowly eroding. We trust our children to make the right choice, it’s the only way we can let them go into adulthood. We trust our mail to end up in our mailbox, how else would we know what’s on sale at Costco? But post-Mr T and January 6, I’ve felt a shift in my trusting neurons. Why is T’s name front page news still? Why did TN legislators pass a bill on decorum first, and remove grieving Covenant moms with signs from the gallery? After this special session on public safety, and the latest school shooting in NC, I’ve lost whatever faith I had left after Sandy Hook.

TN was the last state to cast the vote for women’s suffrage. It will most likely be the last to vote for any kind of law restricting guns.

In the good news column, our little Love Bug celebrated her birthday this past weekend. She and her friends went to the Barbie movie, they painted their nails like tweens do. And we had a discussion about cellphones at the family dinner table. Many of her friends have phones, tablets and/or iPhone watches… she doesn’t. It’s her parents’ decision of course. But she told me she’s glad not be on “text chains”that run into the night, instead she gets to sleep through the night. Her friends are always tired – FOMO does not seem to affect her, thank goodness.

When I was young, we only had gossip to contend with; like so and so said that so and so did this! And I was the kind of kid that went right to the horse’s mouth and called them out. Spreading rumors wasn’t called bullying back then, it was called gossiping. We didn’t need to fear that our words, or even our pictures, could be seen by millions of strangers and could linger for years in the virtual cess-pool of a world wide web. Here is an example of how we are all on our own when it comes to cyber-bullying. Two sisters had to track down their stalker themselves.

Technology has raced ahead in the 10 years since Madison’s photos first appeared online, and artificial intelligence combined with social media has made it even easier for abusers to distribute intimate images on the internet without consent. But legislation to protect victims still falls short. Most of the 48 states and the District of Columbia that have laws prohibiting the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images, many passed in the past decade, require that victims prove that the distributors of their photos intended to harm them.“

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/26/revenge-porn-leaked-nudes-police/

HELLO?! I can only hope our laws will evolve to meet our basic humanity. My only wish is that people who are sworn to obey the constitution, will see through the fog of decorum in every state house, and a person’s intent to do no harm.

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The Soapbox

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on January 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Sleep has been eluding me lately because these days are hard to fathom. Mr T used his soapbox to preach conspiracy falsehoods and push an angry mob to desecrate our Nation’s Capitol. More and more video has surfaced since Wednesday. An Air Force veteran came from California, a QAnon believer, only to be shot in the neck. A Capitol policeman was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher. Another was crushed between doors. Blood was shed.

And blood is on the hands of every single Republican who ever supported this mad president, and thought it might be a good idea to stage an insurrection last week.

Usually reading before bed is a calming ritual. “The Cold Millions,” by Jess Walter has been my escape from our current political dystopia. The book was delivered to my front door, like most things these days, human contact unnecessary. The author’s previous novel, “Beautiful Ruins,” is a favorite so I couldn’t wait to dig in; instead of flirting with the good ‘ole days of Hollywood, Walter aimed his pen at the wild west – Spokane, Washington in 1909. It was a formative time for labor unions.

I like to think my Great Great Grandmother hosted many a union organizing dinner in her Scranton, Pennsylvania dining room. Grandma Mullen was born in Ireland in 1844 and raised 23 children! She lost a few husbands along the way to the coal mines. Over the years, I’d heard that she ran a boardinghouse for miners, and she would feed them IF they would read her the newspaper. I wonder if my ancestor, on the Flapper’s side, could have imagined the future me, writing for newspapers?

In “the Cold Millions,” two dirt poor brothers, Ryan and Gig, are pitted against the emerging upper class of industrial/publishing/judicial elites. And because they stand on a soapbox in the middle of a union rally for the “Industrial Workers of the World,” they are hauled off to jail. It’s not hard to think of a juvenile in an adult jail, our country still manages to make such arrangements.

But peaceful rallying in the street is nothing new. Walter’s fictional characters are based on real life union organizers at the beginning of the last century sick of being swindled by job brokers, their heads beaten with clubs. Over the years, our family has been known to take to the streets. Bob protested the Vietnam War in Washington. I’ve traveled to DC a few times to rally for Reproductive Rights. I was in DC at the 2017 Women’s March and passed many buses filled with our National Guard at the ready… just in case.

Where were they last Wednesday? And why were they late to arrive after Pence and Pelosi summoned them?

All of the action in the book takes place before and after a free speech rally. And this morning I find myself wondering about free speech, feeling self-righteous because I believe in the freedom of the press and glad that Twitter has finally silenced the Toddler-in-Chief. Don’t get me wrong, our liberty hinges on this First Amendment right, but I never thought our government should be run by Tweets! Mr T has been coddled and allowed to spew his lies long enough, I’m just sorry it took so long to silence him.

Yes, sometimes peaceful protests can turn violent when night falls. But these Capitol rioters were signaled by Mr T to turn their anger against the very people who are our legislators. They were chanting “Hang Mike Pence” because our VP refused to overturn an election. The very same people who were carrying “Blue Lives Matter” flags were raging against the police. The same mind-set that led some to attend Black Lives Matter protests, to supposedly protect federal property, were destroying our nation’s artifacts.

In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, the Capitol mob had the trappings of a war they had been deluded into following. Men wore body armor, some carried weapons. Free speech is fine and dandy, so long as no one gets hurt. Facebook and Twitter give everyone a soapbox, but can their algorithms keep us safe from this fire?

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Depression or Depressed

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, journal, Memoir, tagged , , , , , , , on August 29, 2020| 5 Comments »

You just can’t make this stuff up. Thanks Ana Navarro-Cardenas for reminding me of last week’s highlights cause you know, I didn’t watch the RNC rally at the White House this week.

  • “Bannon indicted for swindling Trump’s base
  • Trump ordered to pay Stormy’s legal fees
  • Trump’s niece recorded the sister saying he’s a cruel, phony, liar
  • Conway Family saga (see previous post)
  • Now, Jerry Falwell says his wife had an affair w/the pool boy (while he watched)”

And just to cap this wonderful week off, I managed to lift a very heavy box of paint – don’t ask – and now even my elbows are hurting. Lest I forget, yesterday was yet another Tornado Warning complete with sirens. If this pandemic/political/hurricane season isn’t depressing enough, I thought you’d like to hear the rest of the Flapper’s essay on the Great Depression!

To recap – It was 1935, my Mother put yellow food coloring in Crisco and called it butter. My Father was making $7 a week!

“Clothes were hard to come by, and each of my children had only two pairs of shoes, one for the wintertime and one for the summertime (and that was during a good year). I made a schedule of household chores for me to do all day. First, I would feed my children, and send Shirley and Brian off to school.

Then on Mondays, I would do the laundry (by hand on a washboard, since we had no washing machine). and hang it out to dry on the line. On Tuesdays I would iron the clothes. Wednesdays I’d clean the upstairs of the house, and Thursdays the downstairs. Fridays, I would bake for the weekend and do any shopping that needed to be done. Saturdays were my only free days, and Sundays we’d all go to church and our relatives would come over for dinner and a good game of cards.

On March 4, 1933 Franklin D Roosevelt became President! He was the answer to the prayers of the people, and the best president this country has ever had. Even to this day, there is a picture of him hanging in my kitchen, right next to the picture of Jesus Christ. I do not like to imagine what would have happened had it not been for President Roosevelt.

In 1935 Bob finally got a better paying job – $25 a week!! However it was in Jamestown, New York, so he had to move out there.It cost him $10 to rent a room and buy food etc. Back home in Scranton, we received $15 a week. A BIG improvement from the $7 we had been getting. In April, when I had my son Michael, Bob was not able to come home to see him. Soon after his birth however, my husband luckily found an even better paying job… and it was at home in Scranton! We were overjoyed to have him living with us, and to have $35 a week.

It sounds funny now, but we thought we were rich!

Life during the Great Depression was hard. I’m not quite sure how we were able to do it, but we did. We were lucky not to have lost everything, like some of my friends did. I think that our society to day has made it all too easy and normal to throw things away. Why throw away socks with holes when you can mend them? Why throw away food when you can save it for another time? People today are too wasteful. 

If anything good did come out of the Depression, it taught me not to waste things, because you never know when you could lose it all.”

We all know what we’ve got to lose in the next election.

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Momala Kamala

Posted in an expository essay, Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I stood up clapping and yelling in my empty office after Kamala Harris spoke to an empty auditorium in Delaware on Wednesday. It was her first time appearing with Joe Biden as his running mate, and I was on pins and needles waiting for them. When she said the case against Mr T was “…open and shut,” I swooned. When she called our Toddler-in-Chief a whiner, I Tweeted; then I followed her husband – possibly the first ever Second Gentleman – on every social media platform!

When Kamala said, “I’ve had a lot of titles over my career and certainly vice president will be great, but ‘Momala’ will always be the one that means the most,” I got it.  I’m pretty sure only Italians and Jewish people use Momala as a token of endearment. She married Doug Emhoff, an entertainment lawyer, in 2014 and her two step-children started calling her Momala. Great Grandma Ada, who btw I’ve called Momala for years, called me up to tell me Emhoff was from Brooklyn; and then I read that Kamala broke a glass at their wedding to honor his tradition.

Wait, I misspoke. I wasn’t entirely alone watching Kamala on CNN. Ms Bean had been napping peacefully on her bed, only slightly medicated because of those pesky afternoon  thunderstorms, when my cheering started. I guess I must have been jumping around too much because she joined in with ferocity, barking and climbing up on me. She hasn’t seen me that excited in almost six months, or maybe even four years.

The Flapper was a realist when it came to politicians. Except for the great FDR, I remember her saying, “They’re all crooks.” But my foster parents were dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. I remember them getting dressed up to vote at night after Daddy Jim came home from work. And try as I might, they’d never say who they voted for, although it was pretty clear to me that they voted a straight line Democratic ticket.

After all, the Democrats were for the “working man,” the great “middle class.” I was also told the Irish vote blue, so there ya go. And once Kennedy, the first Irish Catholic president was elected and later assassinated when I was just 15 years old, my tribal loyalties were sealed in stone. McGovern was my first presidential vote, and I’m still proud of it to this day.

Many Dems I know felt discouraged after voting for Hillary in 2016 and watching the electoral college – a holdover from the southern slave states – trample our desire for a woman president. Discouraged and depressed. But this time there is something in the air. Systemic racism has crawled out of the shadows, and sitting on a fence for this election is simply unacceptable. Thanks to this administration, the American people will be asked to make a choice:

Continue running our government into the ground, chipping away at affordable healthcare during a global pandemic, and ignoring the economic plight of our people? Should we vote for a man who has single-handedly destroyed our trust in institutions like the Post Office and makes a mockery of the Justice Department? Or shall we vote for a return to truth and dignity with a Biden/Harris ticket?

She broke a piece of crystal under her heel at her wedding, and she will be the one to shatter the glass ceiling. Painting of Wonder Woman by Ashley Longshore.

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Bagels and Bullies

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 14, 2016| 4 Comments »

Yesterday we went out to a favorite Cville bagel joint for brunch. You can’t order steak and eggs with a Bloody Mary while reading the Sunday NY Times a la my good ole days – before marriage, before children, before leaving the NY metropolitan area – but you can get a good approximation of a NY bagel. I ordered smoked turkey on an everything bagel, with vegetable cream cheese and sprouts. It was always the Bride’s go-to choice, if it wasn’t going to be lox.

What I didn’t order up was a side of racism.

Because our local news had a story about how some of Bodo’s Bagels customers had been openly hostile this post-election week. Granted, we’ve been hearing reports about an increase in bullying all over the country; but when I read that someone didn’t want one of “those people” making their bagel, well I have to admit I did get a little pissed!

A popular Charlottesville restaurant chain claims its employees have become the targets of prejudice-related harassment following Tuesday’s election. Bodo’s Bagels is taking to social media to tell people who promote hate to stay away from its shops.

Scott Smith wants Bodo’s to be an inclusive place

“The business is conceived as being inclusive really from the ground up both on the customer and employee side,” Smith said.                        http://www.nbc29.com/story/33695338/bodos-owner-speaks-out-following-harassment-toward-workers

Bodo’s is the kind of place Democrats love. You have to stand in line to order, in fact the lines are often long. You can weave around the front of the store and feel like you’re in a Disney line for Space Mountain. When you finally get to a cashier to place and pay for your order, you are standing right in front of the kitchen and you can see everything that’s going on. You are given a ticket with a number on it. No names like Panera or Starbucks, just a number.

Then you mingle with a hungry crowd waiting for their number to be called. Chances are you meet somebody you know or make a new friend on the spot!

Yesterday the line went out the door, and stayed out there the whole time we were eating brunch. The parking lot was every man and woman for themselves…all colors, all ages, we all knew why we came there yesterday, some of us after church, some before heading out to a matinee. I wondered aloud if the owner would hit the best Sunday sales record ever, if they would run out of food.

Hate is a fascinating subject, it feeds on prejudice. After moving South, I remember distinctly the first time I heard a woman tell me she went to a smaller hospital in the area because she didn’t want “those darkies” taking care of her. I remember a friend telling me her mother would not go to Red Lobster for the same reason. Every time I drive into town, I have to pass a big Confederate flag waving at me, as if it’s saying, “Look at me, you will never be rid of me.”

I asked Bob if there was a way to tally up how many fender benders there were last week, because I’m not the only one feeling like I’m sleep-walking through this post-election apocalypse. Can we keep a tally of the number of hate crimes? Is saying aloud you don’t want to walk up to “that” cash register a crime? Is hate speech saying you don’t want “that” person making your bagel? Has this President Elect unleashed the underlying hate and angst of the blue-collar White population and made it OK for them to voice their disdain for the “Others.” Since when did the party of the worker, of the underdog, of the Unions, become the party of elites?

I can’t listen to the pundits anymore, they are obviously clueless. And I’d like the few Republican friends I have left on Facebook to give it a rest. I know you are not racist, and I know you care, it is the extreme Right of your party that has prevailed. We are protesting because it’s our God-given-RIGHT to protest! People are telling me they feel like they did after Kennedy was shot. They feel like they did after 9/11. One person is moving so he can build a bomb shelter! WTF

Maybe I will wake up tomorrow and feel better? More determined to fight another day? To march in the Million Women’s March on Washington January 21st, the day after the Inauguration. Great Grandma Ada wants to go, and so does my niece Lucia from California who accompanied me on another similar march years ago.  http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/12/politics/womens-march-on-washington-planned/

Until then, let’s give to the ACLU, the International Rescue Committee, to Planned Parenthood. Let’s open our hands and our hearts to our fellow Americans, whatever color their skin or sexual identity they have, or head gear they choose to wear. Let’s say something when we hear hate speech, it is not acceptable. Let’s all order everything bagels at Bodo’s! And wear a safety pin like the Bride has been wearing, because #LoveTrumpsHate.   15094843_10210220151522257_1749270517854516976_n

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Betrayed by a Kiss

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, Public Policy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 10, 2016| 4 Comments »

I’m living in a small sky blue speck, in a sea of blood red.

The Old Dominion voted for Hillary Clinton, as did most of the big cities and states on both coasts. But Trump’s clarion call swayed the majority of our electoral college, surprising my Democratic family and friends. Shocking me into a dystopian fugue state. Yesterday I actually felt like a zombie, which is to say I didn’t feel much. Great Grandma Ada asked me to explain it, and I had no words. My niece Lucia asked me what she should tell her daughters, and I had no words.

Whenever I am at a loss for words, I look to poetry, and so Bob Dylan came to mind given his recent Nobel Prize. I want to buy all his albums, in vinyl, and play them on an old fashioned record player, with a needle that gets stuck sometimes so you have to pick it up and put it down again. Because he spoke of the great divide, of the power elite who could send our boys to a swamp in Asia because our government, our country, thought we had God on our side. He called attention to the swath of red states, to the working class who today are called the vanishing middle class.

All those White people with no college degree, going nowhere, feeling left behind in the Rust Belt. One third of the Latinos who voted the GOP line, because they didn’t want anymore workers coming over here for free, taking their jobs. All those Evangelical Christians, who voted for the least Christ-like candidate our country ever saw fit to nominate. All those old men who could just never trust a woman to do a so-called man’s job protecting this country. All that free-floating fear and anger, don’t matter if he pops some Tic Tacs and kisses the hell outta you.

Many are brandishing their firearms, wishing the liberal elites take the next plane to Canada. Making false distinctions between love of country and government. I wonder how long it will take them to hate the new GOP government. Feeling self-righteous, they know not what they have done. But while our country is divided, the power players are smiling and gracious, talking about our democracy.

You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows.

Only time will tell what this “Historic” election means for Women, for the Undocumented, for Muslims, for the Climate. Our system isn’t rigged when a despot can win 279 electoral votes but not the popular vote, right; and the gerrymandering that flooded both houses on the Hill with red shall never be undone. Lobbyists are fleeing DC like rats from a ship.

But hark, the Dow is going up folks, because the Market hates uncertainty, so Wall Street must think they have a friend in this lustful Billionaire. After all, he could shoot someone and get away with it, he’s got God on his side! When President Obama shakes his hand on the White House porch today, I just may lose my lunch.

In a many dark hour
I’ve been thinkin’ about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can’t think for you
You’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

The Groom told the Love Bug that, “Everybody gets a turn.” And even though we all thought this was Hillary’s turn, the people voted so now it’s Trump’s turn. And I would add the  biggest, loudest bully on the block will need to face Pocahontas, aka Senator Elizabeth Warren in four years, so we better get busy. The Boston Globe reported Warren saying: “I’m intensely frustrated by the apparent likelihood that, for the second time in five elections, a Democratic nominee will have won the popular vote but lost the presidency in the electoral college.” 

And just like Gore, I’m devastated. Just like McGovern and Humphrey, I’m feeling left behind. The wind is blowing brown oak leaves past my aviary window, circling and bobbing to their death, they are being tracked into the house. But the sun came up this morning. And my fingers found words again. img_5313

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Butterfly Kisses

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on November 7, 2016| 2 Comments »

Tomorrow I will be voting for our First Woman President! I am so proud to cast this vote, to pull the lever or press the button in honor of my Grandmother, Anna Robinson, who wasn’t allowed to vote when women suffrage was passed because she had married an “alien” Irishman. Immigration is the grand story of this great country, not it’s problem. But first let me fill you in on the last few days.

Returning home to my newly retired husband was a bit strange. People are asking me how is he doing, like we got a diagnosis of some dreaded disease. Yes, he still shaves in the car and puts his pants on one leg at a time. Don’t forget, Bob was never a 9 – 5, Monday through Friday kinda guy; he worked plenty of weekends and like a commercial pilot, had lots of free time around the house. I’ve already set some limits – no reorganizing the linen closet for instance. But do feel free to search and destroy random stinkbugs while cleaning out any expired cans from the pantry! Thanks Babe!

The Virginia Film Festival coincided with my return from Nashville, so we ventured out to the Historic Downtown Mall for dinner and a show. Only the film was midday, so dinner at the Nook came later, guess we are slipping into early bird specials already. We saw a documentary about the Holocaust…I know, I know. In the midst of this bizarre and stressful election denouement, why submit ourselves to such heartache. But it was a film about children, and I thought it might be uplifting.

The film, “Not the Last Butterfly,” was inspired by a poem written by Pavel Friedmann, “The Butterfly,” about never seeing another butterfly in the transit ghetto that was Theresienstadt outside of Prague in the former Czechoslovakia. Commonly called Terezin, it is sometimes mis-identified as a concentration camp, but it was a Walled Ghetto of Limbo for Jews awaiting their fate at the hands of the Nazis. It was a stop along the way for 15,000 children between 1941 and 1945. Pavel the poet was shipped to his death in Auschwitz in 1944. Only 100 children survived Terezin.

He was the last. Truly the last.
Such yellowness was bitter and blinding
Like the sun’s tear shattered on stone.
That was his true colour.
And how easily he climbed, and how high,
Certainly, climbing, he wanted
To kiss the last of my world.

I have been here seven weeks,
‘Ghettoized’.
Who loved me have found me,
Daisies call to me,
And the branches also of the white chestnut in the yard.
But I haven’t seen a butterfly here.
That last one was the last one.
There are no butterflies, here, in the ghetto.

In an effort to make this horrific history approachable for schoolchildren today, a teacher in California came up with the idea to create 1.5 Million butterflies: yes, One and a Half Million to memorialize the total number of Jewish children who were murdered during the Holocaust.

Under the leadership of a mosaic artist, Cheryl Rattner Price, they set about designing a curriculum that would include each child making by hand a ceramic butterfly and painting it, while simultaneously learning about one particular child who perished during the war. It was a profound undertaking, and quickly spread around the globe and to many different faiths. A rock festival in Poland created butterflies. A Catholic school in Oregon took on the Butterfly Project. The installation has taken flight at the San Diego Jewish Academy, but the butterflies are arriving from all over the world.

Remember I had just returned from Nashville. I had given the Love Bug butterfly kisses on her cheek. So when they showed the archival footage of children during the Holocaust, I thought of my grandchildren. When they showed Jewish stores and synagogues burning during Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, I thought of the the Black church that was burned down in MS last week, with “Vote Trump” painted across a wall. Slowly, tears streamed down my face, because I understood how hatred starts out. Slowly, hatred of the “Other” becomes socially acceptable, so that the electrician who came to fix our phones said, “Why should they get a free ride, when I had to pay for my wife to come here?”  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/11/02/vote-trump-painted-on-wall-of-burned-out-black-church-in-mississippi/

So tomorrow I am voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton, for my grandchildren. I am voting for Love, because I don’t want to go back to a time where Women and Blacks were humiliated and disenfranchised in this country. I don’t want to go back to that great America where LGBT people were ridiculed and denied their rights. The Germans didn’t believe Hitler meant what he said, but we need to believe Trump means what he says; and he likes nuclear weapons and calls our military a bunch of “losers.” We cannot elect such a man filled with hate.

For more information about the film, or to see if you can arrange a showing at your school, please visit: http://thebutterflyprojectnow.org    img_5559

 

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Words Will Never Hurt?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 8, 2012| 4 Comments »

I’ve been on the road. Listening to Maeve Binchy and avoiding trucks in the Smoky Mountains that for some reason like to pull into the left lane to pass other trucks, very slowly. And so I missed alot of the Monday Wednesday morning political quarterbacking. And since I was driving, I couldn’t just whip out my camera, or phone, to take a picture of a very disturbing billboard. It was red, white and blue, very tasteful looking, and in big letters it said, “Obama and America.” So at first I was drawn in, it made me look to the left and take my eyes off the road for a second or two between Nashville and Knoxville. In slightly smaller letters it said something like, “Cannot exist together.”

When I was telling Bob about it, I got more and more agitated. It felt traitorous to me. When Bush was President, did that thought ever even occur to you? That it’s either one or the other? I know we have free speech in this country, but inciting a riot, or worse – is illegal – it’s a misdemeanor or even a felony. It’s not just speech, but urging others to do so is sufficient. “Nor is it necessary that the “incitement” actually cause these other people to riot, commit violence or burn or destroy. All that’s necessary is that the accused was trying to instigate these things.” Which is why the hate speech of the Republican Right in the aftermath of this election is so frightening.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/omg-in-charlotte-an-anti-obama-billboard/261963/

So thanks Nate Silver for your predictions, thanks for nailing it! http://www.salon.com/2012/11/07/nate_silver_nails_it/ Since I am still on baby time mixed with daylight savings, I stayed up late to watch him on Jon Stewart. I needed that comic relief from road buzz. Now can we please get back to governing? The people have spoken. Keep your paws off women’s bodies; keep your religious ideology to yourself. Math and science win in the modern world. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com

This is what the Dalai Lama had to say on his Facebook page today: “When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighbouring communities and so on. When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to de­velop inner happiness and peace.” So scale back your language GOP, America is evolving and your party will be left in the dust if you can’t adapt. We will never be Denmark.

Good Morning Mountains. Good Morning Ms Bean. Good Morning Home. I miss you Love Bug.

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