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Posts Tagged ‘TN’

When you’ve been away from home for awhile, things pile up; for instance, our car’s neural network failed. Granted it also didn’t want to start, and once jumped, our Subaru kept beeping and beeping its displeasure. Turns out, the back hatch has some locking system that needed adjusting. It was my first foray into the Nashville world and all I wanted was to go to the grocery store…alone. No “Do we need that?” in my ear.

But then, my NPR radio station changed on the dashboard monitor, as if possessed. I changed it back. It changed again. So I switched to the map. The image of my street zoomed out to include the Gulf of Mexico! After saying a small thank god in my head that it was still the gulf of Mexico, I realized there was a strange feedback loop happening in the upper right corner. My car was losing its mind, and so was I. It was the most frustrating trip, so of course I called Bob to complain.

“Call Bob mobile!” I said, as I pressed the little ear/speech ativated button on the steering wheel that is connected via Bluetooth to my phone.

“Cancelling,” my car spoke back.

I won’t repeat what I said after that. Today while I’m writing, Bob is at the dealership getting this fixed. Turns out it was a manufacturing glitch for two years that included our 2018 model, and since we have tariffs to look forward to, we’re putting off purchasing another car. What we couldn’t put off was a new heating system for our house.

Right before we left for California, we were informed that we should not use our heat since we would have a carbon monoxide leak! Now this would not be an easy, or an inexpensive fix. This past week, we had a whole new HVAC system installed which included replacing possum damaged ductwork in a crawlspace sized for a Lilliputian. Needless to say, the Rheem unit outside my snug is quiet and much more efficient.

Remember back in February since the twins came early, on my first morning alone in LA, I heard a loudspeaker in the street telling people they didn’t have to open their doors to ICE agents? I can recall that surreal feeling so vividly since this weekend TN state troopers and ICE agents raided South Nashville and sent buses containing people who have no due process to a prison facility in Louisiana. I thought Nashville was a sanctuary city! I wanted to scream; he was doing it again, separating families. THIS IS HAPPENING HERE.

Mr T’s agenda is pure malicious evil. Our Mayor Freddie O”Connell clarified:

“While O’Connell cannot institute official sanctuary policies, the mayor announced a partnership with the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee to assist the families of those detained. The newly minted Belonging Fund will go towards emergency assistance for childcare, housing instability, transportation and other needs. “’Belonging is more than a feeling — it’s a sign of safety, stability, and community,” said Hal Cato, CEO of CFMT. “When immigrant families face a crisis, we want to ensure they’re not alone. This fund helps organizations on the ground respond quickly, compassionately, and effectively.’” https://www.nashville.gov/departments/mayor/news/belonging-fund-launches-provide-emergency-support-immigrants-nashville

BUT it does NOT pay for legal fees!! Why? In retrospect, my car, our home heating problems are minor compared to this administration. If you know, or would like to start a GoFundMe for legal representation for a family in crisis please comment below.

I’m so glad to see my son has continued playing guitar for his girls. Hearing from my sweet California family melts my heart and brings me peace.

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There is a constant buzzing in my ears. Inside the house, it’s manageable; outside it’s another story. Shall I start from the beginning?

The Bride and Groom had scheduled a trip and we were all IN to be working grandparents… and granddog parents of course. Then it hit me – a sore throat. Why is it that ever since the pandemic, getting a common cold feels like a death sentence? I tried to keep my distance from the Grands – we ordered pizza for dinner – Bob did the driving – dog walking was passed down to the Bug and the Pumpkin. The problem is, Maple, the black/mix/killer/rescue dog, is on one mission and one mission only: she is single-mindedly determined to

Eat as Many Cicadas in One Walk as She Can Find!

“Ewwww Nana,” my granddaughter said, “she ate two cicadas while they were mating! and I could hear them screaming.” If that’s not a Hitchcock film in the making…

I tried to make light of the Bug’s budding fear of bugs. After all, I’ve picked hundreds of ticks off of dogs and children (and myself) over the years, and they can find some pretty strange places to burrow. I was proud of the baby Bride when we moved back to NJ because she was the only one of her friends who would pick up a daddy longlegs. We were country people, people!

But here we are, living in a semi-genteel southern city that has been attacked by cicadas. Granted they don’t bite, or transmit a horrible disease, still they are dang ugly, and LOUD. Their chorus is around 100 decibels in TN, akin to a Harley only not as nice. We still have our old windows in our new cottage so I can hear them humming all day. It’s like I have chronic tinnitus, with a cold to boot. When I venture outside to water the garden, the trees are shimmering with them and the noise is no joke.

I’ve swept the patio, picked them out of my new patio poufs, and we’ve been in charge of the neighbor’s pool while they are away which means Bob is routinely skimming around 50 dead cicadas every day from their filter. But the last straw was on Sunday when I was swimming with the Grands. I sent Bob home with the kiddos so I could finish my water exercises. I was so deeply grateful to be back in the pool, the water was warm and the sun was shining after a week of rain.

As I was getting out of the pool, feeling the weight of gravity return, a cicada flew right into my right ear!

It was screeching to get out. I was screaming for it to get out and banging the other side of my head. Somehow I knew not to put my finger inside my ear, I guess some medical knowledge does rub off? I grabbed my towel and ran into the street not caring what anyone might think of this wet haired swim suited crazy banshee woman. But in the few minutes it took to run across the street and find Bob, it must have flown out. After a quick investigation with an otoscope, I was pronounced cicada free!

Last night the adult children returned, and now we must pack for our next trip to Italy! I wonder if they have cicadas in Tuscany?

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VIVA LA FRANCE!

Have you heard the news from France? They have enshrined a woman’s Right to Choose, her own bodily autonomy is now constitutionally a “guaranteed freedom.” France is the very first country in the world to write this basic human right into their constitution. And why has a Catholic country decided to vote 780-72 in favor of women at this moment in time? It’s because they’ve been watching us, the American people; they have seen how methodically and malignantly our human rights have been stripped away by judges and politicians in the pocket of Mr T.

I caught a bit of Van Jones’ CNN special the other night about what’s been happening in Tennessee. He interviewed the “Justins” and he spoke with Republicans outside of Davidson County. He tried to find common ground, but what if that’s impossible? Here’s the problem. Christian Nationalists are overtaking the GOP. It’s not just that they didn’t want the government telling them to get a Covid vaccine; it’s that they would like the government to censor books in public schools. And along with books, let’s take control of reproductive healthcare for millions of women!

One cult sect of the Christian Nationalist movement, the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), is an extreme branch of Christianity with its tentacles reaching very close to the American White House. I had to dig deeper into their mythology after listening to Terry Gross interview their founder about casting demons out of people. Yes, you heard me right. Demons.

A central tenet of NAR’s belief system is that it is God’s will for Christians to take control of all aspects of U.S. society—including education, arts and entertainment, the media, and businesses—to create a religious nation.

https://newrepublic.com/post/176861/mike-johnson-flying-christian-nationalist-flag-outside-office

Our Speaker, Mike Johnson, has three flags hanging outside his office: the American flag, the Louisiana state flag, and a flag representing the NAR movement that wants to turn the US into a Christian nation. Its design is from a Revolutionary War flag and is called “An Appeal to Heaven.” Many of these flags, sporting an evergreen tree in its center, were seen at the Jan 6th insurrection. That bears repeating – the flag hanging outside our Speaker’s DC office was flying alongside traitors to our country on Jan 6!

Today is Super Tuesday and the landscaping companies are out in full force in my neighborhood. Loud machinery has replaced the annual raking of garden beds in preparation for planting. I wonder how many rabbit nests are being destroyed while my forsythia begins to burst into yellow bloom. A cherry tree has pinked out and the magnificent tulip magnolias wave from bare branches. Spring is here!

Bob wants to vote today, but I’m less enthusiastic. In TN you can vote for blue or red in the primary, which is funny don’t you think? Each state is different, in some you must vote for the party you’ve registered with, but not here. Doesn’t seem very “united” to me. So I could vote for Joseph R Biden or:

Republican Primary Ballot:

  • Ryan Binkley
  • Chris Christie
  • Ron DeSantis
  • Nikki Haley
  • Asa Hutchinson
  • Vivek Ramaswamy
  • David Stuckenberg
  • Donald J. Trump

Too bad it’s not November. Right after Halloween, in the presidential elections, Tennesseans will be able to vote for Joe and Gloria Johnson to replace Marsha Blackburn in the Senate! Johnson stood alongside the Justins demanding gun control legislation but wasn’t expelled from the state house, because, well maybe because she’s … a woman? Even Taylor Swift has called Marsha Blackburn “Trump in a wig.”

But it’s only March with a looong election season ahead of us. I’m hoping that TN Democrats will show up today, in the rain, and vote for Joe. We need to vote like our lives depend on it today and in November.  Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.

TO THE BARRICADES, I mean POLLS!!! Here we are on a French island.

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Good morning from beautiful, snow covered Nashville where the temperature is 17 degrees. I looked out at the picnic table in the low dawning light, expecting to see a “light dusting,” but to my surprise there’s at least 6 inches of the white stuff and it’s still squalling. Luckily, the schools were closed for Martin Luther King Day and I’m pretty sure every other business has closed as well.

I don’t want to brag, but this is where the lines are drawn between northeners and southeners. When our kids were little, they’d rush to put on the whole kit and kaboodle – thermal underwear and snow suits complete with scarves, mittens and pom pom hats! Let’s not forget the snow boots. They couldn’t wait to make maple snow and build snow caves with their friends in the Berkshire Mountains. OTOH, I don’t even think our Grands own a sled, or ice skates let alone snow boots, and I know for sure they have never seen this much snow.

Sometimes I wonder if I was just imagining walking through tightly packed snow tunnels on the streets of Massachusetts. Did we really get Nor’easters with a couple of feet of snow on a regular basis? That time Bob’s car flipped over into a snow bank on the way to his hospital in Northampton, was that real or just part of a narrative I’ve told myself so many times? The Bride was sitting in her highchair and I was feeding her oatmeal when Bob walked back into the house covered in snow. I didn’t hear a car coming up the driveway; hadn’t he just left for work?

Cognitive dissonance isn’t enough to describe such a feeling but I’ll bet it’s imprinted on us for life. It’s what some patients describe after a dose of ketamine for a procedure – like they are there…but not there. Like the time we heard that Hillary lost the 2016 election. We had to ‘suspend our disbelief’ for the next 4 years, we had to get comfortable with chaos, followed by a tornado and a pandemic. It was a lot to ask, and some of us did better than others.

I thought we’d be talking about Iowa today, but the snow has cocooned us and dampened the GOP. I thought we might look back at the legacy of MLK, Jr, but memorials have been cancelled. When I heard that the principal of an Iowa school had succumbed to his injuries from a school shooter, I was ashamed that I barely remembered the massacre. But I do remember the Covenant School shooting here in Nashville.

When I saw that our own TN Democratic representatives, the Justins, were sanctioned and silenced in the State House because they wanted to talk about gun reform, I was infuriated. Now, Republican-led members have changed the rules for public entry to the people’s house. Getting a ticket to sit in the balcony now, unless you are a lobbyist, is harder than getting a seat at a Taylor Swift concert. That is their scheme; the pleas of Covenant parents to protect their children be damned. Someone once said, “Cruelty is their point” and I’m starting to believe that maliciousness runs in their veins.

As a card carrying Democrat, I was proud to be called a “snowflake.” And I’m just as proud to call myself a Yankee. We know how to deal with a little snow, and we know how to start an avalanche.

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When I was at Camp St Joseph for Girls, I sang “If Ever I Would Leave You” in drag. I was maybe 13 or 14 and the nuns thought nothing of it. Since I was the tallest camper who could carry a tune, I was dressed as Sir Lancelot in Camelot. Is it called drag when girls dress like boys and perform musical comedy hits, like Victor Victoria? What about Shakespeare, where men always played women?

Back in the day, I’ve witnessed many a guy on stage dressed like a Hawaiian Hula dancer. The trope is funny, with coconuts on their hairy chest. Mostly it was the big, brawny football types who felt secure enough in their own masculinity to don womens’ clothes. I’d never even heard of drag until I was in my 30s and we went to a bar in Key West. Our Big Chill group took up a sizable part of the audience and we had tons of fun.

And now here I am in Nashville with a Drag Star Hair Stylist!

Tennessee is the first state in the union to ban public displays of drag to “PROTECT” our children. What exactly are we protecting them from… ? TN Republican legislators say drag is “harmful to minors;”  They called it an “adult cabaret” that would “appeal to a prurient nature.” My hair stylist in his alter ego, aka The Britney Banks, attended one of the protests. He/she held a sign that said

“Trust Politicians PARENTS”

I absolutely cannot trust politicians to keep our children safe. Safe from what, from learning their own history in school?

Safe from what? reading books that may make them uncomfortable?

Have politicians kept our children safe in their schools? Yesterday, I bought three purple Columbine plants for my garden, and every time I say that word, Columbine, I feel that tragedy deep in my bones; when two teenage boys killed 13 students and teachers and wounded more than 20 in 1999.

Politicians however, have voted against enhanced background checks after Sandy Hook, where six adults and 20 CHILDREN were murdered. They did nothing again after Uvalde, where 19 children and 2 teachers were gunned down. Children are simply pawns to be sacrificed on the altar of Republican Greed. If you haven’t heard Jon Stewart parry with Oklahoma Republican State Legislator Nathan Dahm you’re in for a treat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCuIxIJBfCY

It’s a bit long – they must go through a series of free speech and 2nd Amendment chaos – but wait till the end. Stewart asks Dahm if it’s true that he doesn’t like drag queens reading to children. Oh my, well of course that’s true. Then Stewart, with righteous indignation in his eyes, asks him why it’s OK to infringe on free speech but not OK to regulate firearms? And Stewart’s trick question is, “DO you know what the leading cause of death is for children?”

It’s not drag queen readings. It’s GUNS!! Yes, now guns surpass motor vehicle collisions, and unlike adults, where the majority of gun deaths are suicides, “…for children, 65% of firearm deaths are homicides and 35% are categorized as suicide.” I guess there is the occasional accidental suicide when a toddler finds mommy’s gun in her purse and shoots himself, but honestly 65% of firearm deaths are murders! And our leaders cannot even reinstate the Assault Weapon Ban?

Why can’t we treat a gun like a car? I used to ride in the front seat with my Daddy Jim. Every time he braked, his arm swung over and pushed me back in my seat. I even did it for awhile with my kids, who used to sprawl all over the back seat to and from the beach with towels and dogs running rampant. Kids are not dying in cars as much anymore because politicians have passed regulations that require parents to take certain measures and buy car seats and not even let them sit in front until they reach a certain height…

Bless Gov Lee’s heart, his priority is not exposing children to Drag Queens, but hey, the more guns the merrier! I wonder when his Christian cohorts will want to end bachelorette parties in Nashville? Or Purim costumes for that matter at a synagogue, where a man recently dressed as Queen Esther. Are we going to infringe on religion? You get my drift. These two know and love my aforementioned hairstylist, and I’m more than OK with that!

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Yes, I just made up a word, take note Merriam Webster. Curricularity is a noun – a state of mind expressing “… extreme amusement” of any school board member that has been criticized, harassed or generally polarized by parents wishing to be partners in their child’s education.

When I sat on a school board in NJ, I learned quite a lot about the Business of Education.

I got a crash course on marketing when the superintendent wanted to upgrade the track that ran around the football field. I learned more about the composite materials of running tracks than I ever wanted to know. It seems the age-old clay and ash track (or was it asphalt and rubber?) didn’t cut it with the coaches and football parents; we needed to allocate multiple thousands of dollars for a new age synthetic track.

In this country, “… building a 400 meter polyurethane track from scratch typically costs around $1 million. Resurfacing an existing track usually costs about $300 thousand.” https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-to-build-a-400-meter-track

We needed the other tax-paying-parents to buy in to the scheme, and we needed to convince the Borough Council it was necessary. As a newspaper reporter, I knew the economics of any new building project for a public school meant the money had to come out of some other fund, or you had to get a loan in the form of a bond. It was basic “Guns and Butter.” And most of a school’s budget is spent on… can you guess?

Teacher and Administrator salaries.

In an ideal world, public school board members should not be politically biased. Their mission should be to want only the best for their students; but in reality, many states have members that are elected and bring their own unique overt or covert bias right along with them. Unfortunately for TN, we are in the news AGAIN, for all the wrong reasons!

Parents yelling at and threatening public school board members in Franklin was bad enough. Now in a vote of 10-0, McMinn County members voted to ban an 8th Grade book on the Holocaust … on Holocaust Remembrance Day. But at least we’re not alone in our book banning.

GOP politicians across the country have sought to emulate Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s successful campaign focus last year on “parental control” of education, which revived calls to ban Toni Morrison’s Nobel Prize-winning “Beloved.” In November, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) ordered a statewide probe of potential “criminal activity” into “pornography” in schools after two LGBTQ memoirs were pulled from some districts in his state. Around the same time in Kansas, a school board near Wichita announced it was removing 29 books from circulation, including Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and “They Called Themselves the K.K.K.,” a history of the white supremacist group.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/01/27/maus-ban-tennessee-mcminn-county-holocaust/

The Rocker was in 8th Grade when he wrote a compelling essay on censorship. Thirteen year olds are smarter than we think, and in NJ, teaching middle-schoolers about the Holocaust is a requirement in the curriculum. Like teaching Math, there are actually right and wrong answers and parents mostly left that up to the teachers. I was never asked to opine about books that were purchased at my son’s school, not as a parent or a board member.

The banning of books in our public schools sets a dangerous precedent. At its best, It’s unfortunate that todays’ conservatives think it’s better not to discomfort our children; didn’t they accuse us of being soft, snowflakes? There is nothing humorous about what’s going on in certain states.

I’m going to buy the Pulitzer Prize winning book Maus, and donate it to our local free library so children can read it. Maybe we can start something? https://www.parnassusbooks.net/book/9780394747231

The Rocker’s 8th grade school picture on my desk

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Ever want to just get away from it all? Our friends Yoko and Rick – who happen to be retired public health officials- picked us up last weekend for a little trip back to nature. Only this campsite was somewhere between a cabin in the woods and a fancy shipping container

Getaway is a great business model. Some enterprising folks bought land outside of major cities all over the US, and put up tiny boxes for city folk to rent. They provide everything you might need – a bed with a forest view, air conditioning, a range, a shower and throne room.

They even leave you wood by the combo grill/campfire! Oh and there’s no WiFi so you’re really off the grid.

https://getaway.house/

Every time I leave home, for any reason, my anxiety level shoots up. Adding a pandemic transition to the mix only makes it worse. It was just about a two hour drive to our #getaway but we traveled together and Rick was our fearless driver.

We stopped for lunch overlooking a lake in Kentucky. We stopped at a fish hatchery where trout are raised to stock Tennessee rivers. We enjoyed each other’s company and our combined grilling skills, plus I tasted Japanese milk bread for the first time.

The off and on rain didn’t matter, I whipped up a ratatouille with Farmer Bob’s bounty! And then on the way home we met a woman hiking a waterfall trail who was collecting Turkey Tail Mushrooms! She complained about people calling her long-haired, young son “they.”

So we had a brilliant discussion in the car about pronouns. Did you know the Japanese language doesn’t use pronouns?

The good news is my anxiety eased and my hip survived all the glamping activities so my PT must be working! If only we didn’t live in a state that would fire a health official, a pediatrician, for telling health care providers that TN law allows children 15 years and older to be vaccinated without parental permission.

When our doctors are censored and fired for telling the truth, what’s next TN?

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Please. With a newborn in the family everyone loses a little sleep. But the Bride carries the heaviest burden of nursing every two to three hours. And since today is going to be a glorious life-affirming, celebratory day, I’ll make this post brief.

TN in its infinite wisdom has voted “YES on 1” which was an anti-choice, anti-women ballot initiative. The question was deliberately confusing, and ads by religious PACs made it seem like a reasonable option.

However, in the future elected officials now have more power to legislate what we women can do, or not do with our bodies. We may be made to wait longer for an abortion, make multiple visits to a doctor, and even watch an ultrasound or succumb to an invasive pelvic sonogram. TN cannot overturn our right to seek reproductive care, but the GOP can now chip away at our ability to access it with more TRAP laws.

So thanks TN, for thinking that old white men and a few women know best.
http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/11/what-tennessees-new-abortion-amendment-means-for-america/382401/#

With more and more women in medicine and politics, this state just may be first for music but last in recruiting young people in science and technology fields. Just another result of apathetic young voters, or is this a sign of the times?

Let me sleep on it baby.

IMG_1640.JPG

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