I See Blue

Still pretty euphoric as I watch the circular firing squad assigning blame and the various rats writing resumes and fleeing the sinking administration. Interesting times . . .

I've Got a Little List

 

                                                                               

I woke yesterday morning eager to see the election results. John, who'd been up much earlier, met me with "You're going to like what you see!"

"Did they get the Senate?" I asked.

"They got EVERYTHING!"

Oh, the relief that flooded over me! I stepped out on the deck to look at the sunrise and a fresh wind was rattling the leaves, marking them sparkle in the early light. The air smelled fresh and new--and it seemed to me that this was a sign--the beginning of a fresh, new time.

As I perused the various news stories and joyous exclamations on Facebook, I basked in the pleasure of feeling like someone released from an evil curse.

But so much work lies ahead for this new Congress. I began mentally making a list:

Out of Iran. 

Address the corruption that the current regime has taken to staggering heights--pay to play, pardons for sale, no-bid government contacts complete with kickbacks, insider info for sale, and the use of government to enrich the president's family, for a start. Investigate. Claw back. Consider impeachment.

Get our government official OUT of the stock market.

Guard rails to ensure no future president can wield such unchecked power. 

Release ALL Epstein files and prosecute offenders.

Overturn Citizens United and get Big Money out of campaigns. Limit campaign spending.  Disqualify candidates who knowingly lie.

Drastically reform ICE. Get the masked, paramilitary thugs out. Prosecute the murderers.

Put a stop to the vanity projects--ballroom, arch, etc, etc.

Get Hegseth out before he destroys the military entirely. Investigate his war crimes. Return to Dept. of Defense, not War.

Question immigration status of Musk and Bolsonaro, among others (looking at you, Melania.)

Undo damage done to healthcare. Restore subsidies to ACA. Undo cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. Get rid of RFK. 

Make education important again. (The GOP loves the uneducated,) Get rid of the wrestling queen. 

Make a move away from oil toward sustainable energy.

Try to rebuild alliances with old friends of our country, starting with Canada. Full support to Ukraine, re-establish sanctions on Russia. Apologize.

End the Electoral College.

Make kindness and decency the norm. 

Okay, I know this is like a kid's wish list. I know that none of this is easily done, especially with the Current Occupant wielding the veto and executive orders. But I can dream.

What would you add?

                                                                      

                                             

Birdie Birdie

 

I;m writing this post on Tuesday night just as the polls are closing. I know we won't have definitive answers in most races for quite a while so I'll just post some bird pictures

                                         

We were evidently visited by a bear and woke to find the bird feeder in the yard. Bob is appalled.

So for now, the seed is on the porch railings.

It brings them much closer but they are very wary of the lady in the rocking chair, aiming a suspicious-looking device at them.

But it's something to do while waiting to find out if our democracy will survive. The polls look good, even very good, but I remember the optimism I felt, first about Hilary and then Kamala. 

May there be a Blue Wave this time!!!

UPDATE around 9 pm---looking pretty good~ feeling that Blue Wave sloshing at my feet.. .

AM update: Oh Joy! Oh rapture! Calloo, callay!

Gifts of Age

Several years ago I visited a dermatologist to ask about some odd spots on my torso. She took a look and laughed. 

"Gifts of age," she said. "Nothing to worry about."

I think about this a lot these days. Growing deafness and wobbliness, along with the fact that it takes me so long to accomplish any physical task because my back reacts to any prolonged standing. Some gifts! I growl inwardly.

But on the other hand, there are some real gifts of age. The gift of time is one--time to read or paint or sit on the porch in the sun. 

And memory--a long life has given me an abundance of wonderful memories, and new ones continue to surface every day. If I'm wakeful at night, as occasionally happens, I revisit happy times gone by (if, of course, I can keep my mind off the monster and his enablers in DC.  You have voted, I hope.)

There are so many little joys to discover every day--a still-blooming rose, the elegant curve of a fallen leaf, a fire in the evening as the dark closes in, the cup of coffee John brings me . . .

 When I was writing the Elizabeth Goodweather books and going to conventions (Chicago! San Francisco! Baltimore!) and lots of book-related events, I had a lot of fun, met a lot of interesting folks, and enjoyed my brief time in the (moderate) spotlight. 

But here's the thing. I don't miss it at all. Aside from the fact that I'm no longer physically able to travel comfortably or (due to the deafness) do book events, the isolation of COVID (just when CROWS came out) showed me that there was life beyond writing and pushing books. 

And it's a good life.

                                                      

Going, Going . . .

An unexpected (but most welcome) rain Sunday morning has lowered the temperature and left the ground carpeted with yellow leaves.

• There's still a lot of color and some really nice reds and oranges, but it won't be long before we'll be looking at bare branches.

We'll hope for a few more of those lovely blue sky days and time to enjoy the rustle and fragrance of those fallen leaves.

Autumn is heart-warmingly beautiful but, alas, heart-breakingly brief.

 

Rabbit Rabbit

 

Cold Sassy Tree

 

What a terrific book this is! I heard it read on NPR years ago and soon read it again. And now another re-read.

Set in rural Georgia in 1906 and told by young Will Tweedy, it begins with the death of his saintly grandmother and his forthright grandfather's announcement, just three weeks after the funeral, that he plans to marry the attractive young milliner who works in his store. 

The small town of Cold Sassy has much to say about this, as do Grandpa's two daughters. And young Will is the chief witness to all the family uproar caused by this unorthodox union.

This is a delightful dive into the workings of Southern culture and human nature, told with great perception, a good dose of humor, and a lot of wisdom.

My maternal grandparents were of this era, and though they were from Alabama, not Georgia, reading this book was like spending time with family.

There is a sequel (Leaving Cold Sassy) I'm about to begin. I've enjoyed my time with these folks so much, I have to go back for another visit.

UPDATE: Well, the sequel is unfinished as OEB died before completing it. But all her notes and thoughts on it are included which I found fascinating. Then there is an excellent essay about the author. I found the book on Kindle Unlimited (free!) and stayed up late to finish it.

 

Clouds or Cows?

The eastern sky was amazing yesterday morning and I'd just finished taking a few pictures when John appeared and said what I thought was "look at the clouds."

"Oh, I just finished taking pictures of them," I told him, and he looked at me and shook his head.

                                         

He sighed. "What I said was, I'm going to look at the cows. One of them is bawling over in the pasture."

We are now both somewhat hard of hearing and our daily life is full of these misunderstandings. 

But, as it turned out, the cow was fine. As were the clouds.

 

Patchwork Scenery

 

Above It All

As we sit on our porch with our adult beverages, watching the fading light below us, it's easy, at times, to feel removed from it all--from the hustle and bustle of daily life, and especially from the ideological and political battles raging out there.

But I know that it affects us--we still buy groceries and gas and fuel oil for our heater. And our current regime is dragging our nation's reputation in the mud (or worse.)

Still, there's reason to be hopeful. Bolsonaro's defeat in Brazil, the weakening of Netanyahu in Israel, as well the defeat of a Trump ally in Serbia may just possibly show which way the wind is blowing.

May it be a strong and cleansing wind here in the USA that sweeps away the corruption and incompetence of this hateful regime.

I'm cautiously hopeful--but also wary of the regime's potential for overturning the will of the people.

Interesting times . . .

 

Autumn Afternoon

 

And There Was Great Rejoicing

Our older son came up for John's birthday celebration and Josie wanted to know why he didn't bring his dogs, particularly Boo (Bucephalus,)  who's her favorite. She had to be satisfied with pictures.

There were, however, plenty of dogs.

Otter was especially insistent.

 

When I Stood Up for Dixie (re-post)

 

I wish I was in the land of cotton; old times there are not forgotten;

Look away, look away, look away, Dixie land.

It is fall 1958, in Tampa, Florida and the Plant High Panthers run out on to the field, their breath huffing visible under the stadium lights.  They wear their startling new all-black uniforms; the metallic gold numbers and the gold helmets, adorned with leaping black panthers, shine and wink against the green grass.  The players, slim-hipped and broad-shouldered, are self-assured and menacing.  They look invincible.  This morning they were teenage boys: pimply, moody, subject to the whims of parents and teachers, but tonight they are gods.

 They burst through the paper banner held by their handmaidens, the attendant cheerleaders, and thunder toward the home side benches to the deafening roar of the crowd.  The opposing players, from some small farming community no one has ever heard of, look pale and weedy; the light blue numbers on their dingy white uniforms are almost invisible.  They slink onto the field and occupy the away benches.  Only a handful of fans have made the long trip from Turkey Creek (can there really be such a place?) and their cheering, a thin, sound, all but inaudible in the packed stadium, is quickly swallowed up by the booming drums and blaring brass of the Panther band.

 Turkey Creek’s cheerleaders are unimpressive too:  heavy bodied and doughy-faced or pale and slightly wormy-looking.  Even their uniforms are wrong: too bulky, like something from a previous decade, and their bobby socks are rolled in great wads around their ankles.  (The Plant High cheerleaders have recently taken to wearing their white socks pulled high up their smooth calves and this has quickly become the only way for socks to be worn.)  The visiting cheerleaders are looked over, summed up, and dismissed as of no consequence.  For the rest of the evening they will be invisible to me and my friends, except at halftime when the Plant cheerleaders, all really cute girls with outgoing personalities, will hurry across the field carrying trays of Coca-Colas to their opposite numbers.  The Plant cheerleaders will stand and make small talk with well-practiced Southern hospitality and fixed Miss America smiles, while the visiting cheerleaders grimly down the soft drinks. Finally the host cheerleaders will wish the hapless visitors good luck and run back across the field, exchanging snickering comments about the general tackiness of the girls they have just honored with their attention.

  The bleachers are full, as usual, with students and families from the surrounding middle class suburb. Plant High is the second oldest high school in Tampa, the same one my parents and the parents of many of my classmates attended, but it has grown to an unwieldy size, almost two thousand students in three grades.  In 1960, my graduating class will number over seven hundred and the following year a new high school will open, siphoning off the excess students.  And soon other things will begin to change.

 But on this October night I sit with a group of my friends, all girls. In front of me a senior girl languidly pulls her hair into a French twist, all the while talking to a boy on the bleacher below her.  I am ravished with the senior’s ease and assurance and the graceful lift of her arms. I study the other people around me: some couples are sitting so close to each other that they might be Siamese twins; others, those whose status of “going steady” is marked by a class ring on a very long chain around the girl’s neck, seem more casual, hardly noticing or touching one another.  Conventional wisdom says that these non-touching ones are the couples who are screwing.

On the track that surrounds the field the cheerleaders – these chosen ones who on game nights seem somehow more alive than ordinary mortals – swing into a clapping dance routine as the band belts out the theme song from “Peter Gunn.”  The cheerleaders are totally in the moment now: untiring, fed by the driving beat. The spectators clap, bobbing their heads and moving their shoulders in time to the music which goes on and on and on.  I am clapping and bobbing with everyone else. I am uninterested in football (it will be several years before I understand the significance of downs and even this knowledge will do little to increase my appreciation.)  But, like most of my friends, I'm there because on Friday nights it is, so to speak, the only game in town. 

The PA system crackles: And now ladies and gentlemen, please stand for our national anthem.  The stadium lights dim and the spectators stand.  The parents –  veterans and survivors of World War II, they who will come to call themselves the ‘greatest generation’ – come to their feet eagerly, proud of their country and their flag.  

We students stand up more slowly, somewhat grudgingly. Patriotism is not cool.  It’s something we learned about in eighth grade Civics but it is not something many of us actually feel. The players all have their helmets off and stand, more or less at attention, facing the flagpole at the end of the field where spotlights capture the fluttering red and white stripes as the ROTC honor guard raises the flag.  The cheerleaders too, are ranged in order, their right hands laid flat just above their left breasts, their faces solemn, eyes wide with conscious emotion. At last the flag reaches the apex of the pole, a fortuitous breeze catches and unfurls it, the anthem comes to an end, and the crowd cheers perfunctorily and sits down.

A moment passes and the rousing sounds of another anthem demand attention.  There is no announcement, no call for respect, but as the bouncy strains of “Dixie” fill the night air,  the students stand up unbidden. My friends and I  look at one another, half-humorously oh well, here we go again, dragged to our feet by some in-dwelling rebel pride.  We stand in the cool air of an October night in Florida, a conquered nation, defeated but not beaten. 

***

 When folks talk about Heritage Not Hatred, I wince, remembering standing up for "Dixie."

I grew up in the segregated South, the daughter of a native Alabama mother and a pioneer Florida father. In our family the Civil War was never a topic of conversation; racism was ingrained but polite.  We, and virtually every family I knew, had an African-American 'maid' to whom we were always polite but of whose life outside our house we knew almost nothing. And when those maids went home, they rode in the back of the bus. Water fountains in department sores had WHITE ONLY signs on them; the train station had a COLORED waiting room. My own beloved grandmother kept a separate set of dishes and silverware for the use of her maid and yardman. Having grown up with this, I never questioned.

We were taught about the Civil War -- that it was about States Rights and Economic Freedom. Of course we knew about slavery and considered it a wrong -- but somehow never quite made the connection -- states' rights to hold slaves --economic freedom -- an economy based on slavery.

We were blind; we were ignorant; we had little knowledge of the sufferings of the African American population.  We just thought it was cool to be 'rebels' -- part of a noble heritage.

I do know that by the time I went off to college in 1960, my eyes had been opened. I was in favor of integration. It happened quickly -- almost as soon as the Civil Rights movement began, it seemed obvious to me that great injustices had been and were being perpetrated.

I once was blind but now I saw. As quickly as that.

And in my mind, all that Gone With the Wind romanticism  became tainted and vile, just as the Confederate Battle Flag went from being the gallant symbol of the defeated South to the flag of the Ku Klux Klan, the flag of the hateful people screaming at black children on their way to school.

It's heritage, all right -- but not one I'm proud of any more. I got over that when I was a teenager.