Retribution

I read Jonathan Karl’s Retribution right after Christmas. This is a book whose cover is adorned with the infamous “Fight” photo taken right after the 2024 “assassination attempt” in Butler, PA and left to my own devices I wouldn’t have touched it with a barge pole. But it was a Christmas present, so I read it. 

It was fine, I guess - very critical of Trump though not nearly critical enough. Karl is also critical of Biden and Harris and although some of his criticism is reasonable, the book as a whole reads very much as though Mr. Karl is trying to come across as “balanced” and “fair,” things that used to be very important to serious journalists and I suppose still are. But there are not always “both sides.” As they say on the internet, if one person tells a journalist that it’s pouring outside and another tells the same journalist that it’s bright and sunny, then the journalist’s job is not to present both sides of the story - it’s to look out the fucking window and see who’s telling the truth. 

*****

It is interesting that Sean Curran, who was Special Agent in Charge of Trump’s security detail on July 13 2024 is now the head of the United States Secret Service. Kimberly Cheatle, who was the Director of the Secret Service on that day, was fired; but the SA who was actually responsible for the safety of then former President Trump was promoted. Jonathan Karl interviewed Director Curran about how the Secret Service would respond if Trump was convicted and sent to prison in 2024, and Curran assured Karl that the Secret Service would continue to protect the former President no matter where he was, and that Curran himself was prepared to remain imprisoned with Trump. “There’s nothing I would not have done for him,” Curran said. Nothing he would not have done. Interesting. 

*****

I am a chronically well-informed person who lived and breathed every minute of the 2024 election campaign. I remember most of the details, most of the day to day ins and outs of that campaign. I remember the excitement and optimism of October, when I thought Kamala Harris would win. I also read 107 Days, Harris’s book about the campaign, pretty much the minute it came out. So I was already pretty well-versed in the events of 2024, and I didn’t learn much reading this book that I didn’t already know. It’s well-researched and well-written, but it didn’t reveal anything, about Trump or the campaign, that I wasn’t already aware of. Until the end, though, I thought that it might be a fine book to read for anyone who wants a primer on the last presidential election. But Jonathan Karl’s closing arguments tanked the whole thing for me. 

*****

About journalist friends who feared that a second Trump term would be the end of democracy in the United States, Karl writes “I have long believed - and still hope - that those fears are overblown.” This is just stupid, so shockingly stupid, that it outweighs any of the book’s positives. 

This is a book that came out late in the year 2025, a year in which a Congresswoman was arrested for trying to fulfill her oversight responsibility at an ICE holding facility in her district. It was a year in which a sitting US Senator was grabbed and thrown to the floor for daring to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security a question. The first official act of this presidency was a pardon for hundreds of insurrectionists, including people who attacked police officers with flagpoles and bear spray. 2025 was the year in which National Guard troops were nationalized and deployed on city streets. On October 1, 2025, the nation’s top military officers were summoned to a browbeating by the Secretary of Defense with a guest appearance by the President who told the Generals and Admirals that they needed to be prepared to fight the enemy within; i.e., us. We shipped people to a torture prison in a foreign country. We built an actual concentration camp. And that’s just what I can remember right off the top of my head. If none of that was enough to convince a journalist that his colleagues’ fears for the country were not “overblown” then what is he even doing?   

*****

I don’t blame the media for everything. But I blame them for not doing their jobs, and it seems to me that a journalist publishing a whole ass book about the 2024 campaign and the early days of his second term and still downplaying the seriousness of what’s happening in this country is really not doing his damn job. I’m going to go read a real book now. 

Longish weekend

Maryland weather, I will see your crazy ass in hell. 

It's noon on Friday and about 28 degrees outside, and we're in the car on our way to Marymount University for the Saints annual showdown with Pope’s Cup rival Catholic University. Last year, the Catholic meet happened on the Friday immediately following Trump's inauguration, a time that seemed terrible at the time. I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then. 

But I do know. And I don't really wish I didn't know what's happening. I'd prefer to be informed and aware. If you call me woke, I'll say thank you. 

*****

Back to the swim meet, which is a very welcome diversion from the horrors. We lost this meet last year, by just a hair, and my son won the 100 breast against a very talented Catholic swimmer, by .02. So it should be exciting and competitive. 

*****

It’s Saturday now. The meet was fun, but not really competitive. I’m not sure what happened to the Catholic University men’s swim team but the Marymount men crushed them. The Marymount medley relay won at the beginning and the freestyle relay won at the end, and my son won both of his breaststroke events. Once again, the freestyle leg of the 200 IM took him down and he finished second in that event. But 3 out of 4 is great.

My 83-year-old mother in law came with us and she enjoyed herself thoroughly. She hadn’t seen him swim in a meet since he was 14 or so. Being unfamiliar with college swimming, she was quite impressed with the officials and the backstroke flags and the coaches with their whistles and clipboards. It could have been NCAA Division I championships for all she knew. Like me, she was on her feet yelling and cheering every time he was in the water, and she cheered for all of the Marymount swimmers in all of their races. We had a late lunch/early dinner, and we had her home by 6. I think it was the most fun she’s had in some time. A 10/10 afternoon. 

And it's a 3 day weekend, which is normally a really nice thing, but an extra weekend day gives the President an extra 24 hours to unleash more Epstein distraction mayhem. We’re always on high alert. We’re always on guard. 

*****

It’s Sunday now. The Sunday of a 3-day weekend is one of my favorite things, and we haven’t invaded Greenland just yet, so I’m cautiously optimistic. Of course the military incursion that Greenland has managed to avoid might end up advancing on the great state of Minnesota, but I’m not going to borrow any more trouble at high rates of interest. I can’t afford the payments. 

There’s a new bookstore in Bethesda, and that is where I plan to spend my afternoon. Two friends are going with me, and I hope they don’t expect me to talk because I’m not much for conversation when I’m book shopping. I had planned to go to church this morning but Mass starts in 20 minutes and I’m still in my pajamas so that might not happen. Maybe I’ll go to a later Mass. Or maybe I won’t. I don’t know. The bookstore trip is a pretty firm plan and that might be all I can commit to today. 

*****

It’s a pretty cold MLK Day morning. We went to the bookstore yesterday as planned, and I bought two books: A Little History of the World and Trouble Maker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford. I also bought two Snoopy keychains (one for my older son) and a fancy notebook and of course, a canvas tote bag because I can’t pass up a canvas tote bag and because I try not to ever leave an independent bookstore without leaving at least $100 behind; or $114 to be exact. I’ll economize elsewhere. 

One of the two friends I went with is the friend I mentioned in this post. And I think she might be cracking. I’ll say crack again - she’s about to crack. The three of us went to a twee little vegan coffee shop (where I had a few sips of literally the worst chai latte ever brewed - so bad that I threw most of it away, despite its $7 price tag). I didn’t bring up the state of the country, nor did my Trump-supporting friend. Our third friend, who is normally the politest and most moderate and even-tempered of our whole friend group, and the least likely to talk about politics, brought up the criminal ICE rampage in Minneapolis. And she did not hold back. 

And for once, my Trump-supporter friend did not take criticism of Trump as a personal attack, nor did she try to deflect or change the subject. She listened and nodded and acknowledged that Renee Good should still be alive, though she stopped short of agreeing with our assessment of the killing as a murder. “They need to turn down the temperature,” she said. Of course she’s missing the point that Trump and his accomplices and lackeys and goons have no desire to turn any temperature down and that they in fact want as much heat and fury and confusion as they can generate. But that’s still a sea change for someone who has steadfastly defended Trump and his policies, and I’ll take it. Eventually the conversation returned to our usual talk of family and animals and books and movies and cooking fatigue, but that was a moment of reality that was sorely needed. Every day, I see stories and social media posts claiming that Trump is losing support and that MAGA is collapsing under its own weight, but this is the first time I’ve seen IRL evidence. Let’s hope this has some momentum. Let’s hope they’re all about to crack. 

Vera and the Crow Trap

I can’t be bothered with American police dramas, but I’ll watch British crime all day long. Well, not all day long. But I really like British detective shows. 

“Vera” is one of my very favorite British TV shows of any genre. It stars Brenda Blethyn as DCI Vera Stanhope, a brilliant, quirky, irascible detective. Vera and her crew of Detective Constables and Detective Sergeants are a veritable murder-solving machine in Northumberland, which is apparently a hotbed of homicide. 

I love “Vera” for lots of reasons - the bleak but beautiful Northumberland landscape, the far north accent that sounds like a blend of Manchester and Scotland, the clothes and interiors, …but mostly the characters, and especially Vera herself. I love the way the characters look. Even the most beautiful actors (David Leon, Clare Calbraith, Wunmi Mosaku, Kenny Doughty, Brenda Blethyn herself) look like normal, real people in this show. Vera’s rumpled clothing and her careless appearance are sometimes the subject of comments or jokes, but not mean or critical jokes. The other characters, and by extension the viewers, know that Vera is perfectly comfortable as she is, and that her unorthodox fashion sense and her refusal to conform with a boss-babe appearance standard do not make her less powerful or less effective in any way. 

Vera is complex. She lives alone, and has very few relationships other than with her subordinates, with whom she is very demanding, and sometimes mean. In almost every show, she has a moment of kindness or humor that softens her enough that we viewers still love her, but we’re also still glad that she’s not our boss. We learn a little bit at a time about Vera’s lonely and difficult childhood and her early career, and we see her at home in the isolated cottage that she once shared with her alcoholic father, but these personal moments are few and far between. Most of the show’s action takes place in the police station or at crime scenes, and most of Vera's interactions are with fellow police officers, or criminals and victims and witnesses. 

*****

“Vera” is based on the crime novels of Ann Cleeves. She wrote a series of novels about Vera Stanhope, and another series of novels on which the series “Shetland” was based. I also liked “Shetland” quite a bit - and now you know what I did during the pandemic - and I thought it might be time to read an Ann Cleeves book, just to see if I like them. I started with The Crow Trap, the first Vera novel.

Vera is a very static character in this first novel - we see her rough edges and her rumpled appearance but we don’t know what she’s thinking. She is not even mentioned until about a third of the way into the book, unless you count her brief appearance at a funeral, where she’s described as a mysterious middle-aged stranger. Those of us who have seen Vera on TV will guess, as I did, that this unnamed stranger was Vera but readers who are beginning at the beginning won’t have a clue.  

The Crow Trap is about three women who live in a rustic cottage together while they complete some field work for an environmental study. The three are not friends. In fact, they don’t like each other much. When the youngest of the three is murdered, Vera comes in as the lead investigator. The book formed the basis of one of the show’s early episodes, but I couldn’t remember what happened until the very end. Like any good mystery writer, Ann Cleeves throws lots of red herrings in with the clues, keeping us guessing until the end. But I don’t really read detective novels and on the rare occasions when I do, I don’t really care who the killer is. I just like to become absorbed in a compelling story with interesting characters and great writing, and Ann Cleeves delivers all of this. Vera herself is not so much a character as a personage with whom everyone is forced to contend; and their reactions to her reveal something about themselves. While Vera is fairly static (she comes out of this whole story exactly as she is at the beginning) the other characters, even the minor characters, are complex and interesting and flawed and unpredictable. 

I have two more Ann Cleeves novels in my Kindle queue, so maybe I do read detective novels now. Maybe I’ll start gardening and watching birds. Maybe I’ll find a diner and go there every day and order nothing but soup. I’m 60 now and it’s time to embrace my elderly lady era. Vera Stanhope can be my fashion inspiration. 

Oh yes they call it The Streak

I didn’t write anything yesterday. Well, I wrote all day, but I didn’t write anything non-work-related. I write every day, 7 days a week, and I think it’s been at least three years since I’ve missed a day. I also broke a little NYT Connections streak. I started the puzzle in the morning and set it aside to finish later, and then forgot. I even have a reminder set up on my phone so that I don’t forget Wordle and Connections, but I guess I didn’t hear the alert.

So that’s two streaks inadvertently and carelessly broken, which means I start again with day 1.  

That's fine. Every streak begins with day 1. 

*****

Is this important amid all of this (gesturing wildly at everything)? No, not really except that little things are always important to me. I live for the mundane. I love everyday life and as much as certain people and certain Administrations are trying to ruin everything good about everything, I refuse to roll over and let them win.

*****

A few days later and I'm on my way to the first meet of the second half of the college swim season. Marymount vs. Randolph Macon. Marymount won that meet by five points last year, a very close margin for swimming, so it should be a good, competitive meet. 

It's Saturday morning and raining steadily. I'm glad I'm not driving - the windshield wipers are lulling me into a sleepy fugue state, which is not a good state to be in on the Capital Beltway. But I'm sure my husband will yank me right out of this nice little fog with some crazy hair-raising aggressive driving move.

And there we go. That took sixty seconds. I'm wide awake now. 

A few weeks ago, I was thinking about this time of year. Holiday stress and the shit show known officially as the year 2025 had me hyperventilating a little, and I thought that I just wanted to get past the New Year and into peaceful winter hibernation enlivened by weekly swim meets. We don't get our peaceful winter hibernation this year, but at least we still have college swimming. The 200 Medley Relay will sustain us as a people. 

*****

I wear contacts for presbyopia. Most of the time, they work as well as I need them to, but there are days when I can see either distance or up close, but not both. Yesterday was such a day. Up close was sharp and clear, and distance was a fog. I couldn’t see the record board on the opposite side of the pool (I like to look at it because my son’s name appears on it several times) but I could easily read the text messages of the lady in the bleachers in front of me. To be clear, I did not ACTUALLY read her texts, but I COULD have if I’d wanted to. 

The lady with the phone was, I surmised, a Randolph Macon grandmother. She took a photo of her grandson, and then got her daughter to help her put the photo on her lock screen. They were both adorable. 

The meet ended in a split, with the Marymount boys winning by a comfortable margin. The girls fell short but it was closer in the pool than it was on paper. My son won two individual events and was a close second in his third event. And of course, the powerhouse 200 Medley Relay dominated the pool as it’s done all season. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around with my son and his roommate at their favorite sports bar, which was nearly empty when we arrived at 245, and nearly full when we left at 5 for a quiet and cozy Saturday night at home. A 10/10 day. 

*****

My sister texted me on Sunday to let me know that she’s already booked her beach vacation. I’m not even capable of thinking about anything past the day in front of me, let alone renting a beach house for a week 7 months from now. And as much as I love the beach, I think we need a change of pace this year. I’ll figure it out later. My sister can talk to me in April. 

*****

Other than the swim meet and a few other little things here and there, I mostly laid low this weekend. I can’t really sleep but I did rest for a bit. I went outside and I watched hockey and I took a break from the gotdang news. After a few hours of sleeplessness on Sunday night, I fell asleep at maybe 4:30 and I woke up to find that we hadn’t yet invaded any new countries and that ICE had managed not to shoot any civilians. It’s the bare minimum, but I’ll take it. Meanwhile, if you’d told me in 2019 or so that Jerome Powell would one day be my hero, I’d have scoffed. 

*****

I thought that if I just kept writing this post, then a theme would emerge or a point would occur to me. If you continued reading this all the way through, then I’m sorry, but all sales are final. It’s time to wrap this up. I’m now several days into new writing and Connections streaks. Maybe I’ll get good at writing again. Maybe I’ll figure out how to make connections again. A demain. 

Ringing in the new year, like it or not

It’s January 1, 2026! I have no idea what this brand-new year will bring but 2025 has left the building and no one will miss it. 

New Year’s Eve was a rather nice day. We went to the Capitals game, which started at 12:30 PM, meaning that we arrived and left in full daylight. We were home by 4 PM, just as the daylight began to fade. We ate soup that I had made the previous day, and then my sons began preparing for their New Year’s Eve get-together. My younger son’s girlfriend arrived right from work, at 5:30 PM, and spent an hour lounging and reading and decompressing in the spare bedroom. I love that she feels at home here. 

With my husband working a special NYE detail, and my kids entertaining friends, I went to my neighbor’s house. I had just taken my own quiet decompression hour in my bedroom, where I could have happily remained for the rest of the night. But I didn’t. I got dressed and set out into the cold, clear, still darkness for the short walk down the street. 

*****

My neighbor is also one of my best friends, but we're not as close as we once were. She is a Trump supporter. She would probably say that she's not a Trump supporter just because she voted for him three times, but that is the very definition of a Trump supporter. She's never worn a red hat nor displayed a Trump sign on her front lawn (which would be unwise in Silver Spring) but on the few occasions when we've had it out about Trump, she has defended him and his minions with vigor. 

We had a fight last January over Elon’s Nazi salute, which she denied was a Nazi salute, and by way of owning the lib (me) she waved a meme in my face, a photo collage of prominent Democrats with raised right arms. I pointed out that anyone who is waving goodbye or hailing a taxi or raising a hand to speak in a classroom could be photographed at the moment that their right hand was raised over their head, and that I was basing my correct opinion that Elon’s gesture was a Nazi salute on video footage and not a fluke of a still photo. And then I pointed out that right wing influencers would not feel compelled to make such a meme and that she would not feel compelled to show it to me if they and she didn't know perfectly well that it was a Nazi salute. That’s when she stormed out of my house. 

We made up very soon after - within the hour. But it was with the tacit understanding that we could no longer talk about politics in general or about Trump in particular at all. And what with Trump chaos completely dominating the news and what with my unhealthy but entirely reasonable preoccupation with said news, it’s a little hard to have a real conversation with her without stepping on a landmine. 

There are still a few Trumpity Trumpsters in my family, too. And I keep hoping, as I keep hoping with my friend, that he’ll finally go too far and that one day, they’ll all say “that’s it, that’s enough, I’m out.” I thought that maybe the East Wing demolition would do it, but they were ready with “well what about Obama’s basketball court” because of course those two things are exactly the same. I thought that the Epstein files release would maybe do it but “you know that there are Democrats in the Epstein files too” which is so easy to rebut because of course there are Democrats in the Epstein files and I’d happily see them all in jail. 

*****

But back to New Year’s Eve. It was fine. My friend had two new cats, both 6-month-old kittens from a rescue, and they are absolutely delightful. Playing with kittens is a great way to spend an evening, not to mention a perfect landmine avoidance tactic. So the evening was fine. I went home at 11. 

*****

It’s January 4 now, and apparently, we are going to “run” Venezuela even though we don’t seem to be able to run the country we already have. And once again, I fell into the same trap that’s ensnared me every year for really the last decade. I say “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out” to the outgoing year, only to have the incoming year say “Hold my beer” as it barges its way in here. I remember wondering, when I was young, what it would have been like to live through 1939. I might find out now. I just wish the United States was still the good guy, or at least not the bad guy. But there’s always a bright side; always a silver lining. Maybe this will be the thing that finally breaks the Trumpity Trumpster spell. But I won’t get my hopes up. Maybe after he actually stands in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoots someone.