I think it's going to be a long long time

Monday: I'm watching hockey again. OMG! No, that doesn't mean that I'm reconciled to the end of summer. But hockey is back! As Alexander Ovechkin told a reporter, the Capitals are not going to be suck this year. His English is so much better than my Russian.

Tuesday: I made it almost to the end of the day without encountering a single pirate, until I was on my way home. I was sitting at a stoplight, looked to my left, and saw four pirates in an SUV. I was this close. Sigh.

Meanwhile, if I'm Kim Jong Un, right about now I'm thinking "Rocket Man. Rocket Man! Damn straight! I'm ROCKET MAN, motherfuckers!" North Korean state media has probably been ordered to henceforth refer to Kim as "Rocket Man." They've probably already recorded a cover of the song, with Hangul lyrics about Rocket Man's birth at the peak of Mount Paekdu.

Rocket Man. Really. If you're trying to mock and insult someone, then don't call them something so obviously awesome. Rocket Man. Sheesh.

All this science--I don't understand. 

Wednesday: I'm writing a white paper, on a subject that I know woefully little about. So I'm doing research, and talking to experts, and it's coming along, I guess, but very slowly. I hate not knowing what I'm talking--or writing--about.

Actually, the whole day was kind of an exercise in humility. My 7th grader needed help with Algebra, which is another subject about which I know woefully little. I took exactly as much math as I had to, and not one bit more.

I'm pretty good at calculations; it's how to figure out what to calculate that is beyond me. I also can't remember order of operations. I couldn't explain (or apply) the distributive property to save my soul from Hell. I can usually solve for the value of X. I just can't do it in any rational sequence, and I can't explain or write down the process by which I arrive at the answer.  This didn't help my son at all. Algebra is about the journey and not the destination. Showing your work and all that. He's a smart boy, and he figured it out, no thanks to his mother.

Speaking of journeys and destinations, I would love to hear not only why Tom Price needs a private jet to travel around the country, but why he needs to travel around the country at all. What does an HHS Secretary do on the road, anyway? Is he on tour?

Friday: Good work, Mr. President! Focus on the important stuff. Rocket Man will come to his senses; and Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands will fix themselves. Or maybe Tom Price is working on that--THAT'S why he needs private jets! Of course! You just deal with anthem-kneeling NFL players (are any of them even doing that anymore? Is it still 2016?) and build a nice sliding glass patio door between here and Mexico.

I have friends who voted for Trump. Some of them have finally lost faith in him. Others are hanging on. They blame Twitter. "If only he'd stop tweeting," they say, "then he could make progress with his agenda." Eventually, I hope, more people will finally figure out that this is his agenda. Destroying everything good, and exacerbating everything bad, and sowing division and strife, and then sitting back and watching what happens--this is the WHOLE REASON for his existence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The off-the-wall inflammatory tweets, and campaign rally demagoguery: A feature, and not a bug.

Sunday: Enough about politics. I started with hockey, and I'll end it with hockey. We took my son and his friends to a Capitals pre-season game last night. Despite a 4-1 loss to Carolina, it was a good time.  If what I saw on the ice is any indicator, then the Capitals sadly are going to be suck this year, but even Trump can't ruin hockey.

That's not my name

I've written occasionally about my run-ins with wildlife. It's usually deer, with the occasional snake, real or imagined. And squirrels. And spiders. And a few birds here or there. That's usually as far as it goes. I live in the suburbs, after all. 

Last Sunday, I went for a walk on the Matthew Henson Trail. There's a vernal pool on a little side trail that leads back to the street. The county parks department posts signs near vernal pools, urging passersby to avoid disturbing them. As if I'd touch a gigantic puddle of standing water encrusted with green scum. But the green scum isn't the grossest thing about this particular pond. The grossest thing is the frogs. 

No, I'm not afraid of frogs. I'm not especially fond of them, but they don't bother me. Unless, of course, they launch themselves like missiles out of a scummy green pond and right toward my unsuspecting head. Picture frogs being shot out of cannons. Picture yourself at a sporting event, and it starts to rain frogs when you're expecting rolled-up t-shirts. 

Yeah. 

So, I made a mental note to give that little corner of nature the widest berth possible from now on, and I went on my way. And that's all there was to that. 

Until Tuesday. 

Which is when I went for another walk, at about 6:45 or so. It was still pretty much broad daylight at 6:45, but dusk falls earlier now. And dusk means one thing.

BATS.

I'm not afraid of frogs, or spiders, or most of the other creepier wildlife species, but I do not like rodents at all. I know that bats are generally harmless, and that they control the insect population, and blah, blah, blah. They're also flying rodents with fangs, and if I never see one again, it'll be too soon.

Bats are always out at night around here, and normally, they don't bother me, because I don't see them. The sky is dark, the bats are dark and they blend right in, and out of sight is out of mind (usually). But at dusk on Tuesday, the sky was a stunning shade of dark bluish gray, and the outline of the bats (hundreds of them!) was clear and visible against the blue-gray backdrop. They didn't dive-bomb me or anything, but they swirled and circled just a few yards overhead, and I pretty much ran the last few blocks home.

No run-ins with wild animals on Wednesday. Only a mysterious, one-word text message--STASI-- from an unknown number. Why Stasi? Who would text me this? I responded "Sorry, but who is this?"  but whoever it was didn't reply. It was probably a person who doesn't know how to spell Stacy. Or Staci. Or Stacey. None of which are names that I answer to. Or maybe it really was the Stasi. After all, why would they identify themselves?

I'm still in the middle of The Crisis Years, which is taking entirely too long to finish; and I'm heartily sick of the Cold War, normally one of my favorite topics. I wonder what the members of Ex-Comm would have thought about smart phones. Or sonic attacks.  Or projectile frogs, which could probably be weaponized. Or the fact that Castro outlived all of them.

I think I need to get out of my own head for a bit. I think I need to read something else. 

Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it

And just like that, it's all over, and it's all starting again. A week ago, it was still summer. Now I'm up to my neck in fantasy football (no, not me, because ain't nobody got time for that) and back-to-school nights, and fall sports, and weekend fire pits, and it's not so bad. Not summer, but it's OK.

*****
Saturday: Today is my birthday. And it's a beautiful day, but it's definitely a fall day. For lots of people, that's the ideal weather. "Crisp." I spend most of early October restraining the urge to punch people who go around rhapsodizing about the crispness of the weather, and the beauty of the changing leaves, and the pumpkin fucking spice. Yes, it's nice out and the leaves are beautiful (pumpkin, however, is fit for nothing but pie; and pumpkin spice latte is revolting) but fall is just a prelude to winter. And winter is dark and cold and interminably long.

But enough of that. Lots of people in Texas and the Caribbean and Florida would slap me for complaining about cold weather that's coming three months from now, and they'd be right.

*****

We went to the Smithsonian American Art Museum today, which I had never been to, and which I never realized was in the same building with the National Portrait Gallery. I love American art, and art museums in general, and 20th century history, so the place is a veritable gold mine.

The building itself is astonishingly beautiful, too. I wouldn't want to live in the 19th century, but they knew how to build public spaces then. If a building of similar beauty and durability were to be built today, it'd be a Silicon Valley corporate headquarters, or a country club where a PGA tour event would be held every year.

I didn't even know about the American Visionary: JFK's Life and Times exhibit (which ends next week) until we arrived. I'm still reading The Crisis Years, so this was good timing.

Kennedy and Khrushchev met for the first time in 1961. The meeting didn't
go very well, but Jackie seemed to have had a good time.

The National Portrait Gallery has a rotating exhibit of photographs and paintings and sculptures of 20th-century Americans, divided into eras (1900-1920, etc.) 

Gertrude Stein and my younger son. It looks like they're gossiping about Ernest
Hemingway and Ezra Pound. Pound would probably have voted for Trump.

It's Sunday now. I have work to do, though I'm not sure how much I'll actually accomplish, given that half of the neighborhood (the male half) is in my backyard.

Of the many things that send me into a tailspin of panic and anxiety, my least favorites are administrative and bureaucratic processes and proceedings, especially new ones that replace ones that I finally managed to master. For years, the Montgomery County Public Schools used an online grade tracking tool called Edline. After a few years, I had finally reached a  point at which keeping on top of my sons' progress in school was an easy and routine task. And now Edline is gone, replaced by what appears to be a homegrown system, that I'll have to learn all over again. Edline allowed one log-in and password per parent, but the new system issues a new password and log-in for each child, meaning I'll have two accounts, not just one. Why?

And now that I've become almost totally dependent on Google Drive and Google Photos, they're going away, too, to be replaced by something whose name I could easily look up (on Google), but I won't. And my son is a junior, which means that I have to learn how to get a kid into college. Apparently, the process has changed since the 1980s. The Internet and all.

Oh my gosh, I'm the worst. It's a beautiful day, and I don't have a single real problem in the world, and I don't even mind spending the afternoon copy editing. At least I don't have to pay attention to the football game. I mean, I want the Redskins to win and everything, but you'll never convince me that one football game isn't exactly like every other football game, ever. I've seen one; ergo, I've seen them all. I hope that Florida is spared. Meanwhile, HTTR, I guess.

Oh, so I amuse you? So I'm a clown?

I was thinking about stopping this for a while; "this" meaning weekly posting on this blog. Like lots of other things I do, it's become a compulsion-driven source of unnecessary anxiety. But then I think of things and see things, and want to write about them. Maybe I need to just write when I feel like writing. Just like maybe I need to clean the house only when it's dirty.

That last part is crazy talk, of course.

*****
I read something today, which I won't link to. Let's just say that the name "Becky" has two entirely new and unexpected meanings. Clueless, slightly overprivileged white girls are now the bete noire of society, apparently. That's a word that I overuse. "Apparently," that is, not "bete noire." I should use that one more often.  Anyway, I suppose it was our turn. Clueless white girls, that is; not people who overuse "apparently," or even "bete noire."

And that's all I have to say about that, because I can never seem to summon any emotion other than slack-jawed eye-rolling boredom for identity politics in any form. That's the privilege talking, I guess. I get that there are still such things as racism and white privilege. I just don't see how dehumanizing yet another group of people helps to end either of those things.

*****
I'm reading, and have been reading for some time, Michael Beschloss's The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev 1960-1963. It's long, and pretty exhaustively detailed, and will probably take me three more weeks to finish, at my current pace, which is slow, because I'm busy.

The book takes lots of side trips, much like that last sentence (and this entire blog, if it comes down to that). I love 20th-century American history, and presidential history (should that be capitalized?) and of course, I love reading about the Soviet Union (not a nice place to visit, and you also wouldn't want to live there), so this is a feature and not a bug. Still, I usually only have a few minutes a day to read (because after all, I do have to write about having only a few minutes a day to read, and that takes time; not to mention that the house isn't going to compulsively clean itself), so it's going to be a while before I can offer a full report. Stay tuned.

Andrei Gromyko, who was the Soviet Foreign Minister during the Kennedy years (and for a long time after), figures prominently in the book, but unlike most of the others (Kennedy, Khrushchev, Dean Rusk, Dean Acheson, Willy Brandt, Konrad Adenauer), his personality doesn't register with the reader. Gromyko was apparently (there it is again) extremely reserved, and is said to have said that he was uninterested in his own personality. He might have been the only real Communist among them. Meanwhile, I can't imagine anything better than to be uninterested in oneself and one's own personality. Something to aspire to.

*****
"Right after I got here, I ordered linguine with marinara, and I got egg noodles with ketchup."

That's the almost-last line of "Goodfellas," which I'm watching on TV.  If you're from New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, or Boston (or New Haven or Providence, I guess), and you go anywhere else, food is a big adjustment. Washington, DC is only 3 hours away from Philadelphia, but it's a million culinary miles. When I was pregnant with my first child, I had an overwhelming craving for a tuna hoagie. My husband went out to get me what was supposed to be a tuna hoagie, but which turned out to be Little Friskies on a hot dog bun. I felt Ray Liotta's pain.

It's the day before Labor Day, always one of the saddest times of the year for me. I love summer, and I'm never ready to see it go. I went swimming on Thursday night, and the water was about as cold as I could stand. Then after two days of mid-October chill and rain, it was even colder today. I barely dipped a toe in.  One more day, and then the pool is closed, and the school year starts, and the summer is over, just like that.

*****
Labor Day.

Although my kids love summer as much as I do, they're quite upbeat and enthusiastic about the new school year. Armed with a few new clothes and school supplies, ready to see their friends and to see what their schedules will look like, they're filled with the excitement of newness.  So I'm going to adjust my attitude, right now.  We're already buying pre-season hockey tickets, which means that fall can't be all bad.  It'll be fine, as long as I don't ever have to drink, smell, or even look at a pumpkin spice latte. There are depths to which even a white girl won't sink.

The end of summer

Monday night: I'm done for the day, at the delightfully early hour of 8:45 PM. Maybe I'll sleep tonight. Meanwhile, I have a ton of things that I could do, but I think I'll hang around on the couch and watch "King of the Hill" with my kids, dang it.

Tuesday night: I should be working right now, and I will in a minute, but here I am, blogging instead.

I'm compulsive about a lot of things, including reading. I've managed to fool a lot of people into thinking that I'm a lot smarter than I really am, and that's because I will read almost anything. And when you read a lot of stuff, you learn a lot of stuff. Facts, and details, and historical dates, sports trivia, the actor who starred in that one episode of that show--I know pretty much all of that.

When I say that I'll read almost anything, I mean almost anything, including the directions on a container of hand soap at Aldi. Dispensing with the obvious question (no, not why would I read hand soap instructions, but why such instructions exist in the first place), the instructions were written as though the writer could barely suppress her disdain at whatever idiot needs written instructions to wash her hands: "Use as you normally would use hand soap to wash your hands." The ", dumbass!" was understood, I suppose.

"You need directions to wash your hands? That's asinine."

*****
Saturday: Even at my age, it's a shock to hear that someone you grew up with has died. My mom is here this weekend, and even though I can't remember how we ended up on the subject, I asked her if she had heard from the twins who lived next door to us when I was growing up, and was stunned to hear that they're dead.

Matt and Jimmy (not their real names) were the youngest of a family of five boys and a widowed mother. Their mother (who died several years ago and was thus spared experiencing the loss of her two youngest sons) was even stricter than my mother. We met the family when we moved into the house where my mother still lives, which was when I was 13. My sister was 12, and my brother was 9.  Matt and Jimmy were 11. Their older brothers were a bit older--the closest to them in age was five or six years older, and the oldest two, who still lived at home, were out of high school, working and taking classes at Community College of Philadelphia.

My sister and I and the twins went to different schools, and had different groups of neighborhood friends, but our houses were semi-detached, so we could literally step over our porch fence and be on the twins' porch; and vice versa. So we were all in and out of each others' houses constantly, especially during the summer.

When I was growing up, working mothers didn't worry about summer camp or programs for kids, unless they were too young to stay home alone. My brother and sister and I were alone after school and during the summer from the time I was 10 or so. Matt and Jimmy and their brothers also spent their summers unsupervised.  Who knows how we didn't end up in serious trouble during those summers, because despite their mother's best efforts to control her boys, they were wild, and none more than the twins.

Actually, I know why my sister and I didn't end up in trouble. I was a goody two-shoes, and even the older boys were afraid to drink or smoke pot when I was around, because they thought I'd tell on them. My sister was not as much of a rule-follower as I was, but she was popular and pretty and I think that the boys tried to be on their best (or at least better) behavior when they were around her. Matt and Jimmy were fraternal twins, though they looked nearly identical. The neighborhood adults used to call them things like "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum," or "Frick and Frack." No adults other than their mother and older brothers could tell them apart, but my siblings and I knew them so well that we could easily distinguish them. We were unlikely but close friends.

The twins were probably the least motivated, least ambitious people I knew. They discovered beer and pot very early, and after that, they spent most of their free time drinking and partying.  But although they weren't ambitious, they also weren't lazy. They went to work right after high school (who knows how they managed to graduate) and went right to work, and they showed up at their jobs every day.  When they were 19 or so, they bought a car that they shared, and they always seemed to have money. In between work, porch-sitting, and drinking, they also helped their mother to maintain her spotless house and garden.

We lost touch eventually.  I moved away from Philadelphia altogether, and my sister and brother moved to the suburbs, while Matt and Jimmy remained at home, working all week, and drinking all weekend. We'd talk at holidays and when I came to visit, but that was all. Then the boys were left a pretty substantial sum of money by a relative (maybe their late father's parents--I can't remember) and they quit their jobs and moved to Florida.

I wasn't really close with the twins anymore, nor with the rest of their family, but I heard that without the their mother around, they fell into a routine that included a lot of drinking, a lot of drug use, and a lot of hanging around with the local party crowd. My mom kept in touch with them. They sent me a card when I had my first child, and we sent greetings back and forth through my mom, but I never actually spoke to them. About 10 years or so ago, according to my mom, they entered rehab and got sober. But apparently they fell back into old habits a few years later. They died within months of each other, of alcohol-related complications. They were 49.

As adults, we had only the most infrequent contact, and really none at all in the past 10 years.  But despite their flaws, they were possibly the two funniest people I ever knew. Even as my sister and I realized that the twins would probably spend most of their lives drunk or high or both (as in fact they did), they always had a spark and a sweetness that made it easy for them to make friends and keep them. Sad and wasteful as their lives were, they still left some good in the world. God rest their souls.

*****
Sunday: Normally, this would be the night before school starts. But this year, we have a one-week reprieve, thanks to an executive order from the governor of Maryland. Rumor has it that school will start in August again next year, but for now, we have one more week.

It already feels like summer is over, though. It's unseasonably cool, and it's almost dark just before 8 PM, and the water was freezing today. It's like a corner has been turned. I was planning to try to swim every night this week, the last week that the pool will be open, but I don't know if I can. It's too dang cold.

What are you talking about? I'm in a great mood.

Monday: As I wrote here, just over two years ago, it's only a matter of time before the deer turn predator, and I think that time is running out. I took a walk around my neighborhood tonight, and I'm pretty sure that the two deer on my neighbor's lawn, who stared at me, holding their ground, would have attacked me if I hadn't crossed the street. Minutes later, I saw a to-the-death battle between two angry squirrels, and then a stray cat squared off at me as if to warn me off its turf, which apparently consists of the whole neighborhood.

It's so rare to see a cat at large anymore. When I was growing up in Philadelphia, people let their cats out during the day. The cats would wander the neighborhood freely until sundown, and then return home. Occasionally, someone would have to go out and hunt for their cat, but most of the neighborhood cats seemed to have unerring homing instincts, and they'd just show up for dinner. People don't let their cats out anymore. And I guess I don't blame them, what with the predatory deer.

Anyway, what is this? Wild Kingdom? Sheesh.

Tuesday: It's fine once you get in. That's what people always say as you dip one tentative toe into the icy cold swimming pool. They won't shut up about it, in fact. "Really. I was really cold at first, but now it feels great. My lips are always blue. It's a medical thing. It's fine, I swear. Get in." So I got in, and swam for a while. And I got used to it. And it was still freezing damn cold, but it didn't matter after I had relinquished my will to live.

Thursday: Is there any possible excuse for any person younger than 85 to hold up the line at the Safeway by WRITING A CHECK OMG for groceries? That was a rhetorical question, of course, but there's nothing stopping you from answering it, as long as your answer is NO, NO, A HUNDRED TIMES NO, FOR GOD'S SAKE.

Standing behind someone writing a check ("What's today's date? What was the amount again? Who do I make it out to? Can I write it for $30 extra? No, wait--maybe $40 extra...") is bad enough. What's worse is standing behind the check-writer in the line manned by the super-friendly, super-entertaining cashier with the running commentary on every facet of life. I must be a misanthrope of the highest order, because every time I end up in his line, the person in front of me never fails to tell him how wonderful he is and how great it is that he's so upbeat and cheerful. And all I want to do is beat him over the head. As I restrained the head-beating urge and willed the check-writing slowpoke to hurry the holy heck up, I noticed a leaflet at the bottom of my cart. "WHERE DO YOU WANT TO SPEND ETERNITY?" was printed in fiery orange and red tones on its glossy black cover.

"Here," I thought. "Right here. I want to spend eternity in the gosh-darn checkout line at the Norbeck Fucking Road Safeway, so aren't I lucky? Because I've been here since the dawn of time and it appears that I'll be here until the sun burns out, and beyond." On my best day, I might have taken that leaflet as a reminder that I do have an immortal soul and that I should maybe take better care of it. But it wasn't my best day.

Saturday: Why did you fail me, Google Drive? Why can't I find the work that I most assuredly finished and saved in the folder where I know I saved it? Please tell me that I don't have to:
A. Rewrite what I already wrote or
B. Lug my 40-pound computer to and from work every day.

I'm normally a good-tempered and mild-mannered person, but technical failures and things not working in general turn me into a flaming torch of rage. I was trying to tear off a sheet of aluminum foil to cover the baking pan of chicken cacciatore that I was about to put in the oven, and the foil tore off in an ever-narrowing spiral, as an ever-widening spiral clung to the roll. I couldn't even. I handed the roll to my husband and said "Fix this please, before I put it through a window." He fixed it, because he knew that I wasn't kidding and that it's easier to stop watching the Redskins and get me some damn aluminum foil than to get a window repaired on a Saturday night.

Computer issues are even worse. I have more than once carried my computer toward the garage, loudly threatening to place it under a rear tire of my car, and then run over it. Someone usually rescues the computer, but one day, it'll be just me and the computer, with no reasonable people between it and the rear tire. Like the predatory deer, it's only a matter of time.

"I'll run it over! I swear I will!"

Sunday: So I just read this over, and I think I'm coming across as the tiniest bit irritable and grouchy. Plankton could take my correspondence course. The panic attacks are back and I'm running on about 12 hours sleep over the past five days, so maybe I'm a little punchy. It'll pass, like everything else does. I think I'll go swimming. It's fine, once you get in.

Pax in terra

I'm mobile blogging right now,  southbound on I-95. No, I'm not driving. Punctuation is the hardest thing about writing on a phone. Punctuation and sudden stops.

*****

We're listening to a road trip mix now. I should probably turn on the radio to see if we've bombed Pyongyang yet, or if North Korean missiles are en route to Seattle,  or if the Klan has descended on Silver Spring. But I'd rather listen to Erasure.

"Weight of the World." How appropriate.

*****

We're about 45 minutes away from home now. It's hard to believe that I woke up at the beach this morning. 

*****

It's Sunday morning , and we're home, so I'm writing on a real keyboard. Anyway, about the beach. We alternate vacations--we visit a new city one year, and then spend a week at the beach the next. It would be nice to do both every year, of course, but we're lucky that we can go away every year, no matter where it is. 

A city vacation is different from a beach vacation because you don't really fall into a routine in a new city. At least, we don't. We fill up every day and night, determined to see as much of our new city as possible. At the beach, though, we establish a routine on day 1, and by day 3, it's like we've always lived in Avalon, and always will. 

One common element of the beach and the city vacations is the early-morning outings with my now 12-year-old son. He and I are both naturally early risers, and we like to go out and do things while the rest of the family sleeps. In the city, this usually means exploratory walks around whatever neighborhood we happen to be staying in, with a stop for coffee and breakfast, which we deliver to my husband and older son just as they're waking up. At the beach, it means morning bike rides. 

Taken on Tuesday morning. It rained all day on
Monday and rain seemed likely on Tuesday,
too. But it turned out to be a sunny day. 

We usually ride for a few miles; sometimes south to Stone Harbor and the shops on 96th Street; and sometimes north to the center of town in Avalon. Sometimes we go farther--to 122nd Street, and Stone Harbor Point; or to Townsend's Inlet, across the bridge from Sea Isle City. Seven Mile Island is as flat as a prairie, so even with wind resistance, a long ride is pretty easy and pleasant, if you like to ride. Not everyone does. My whole family goes to the beach (we stay in separate places) and my sister suggested to my nephew, also an early riser, that he should join us one morning. He scoffed. "What am I, Lance Armstrong? Do you know how far they go?" Not that far if you're a serious rider, but I guess pretty far on a beach cruiser in August. 

The water was perfect last week. Slightly rough surf and a bit of an undertow, but so warm that you could just walk in, and no jellyfish at all. I've never been to the Caribbean, but everyone who has been complains that it ruins them for the Atlantic Ocean on the northeastern coast of the United States. This means that I should never go to the Caribbean, because I never want to not want to swim in the Atlantic Ocean. 

This boy was exactly as I'd have expected him to be in the surf. Knocked down by a wave and scooped up by his father before the current could pull him under, he spluttered and struggled and yelled "Put me down! There's another one coming!" Surrounded by a gang of 9- or 10-year old boogie boarders, he stood his ground, yelling "You guys gotta get outta my way!" And they did, shaking their heads and wondering who the crazy little kid was. 

*****

During city vacations, it seems like the world continues to do what it does, and I'm just as attuned to current events as I am at home. I followed election and Olympics coverage in Chicago in 2012 and Boston in 2016; and in 2014, even South Korean news media was covering the events in Ferguson, MO. ("What's happening in your country?" our tour guide asked us.) At the beach, though, the only news I seem to hear concerns the weather and the water temperature and the movement of the tides.  Somewhere around Wednesday or Thursday, it started to emerge that war with North Korea might be a real and actual threat; and then on Saturday, we watched "white nationalists" and Klansmen and neo-Nazis converge on normally peaceful Charlottesville.  

And so, as we drove further south, over the Delaware Memorial Bridge, into Maryland, toward Baltimore and finally nearing the Capital Beltway, the world once again continued to do what it does, and it felt less like a day that had started at the beach. There's only one kind of peace that matters, anyway, and it doesn't come from the ocean. Not even from the ocean. It's Sunday afternoon now. 

Tied up with string

You know what I love? The word "actually," when little kids say it. Sometime around age 3 3/4 to 4 1/4, little kids tend to start prefacing their explanations with "actually." This is funny enough on its own, but it's even better when they pronounce it "ackchully."

*****
You know what I don't love? The nightly thunderstorms this week, which are seriously affecting my swimming schedule.

*****
I feel like I should try to dress better. I mean, I try to look neat and appropriate for the occasion, but that's as far as it goes. But then I see someone who has taken extra care with their appearance, and they* look so nice, that I think that I should make the extra effort and take the extra time to make a better impression.

As with everything, it comes down to time. I have all the time in the world to pound out utter drivel on this blog, but not enough time, apparently, to take a few extra minutes to find some jewelry or an accessory, or something that would make me look more stylish and pulled-together.

And there's money, too. Clothes and shoes and accessories cost money, and I find that I'm willing to spend money on almost anything else. Like my 20-year-old couch, for example. It's a very comfortable, hardwood-frame couch that will probably outlast humankind, only the cushions and slipcover need to be replaced. So that's where my clothing budget for the next few months will be spent. The couch will be better dressed than me. On the other hand, it will have to wear the same outfit, every day, likely for the rest of its life.

*I have revised my position on use of the singular "they," which I hereby deem acceptable.

*****
I'm not sure how robust my annual reading list will be this year. I'm quite a bit behind last year's pace, and I don't see myself catching up any time soon. I just finished Beryl Bainbridge's A Quiet Life. It's apparently based loosely on her own life in postwar Britain. The story is told from the point of view of the older brother of a wild teenage girl who is having a secret affair with a German POW. The boy's family is miserably unhappy, and although the book is beautifully written, and short, it still took me ten days to slog through it. Well, I'm also reading another book at the same time, but a short novel is usually a faster read for me. I had never read Beryl Bainbridge before, and probably won't read any more of her work. Too depressing. She is almost as misanthropic as Evelyn Waugh, and not nearly as funny.

*****
And why am I even worried about maintaining last year's reading pace anyway? I'm not that competitive,  but I am goal-oriented. And I'm competitive sometimes, too. Swimming again, for example. I'm not very fast at all, but I can go all day. Just the opposite of running, for which I have near-zero endurance (and I'm also a slow runner, so maybe "just the opposite" isn't quite right. Maybe "somewhat the opposite" would be somewhat more accurate). I was swimming laps one night last week, and a neighborhood man, who is older than me, but fit--I see him running all the time--started to swim laps in the lane next to me. He had to stop to rest after every length of the pool, and he complimented my endurance. I modestly dismissed his praise; after all, as I explained, I'm a truly terrible runner who can barely cover a block without stopping to rest. But I was secretly pleased that I was better than someone--anyone--at something athletic.

The man got out of the pool after 5 or 6 laps, and I kept going. Another older person, a Russian lady who reminds me of Raisa Gorbachev, took his place. She and her husband, whose names I don't know, are frequent swimmers. We say hello and smile at one another, but I've never really spoken to them. Her endurance is better than the running man's, but I'm faster than she is. A lot faster. So even though she's at least 10 years my senior, I can't help but enjoy beating her pace and swimming past her, and turning before she's even 5 meters from the wall.  It's a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. Eat my bubbles, Mrs. Gorbachev.

*****
As usual, I have no idea how I ended up getting from there to here. I started by writing about some of my favorite things, and "actually" was first on my list. Then I got distracted.

But this post is kind of about some of my favorite things. Like swimming. And books. And grammar. And trash talking about old people. OK, not the last  one. But the other three, for sure. Books, swimming, and grammar really are some of my favorite things, actually.

I'm a ray of sunshine

It's 10 PM Friday, and I'm watching "The Hunger Games" with my son. We have one more summer swim meet tomorrow morning, and then the season is officially over. I'm guess I'm relieved, but I'll miss it.

I was so busy at work today that I didn't even hear about Priebus until I was driving home. We have a President now who has made Sean Spicer, Jeff Sessions, and Reince Priebus all look like sympathetic characters. For a while, I actually felt sorry for Spicer. And now, all of a sudden, Republican lawmakers are having Profiles in Courage moments, warning Trump (via Twitter, of course) not to try to fire Sessions.

It all begs just one question: What did you bitches expect? Did you all think that Trump was going to treat you better than he treated Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and everyone else he bullied and humiliated throughout the campaign? Did you think he was going to be nice to you, just because you're on his side? I give Scaramucci three months.  I got your communications, right here.

*****
I'm still reading A Kim Jong-Il Production. Sang Shin-Ok spent several years in a North Korean prison as punishment for his second escape attempt, and it was just as brutal as  you'd expect a North Korean prison to be. Because I'm the most fun person in the world, I sometimes imagine my favorite places--the pool, for example; or Avalon, New Jersey, turned into giant battlefields or prison camps. Not, obviously, because that's what I want to happen, but because I'm afraid that it could.  Because it has.

We saw "Dunkirk" last night. Brilliant, but not what I expected. Maybe I've been married to a Korean for too long, because all of the young, handsome Englishmen looked the same to me. I liked the three interwoven stories, and Mark Rylance is great as the captain of the tiny Moonstone. But I keep returning to the opening scene, of a soldier running through the almost-too-picturesque streets of Dunkirk. He runs past the seaside hotel and onto the sun-drenched beach, where he finds queues of stranded soldiers, thousands of them, trapped with no food or water and awaiting uncertain rescue amid bombs and machine gun fire raining down from German fighter planes.

All of these places, all of the killing fields and mass graves and secret prisons and re-education camps, all started as something else. They all started as just places, where people lived or vacationed or just drove past every day without much thought, only to see them turn into hell on earth. Good prevailed over evil at Dunkirk, as it will in the end. But evil never stops trying.

A week minus a day

Monday
So this week will be a test of my determination to post something here at least once a week. I say that every week (well, I think it every week, anyway), but this time, I'm serious.

When I'm overextended, I tend to look for shortcuts, and to rush through things and places and people as fast as I can, so that I can get to the next task. Not the most harmonious approach to life, I know. Sometimes, things go smoothly, and I dodge and weave my way through the grocery store, for example, finding the shortest line, and sailing out of there with no delays.

Other times, I hit roadblocks and obstacles, seething as I wait for slow people to meander their way through wherever I happen to be. Like the grocery store again, where I try not to let my irritation show as the overly friendly, overly solicitous cashier stops to chat with EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the already too-long line, and asks EVERYONE if they found everything they needed, or if they need stamps, or if they want paper or plastic.  But by the time I reach the front of the line, all I can think is I'LL BEAT YOU WITH THAT PAPER BAG! I'LL BURN THIS PLACE DOWN WITH THOSE POSTAGE STAMPS, WHICH WILL BE IGNITED BY THE FIRE OF MY RIGHTEOUS FURY!

And then I say "Oh yes, thank you. No, no stamps, thank you. No, I have my own bags. Thank you. Yes, you too! Thanks again!"

Tuesday
In The Screwtape Letters, there's a part where Screwtape writes to Wormwood that his goal should be to make sure that his mortal victims realize, far too late, that they spent most of their time doing neither what they should have done nor what they wanted to do.

This made a deep impression on me. I don't ever set out to waste time, of course, but I give way to panic and indecision, and minutes (or hours) later realize that I just wasted an irretrievable part of my day because I couldn't decide what to do.

But not today. Today was one of those days when I stayed focused from morning to night. Productive at work and productive at home. I finished making dinner at about 8:15. Too late to go swimming, I thought, because the pool closes at 8:45. On the other hand, the pool is right around the corner. But on yet another hand, I'm still in my work clothes. But if I get changed quickly, I can be in the water by 8:25, which means that I can swim for 20 minutes.

There are plenty of days (most days) when the back and forth about this very minor decision would have sent me into a tailspin of panic-fueled indecision, until it was too late to do whatever I was trying to decide to do or not to do. But again, not today. I covered the food with aluminum foil, ran and put on a suit, grabbed a towel, drove to the pool, and was in the water by 8:25. And that short time in the water was like a 20-minute vacation that made the kitchen clean-up that still awaited entirely worth it.

Wednesday
My grandmother, who is in her 90s, used to be a writer of strongly worded letters. Any time she was outraged or offended about something (almost daily), she'd write to newspaper editorial pages, local officials, members of Congress, or anyone else who incurred her displeasure or who should, in her opinion, address whatever issue she was concerned about. She had very nice Catholic school Palmer Method handwriting, and she wrote her letters in longhand, on lined letter paper (the kind you used to be able to buy in tablets at drugstores) at the end of her kitchen table. She had the names and office addresses of the mayor of Philadelphia, the governor of Pennsylvania, her Senators and Representative, and every member of the Philadelphia City Council (they were frequent letter targets) in her leather address book. I don't recall that she ever wrote to the President, but perhaps she did. Or perhaps she just copied him on her letters to her Senators. Her letter-writing efforts were not restricted to politicians and newspaper editors. If a product or a service or an establishment didn't live up to her expectations, those responsible would hear, in letter form, from my grandmother.

I used to do the same thing, only via email. But l just don't have time anymore. As much as I'd like to fight City Hall about, oh, I don't know, speed camera tickets in general, or my 14th speed camera ticket in particular, there are only so many hours in the day. 

When I pay the tickets (and I always threaten to go to court, but then I just shut up and pay the $40), I usually take a screen shot of the payment screen, and save it, just in case. I used to just name the file speedcamerapayment and the date. Now, let's just say, I'm a little more expressive. fuckmylifemofospeedcamerabitches_072017.dox is a sample file name.  But there's always a silver lining. After all, I've been meaning to get rid of that extra $40 for weeks. 

Thursday
I was writing something about something that happened today, and I couldn't sustain enough interest in the story to even finish the first sentence, so I won't inflict it on my reading public. You're welcome.

Friday
Ain't nobody got time to blog today.

Sunday
I worked part-time and/or at home from 2009 to 2016. Of course, the Internet and mobile technology were around in 2009, but I don't remember feeling required to be available for work at all times, just because it was possible to work at all times. Things have changed, though.

I love my job. But it occurred to me yesterday that perhaps I shouldn't feel guilty about joining my son and his friends and their mothers for a post swim meet lunch and buddy gift shopping trip, rather than going immediately home to work. Because yesterday was Saturday. Of course, I paid for it by working until 10 last night.

*****
Hey, that's kind of a lot. I didn't think I'd get more than a sentence or two out of myself this week.  None of it makes sense or is relevant to anything, but I don't promise all the news that's fit to print.

In my day

We have an intern at work (well, we have more interns than you can shake a stick at, if you're a stick shaking person, but that's a story for another day) who just bought a Polaroid camera--an actual Polaroid camera, that spits out ready-to-develop paper photographs. He told us that he carries it everywhere. It's almost the size of a shoebox, and looks like it weighs about five pounds.

*****
I'm familiar with young people's love for old technology. It seems silly to carry around a giant Polaroid camera when you can take far better pictures with even the cheapest 8-ounce smartphone, but Polaroid photography seems like a harmless-enough hobby, so who am I to judge? It keeps them off the street, as they say.

*****
Last year when I was in Boston, I bought a little velcro wallet made from an old museum banner at the MFA gift shop. I loved that wallet. LOVED it. It's starting to come apart, though, and so I have to replace it.  It was one of a kind, which means that I have to replace it with something else altogether, since I can't get another just like it.

I found a wallet on Amazon, which for some reason appealed to me even though it's not at all the kind of thing that I normally like, so I ordered it. And I was horrified when it arrived. In the photograph, it looked like a small, brightly patterned cordura nylon wallet with a velcro closure and cute red trim. IRL, it was a huge, bulky, Guatemalan ikat fabric monstrosity with an enormous label and unraveling thread. It looked like something you'd carry your Phish tickets in.

I read an article yesterday, criticizing Amazon for its low prices and easy, so-called free returns, and although I can see the author's point, I do love Amazon. I have no time to shop, and it's quite lovely to have things delivered to me, so that I can either keep or send them back. And now, you can return things (or pick them up) from something called the Amazon Locker, in a neighborhood location.

When I was growing up, my mom used to shop from the Montgomery-Ward catalog, which was the size of a phone book, assuming anyone even knows what a phone book is or was. M-W delivered its giant catalogs twice a year, and they came equipped with order forms that you could remove, complete in pen, and stuff into an envelope with your check or money order. A week or so later, your items would arrive at your door.

Or, you could go to your neighborhood Montgomery-Ward catalog store and pick up your box in person. The catalog store wasn't really a store, because you couldn't actually shop there. It had a counter in front, like a dry cleaner; and in the back, boxes were stored on rows of shelves, organized by last name. You could also return your purchases at the catalog store. So once again, what's old is new.

*****
I thought that I was reasonably well-informed on current events, but I suppose I still have some catching up to do. Because I thought that Donald Jr. was the blond one.

*****
My work commute is only six miles or so, all through neighborhood streets and secondary roads. It's a nice change from my old Beltway commute. There's a little neighborhood in Rockville that I drive through every day, that reminds me of my neighborhood. It's a 1960s-built Life Magazine version of an American suburban neighborhood, with alternating ranch, colonial, and Cape Cod-style houses with neat lawns and mature shade trees.

I like Rockville and Silver Spring, especially the mid-century neighborhoods that aren't quite upscale, but also not quite affluent. These are among the few truly egalitarian communities left in the Washington suburbs, where lawyers and doctors live next door to police officers and nurses, who live next door to hair stylists and electricians. OK, so not exactly the full spectrum of society, but not as polarized as the rest of this city sometimes seems to be.

And that was my social commentary for the week. Now, I'm exhausted.

*****
I have a long-standing aversion to ridiculous street and town names. In fact, if I were to ever inherit my dream house, but it was located in a stupid-name town, or on a ridiculously named street, I'd sell immediately.

I live in Maryland, where there are actually lots of places with beautiful and/or dignified names. Silver Spring, of course is the most beautiful town name, and that happens to be where I live. We also have Camp Springs, Bethesda, Fort Washington, Baltimore, Prince Frederick, Prince George's County, Aberdeen, Rising Sun--anyone would be happy to return address their letters from any of these places.

On the other hand, we also have more than a few towns and streets that have ridiculous or absurdly ugly names. Boonsboro, Scaggsville, Dundalk, Waldorf (it's the "dorf" sound that makes it ridiculous), Accident, Boring, and (no kidding) Crappo are all towns that must be deserted, like Centralia; only not because of raging underground fires, but because the names of those places are so awful that no one would ever want to have such an address printed on their driver's license.

Wait, what was I talking about?

Oh right! Rockville! (Another very serviceable name.)  Although I normally have a distinct bias against silly street names, I make an exception for one street name in Rockville, in the little neighborhood that I drive through every day. The street names there are made-up portmanteau words, most of which I can't remember right now, but one that amuses me to no end every time I drive past it: Miltfred Way.

Isn't that the best name? I have no idea who Milt or Fred were (or are--maybe they're still alive), but it does seem quite certain that the street is named after two men named Milt and Fred (or Milton and Frederick, I suppose).

I'm not sure who named the street after them. Maybe they were the developers of the neighborhood, and one day, after a few too many drinks, they decided to name a street after themselves. I picture two middle-aged men in Mad Men-era glasses, wearing golf clothing, and laughing uproariously at the people who would eventually have to tell other people that they just bought a house on Miltfred Way. Or maybe Milt and Fred were the fathers or grandfathers of the people who built the neighborhood, and the street was named as a tribute to them.  I have no idea; and I also have no idea why I'm so fond of this name, when I'm normally so particular about street names.  Nostalgia maybe--a reminder of a simpler time, when Polaroid cameras were cutting-edge technology, and Montgomery-Ward was still a thing. And no one knew one Trump from another, and we liked it that way.

On high, for 30 seconds

Monday: On Friday night, I tried to use the microwave, which is no more than six months old, and nothing happened. No little beep, no lights, no whirring sound as the plate revolves around to ensure even irradiation of your food.

Hmm, I thought. This microwave is no more than six months old. Why isn't it working? Is it a power failure? Obviously not, what with the lights blazing and the air conditioner humming happily along. Maybe a circuit breaker was tripped? No, they were all fine. ("Do you know what you're doing?" my 12-year-old son asked skeptically as I scanned the breaker box.)

I suppose I started with zebras and then proceeded to horses, because the last thing I checked was the plug, which was inserted firmly into the outlet. So there was no reason why it didn't work, but it didn't work. Until, of course, my husband came home, and I told him that it didn't work. He scoffed. "What are you talking about?" he said. "That microwave is no more than six months old. Of course it works." And he pushed a button, and it worked.

I can't tell you how much I hate when that happens. So imagine my glee when I came home from work today, and found the microwave in the box that it came in, on the kitchen floor. I called my husband. He didn't answer, because he's not an idiot. So I texted.

What happened to the microwave?

He texted back:

It's broken. No idea what's wrong with it.

I replied:

Hmmm. That's weird. Did you check to see if it was plugged in?

There's no point to this story whatsoever, except that it's 100% worth whatever it costs to replace that microwave. VINDICATION.

*****
Wednesday: My older son, when he was six or so, really loved everything Star Wars (at 16, he's still a fan). He used to talk about "Star Wars: The Complete Songa." I still like to pronounce "saga" as "songa." I have no idea why I'm thinking about that.

I'm reading Paul Fischer's A Kim Jong-Il Production. It's the true story of how Kim Jong-Il kidnapped South Korea's most famous movie director and his actress wife, and forced them to make movies in North Korea. The book was recommended by a friend; and of course, the irresistible combination of movies and totalitarian Communism makes it that much more compelling. It's gripping, so far.

This morning, I was listening to NPR, and heard a story about efforts to subvert state censors in North Korea. Watching Western movies is punishable by death in North Korea, but people do it anyway, using tiny removable drives that can be swallowed or flushed when the secret police come knocking (why do they even knock, I've always wondered). The point of the story was that North Korea is not quite the hermetically sealed information black hole that we think it is, and that enterprising North Koreans are finding ways to undermine their totalitarian government, even at risk of death.

So it seems that Orwell was only half right. The same technology that makes it possible for the state to monitor every aspect of our lives, 1984-style also allows people to subvert the state, with social-media-convened flash mobs, and revolutionary hashtags.

Maybe that's the end game. Maybe the Internet has ended the possibility of real, permanent, 100% totalitarianism, and it's only a matter of time before North Korea collapses under the weight of thousands of miniature flash drives.

Or maybe the Internet ends instead, when governments good and bad agree that they can't govern their people as long as those people have unfettered access to information, and the means by which to share it. In the "good" countries, the end will come as the result of a massive security breach that empties millions of bank accounts; or maybe when the Russian hackers finally figure out a way to take down the whole power grid. Then the government will cut off access to the Internet for our own good. In the "bad" countries, of course, they'll just shut the whole thing down, because they can.

Without the Internet, they'll have to spy on us the old-fashioned way, with hidden cameras and microphones, recording our every move and conversation. Maybe they'll hide them in microwave ovens.

Plagues and pestilence

When my sons were very young, they always got sick in June. Every year, from about age 2 to age 9 or 10, they'd  be felled by dreadful stomach viruses, or bacterial infections--usually strep.  Then, we enjoyed a few sickness-free summers.  But the plague has returned. Both boys have raging strep infections, and the house feels like a MASH unit. There are blankets and pillows and half-empty (and not half-full) glasses of water everywhere, and no one other than me has enough energy to move off the couch. Thank goodness for antibiotics. They'll be back to normal in no time.

*****
This is an unusually demanding and un-summer-like summer, and every week, I think that I won't bother with posting anything, because what do I have to say? But I feel strangely compelled to write about nothing in particular, with occasional veiled (well, maybe not that veiled--I think the filter is gone) references to crippling anxiety and panic attacks. There are no antibiotics for this, but it comes and goes. I'll also be back to normal in no time.

*****
It's Friday now. At 6:45 this morning, I was sitting on my couch watching "Morning Joe." I watch "MJ" almost every morning, but by "watch," I mean that it's on in the background while I get ready for work. Today, though, I actually sat and watched to see how Joe and Mika would respond to Trump's Twitter attack on Mika.

I thought that I had finally reached a point at which I just couldn't take Donald Trump seriously enough anymore to maintain an appropriate level of outrage. But as it turns out, I have outrage to spare about the fact that this vile and contemptible little man who is entirely lacking in dignity, decency, and self control; and who is unfit to hold any public office at any level, is the President of the United States.

But maybe I'm wrong about self-control. It's 9:30 PM now, and I'm watching Rachel Maddow (OMG, what am I doing with my life?) and she makes the very convincing and compelling argument that the Trump tweets and comments that seem most undisciplined because of their shocking lack of courtesy are the most carefully and thoughtfully written and delivered, because the Twitter storms are all part of a vast bread and circus plan to keep people distracted--maybe entertained or maybe outraged, but distracted from what really matters, which is this administration's determination to dismantle the so-called "administrative state," and establish a Putin-style plutocracy.

Wait, how did I even get started on that?

I don't really like to write about politics, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. I don't really have the time or inclination to do the research and study necessary to really do it well; and besides, what can I say that hasn't been said a million times already. I'm much better just writing inconsequential nonsense about daily ephemera.

The problem is that I can't stop worrying that all of the daily, routine, ordinary things that interest me most will all disappear soon. But I might be overreacting. I tend to do that. How much damage can one man do in just 3 1/2 more years? Things will be back to normal in next to no time.