Peak summer

It's Saturday, and a swim meet morning in the DMV. It rained hard last night but the sun is out now, bright and warm; and morning cool is giving way to humid June heat. It smells like chlorine and coffee and sunscreen and wet grass and bacon egg and cheese sandwiches. IYKYK.

I'm no longer a summer swim parent, although my son is still a coach. But I am a summer swim aunt, so I'm here at the Manor Woods pool to watch my 11yo nephew, a summer swimming veteran; and my 7yo niece, who is making her A meet debut. 

I know some people here, so we have other races to watch; and it's fun, though a little weird, to be just a spectator. But the music is loud and the tents and deck chairs are all over the lawn and the kids are in full spirit mode with painted faces and blue and green fingernails and silly costumes. A summer swim meet is a summer swim meet. 

*****

The nice thing about being a summer swim aunt, rather than a parent is that you can come and go whenever you want. We rolled up at 9, and then found that the meet actually starts at 9, so we didn’t miss anything. And we left when the kids had both swum their best events. 

And then what did we do with our extra free time? Well yes, of course we went to another swim meet. A 17-year habit is hard to break. And what’s more fun on a Saturday morning in June, anyway? 

*****

It’s Sunday now, another beautiful June morning, and we're on our way to yet another summer swim meet. My son and some friends joined a local rec league for summer swim alumni and other adult swimmers; and their team, the Swim Reapers, is competing this morning at another old school DMV swim club. It's all sprint distances. It's going to be silly. 

*****

It was actually awesome - swimmers of all ages and many heats of each event, arranged in reverse order by age. No officials - swimmers are on the honor system - and each heat grabs a stopwatch as they finish their races, so they can time the next heat. It works very well. My son and his friend helped the Reapers to a first place finish in the men's medley relay, and he picked up an individual first place in the 19-29 men’s 25 breaststroke, breaking the Reapers’ team record in the process. That was a fun way to spend Sunday morning. Better than church. Sorry, Lord. I’m just keeping it real. 

*****

I usually like to swim laps, but sometimes I like to just get in the pool and swim around the large wide-open shallow end, counting nothing, just moving through the water in any which way. That’s how I swam when I was a child, and it’s still fun. I stay in motion the entire time because even on a hot day, I can’t stay still in a pool without getting very cold. I swim around the perimeter, and back and forth from the wall to the rope that separates the shallow and deep ends. After a morning at a pool that we couldn’t swim in, we spent part of the afternoon at our own pool, swimming like children. I stayed in until I couldn’t stop shivering; until my eyes burned a little bit and my fingers were pruny and I was just plain tired out. Then we went home and grilled dinner and watched swimming again; this time, the Olympic Trials on TV. Meteorologically it’s still technically spring but this weekend was peak summer. 10/10 - would recommend. 

As a matter of fact, I DO have the cholesterol to be out here

It's 8:34 AM on Tuesday morning and I'm sitting in the waiting room at LabCorp, waiting for my 9:30 “appointment.” Why quotation marks? Well I'll tell you. LabCorp doesn't take appointments, so you have to just show up. It's first come first serve. And then when you come, you sign in on a list of assigned 15-minute time slots. Almost like appointments. Why they don't just take appointments in the first place is a question whose answer is unknown to me. 

I arrived at 8:30 and am now signed in for 9:30. I brought something to read so it's fine except that I can't have any coffee until after the blood draw. I didn't realize how dependent I am on coffee in the morning.  I'm really quite miserable - I can't stop yawning and I'm slow on the uptake. Fuzzy-headed, really. Muddled. Not sharp. Not on my A game. 

*****

I might be the youngest person here, and I'm 58, so I’m not accustomed to being the youngest person anywhere. But a medical lab at 8:30 on Tuesday morning is a hot spot for senior citizens, and this crew thinks they own the place. They gave me the fisheye as I approached the lab sign-in list, as if they’re thinking that the young people should step aside and let their elders go first. Normally, I’m all about respect for elders, and not just because I am one. But I have to go back to work after my blood work, and everyone else in that waiting room is going home to watch “Matlock” reruns. They can jolly well wait their turns. 

*****

I read for a bit, and then wrote for a bit, and then watched “House Hunters International,” featuring a young Canadian woman who was moving to Playa del Carmen. At 9:27 I received a text message notifying me that the lab tech was ready for me, demonstrating that they DO in fact know how to use technology and that they could conceivably figure out a way to schedule appointments that doesn’t involve a clipboard hanging from a hook. 

The lab technician was curt to the point of rudeness, responding to my cheery “good morning” by pointing to a chair and barking “sit there.” But she was reasonably competent because the blood draw was quite painless, although I’m left this morning with ugly track marks on my arm. It’s kind of cold today anyway, so my long sleeves will cover the damage. And everyone knows I’m not a heroin addict. 

*****

But it seems that I am a bit of a coffee addict because I was literally shaking by the time I got out of there at 9:50 or so. I was going to just drive home and make some coffee but there’s a Starbucks right across the street from the lab. Starbucks smells lovely, and it really was unseasonably chilly on Tuesday morning, almost fall-like, a very Starbucks morning. Starbucks doesn’t sell pumpkin spice latte in June, and that is a good thing, given my well-documented hatred of Godforsaken PSL, which is a hate crime against coffee. I ordered a vanilla latte, my favorite Starbucks drink. Vanilla latte tastes like 1997. Had I sustained a head injury halfway through that latte, and then been asked who the president is as part of a concussion protocol, I’d have said Bill Clinton. Or maybe I wouldn’t because that latte cost almost $7, so it’s definitely 2024. On my salary, I can have two children in college OR I can buy $7 cups of coffee. I can’t do both. That’ll be the last Starbucks for a while. 

*****

It’s Friday now, and if I’m being honest (and I am always being honest), I’m patting myself on the back for all the progress I’m making on my still-long-but-shorter list of administrative catch-up tasks and medical appointments. With the blood work out of the way, I now have to make two more specialists’ appointments, get an old filling repaired, and then deal with my apparently quite high cholesterol. I’m already taking anti-anxiety meds again because the panic every time I left the house and especially any time any member of my family left the house was getting out of control, and it is a bit better. But I don’t want to take any more medication. So I guess I have to do this the hard way. And since I do pretty much everything the hard way, this shouldn’t be a problem. Everyone in my house is going to be eating very healthy food this summer. They’re not going to like it. But by the end of August, I’m going to have a crossed-off to-do list, and much better triglyceride and LDL numbers. I need to live long enough to glare at the young people in line at LabCorp. 

I actually do want my pink shirt back

It’s a rare work-from-home Thursday, 7:50 AM, and I’m waiting for a meeting to start. Today is my follow-up mammogram appointment. It’ll be fine, I’m sure. 

I’d planned to go in to the office today, as I always do on Thursday, and then just leave early for my appointment. But I’m at home instead, and it’s nothing to do with the appointment. My car finally went in for repairs, and I’m driving a rental that turns out to have expired tags. I learned this the hard way, when the Navy police pulled me out of line at the gate and held me for inspection and almost turned me around and sent me home but then they decided to allow me to remain on base as a courtesy, advising me politely not to drive that car onto the base again until it’s properly registered. With everyone else in the family working today, I have no other car available, so here I am. My real car is supposed to be ready tomorrow, and not a moment too soon. The rental is a very nice car, but I feel much more comfortable behind my own steering wheel. 

*****

Back to the appointment. I dressed in very casual WFH clothes this morning - an oversized pink oxford shirt that I know doesn’t look very good but that I still love to wear over black leggings. Then I remembered that I have to go to the hospital later, and thought that I should probably dress a little better because I think it’s true what they say - people will take better care of you if you appear as though you take care of yourself. I know that this is old-fashioned and bougie cringey boomer thinking but there it is: 

“I’ll tell you the truth. It’s up to you to live with it.” (William Goldman). 

*****

I was going to change, but then the morning got away from me, and it was almost time to leave, and I was going to be in a robe anyway, so I just decided to stay in the pink shirt and leggings. 

The radiologist’s office is very nice; clean and modern and cheerful with lots of art and posters on the wall. It’s all weird art; all about breasts, but it’s well-intentioned weirdness, bright and cheerful. I had the same technician as last week, and she took me to the same changing room with its tiny lockers and keys on wristbands. I wrapped myself into a robe that was fresh from a dryer, and waited for the technician. 

This time, she only needed to look at the left side, and she looked at it very thoroughly. I’m a little bruised. Then an extremely thorough ultrasound technician examined the left breast, placing quite a bit of pressure on an already-sore spot. The doctor appeared, and she and the technician carried on a sotto voce conversation as I lay in my robe. Then I heard the word “benign,” and I breathed a bit. 

So everything was OK, and I think I knew all along that it was going to be OK. There’s no other way to explain my complete lack of panic over the whole thing. The pink shirt was the only thing I worried about in a situation that offered such scope for worry, such an array of possibilities to panic over. I dropped the robe in the hamper, changed back into my pink shirt and leggings, and went on my way, with a nod to another woman sitting in the waiting room wrapped in her still-warm robe. I hope she’s OK, too. 

Screwball comedies of manners

Is there such a thing as a British postwar screwball comedy of manners? If so, then that is what I’ve been reading, and it’s as awesome as it sounds. 

If you don’t know Margery Sharp, and I didn’t really until this week, she is absolutely delightful, like a funnier Barbara Pym. She is most famous for The Rescuers, a children’s book that I really loved when I was a kid, but I didn’t ever think about re-reading it as an adult and never knew that Ms. Sharp wrote fiction for adult readers too. A few months ago, I stumbled across the Margery Sharp Collection, a little anthology of her novels and I just finished the first one in the collection, Something Light, which I can only describe as a 20th century Jane Austen romantic comedy of errors. Even though I predicted exactly how the book was going to end, I didn't know how Sharp would get us there. I was a little sorry to finish it and to leave Louisa Datchett and her many men behind, but the second book, The Nutmeg Tree, is just as good - hilarious and human and a bit of a page-turner. I’m really all agog to see what will happen. Julia knows that something's up with her future son-in-law, but she hasn't figured out exactly what yet. Once again, I have a pretty good guess but I'm not sure if I'm right, nor what will happen before all is revealed. I’ll report back.

There are four books in the collection; and as it turns out, this volume is only Volume 1 of the Margery Sharp Collection. There is a Volume 2, which I plan to read just the minute I finish Volume 1.  Margery Sharp is filling the gap left by Hilary Mantel and Muriel Spark, whose work I have read from start to finish; and she is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors. At least as far as reading is concerned, it should be a lovely summer. 

End of the spring and here she comes back

 It’s 12:25 PM on the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, and I’m readying myself for the first day at the pool. My canvas tote bag is packed with sunscreen, sunglasses, a little pouch containing hair ties, lip balm, and cash for the snack bar; and my neatly rolled up beach towel. That bag will accumulate other stuff as the summer wears on but right now it looks like a magazine photo shoot’s idea of a pool tote. 

The pool will look perfect, too, just for today. By Monday, the lost and found will already contain a few items. The chairs on the deck and the tables in the pavilion will be just slightly askew, and there will probably be a few leaves floating on the water’s surface. The staff will clean and arrange every day, but the pool never looks quite as sparkling and perfect as it does on day 1. 

This is our first summer without kids on the swim team. My younger son is coaching, so we’re still a Dolphins family but it’s not quite the same. I’m focusing on all the ways that this is good, starting with this weekend, which will not be spent preparing for Memorial Day 5K nor writing emails nor answering questions for new team parents. And I still know most of the families and will still go to cheer for the team. I’ll just show up at 9, rather than 6:45. There is always a bright side. There is always a sterling silver lining. 

*****

The first day was just as it’s always been; the usual suspects at our usual chairs and the usual crazy children dropping their shoes and towels and clothes on their moms’ chairs and jumping immediately into the far-too-cold water, screaming with glee. It’s a whole new set of children, of course but it felt just like it did in 2012 or so, watching my own children jump into summer with both feet. 

We sat on the deck and chatted as my niece and nephew joined the neighborhood’s children in the icy water. They swam and played and complained about the 15-minute “adult swim” break and then we went home to eat spaghetti and meatballs and salad. My nephew, who turns 11 today, ate two plates of spaghetti and then stretched out in a recliner. “Are you OK?” I asked him. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m just really tired.” My niece briefed me - her brother had been up half the night at a sleepover. I put a blanket over him and he was asleep in seconds. He didn’t move for the next two hours. My niece played and drew pictures and flopped on the floor watching “Henry Danger,” the kids’ favorite show. At that point, everyone had arrived home and we relaxed in the family room together until the children’s parents came to pick them up at 10 or so. A lovely evening, really; and an altogether lovely day. 

*****

It’s Monday now, but I’m not at work because it’s Memorial Day, a holiday, a free gift of time. It’s 10:45 now and I have been incredibly productive this morning. I realize that incredible productivity is not the point of this holiday but we all have our own ways of celebrating, don’t we? 

Sunday was another lovely near-perfect day, sunshine and friends at the pool and a brand-new book to read and a birthday dinner for an 11-year-old boy. It’s going to rain today, or at least it looks like it’s going to rain. I’d rather a third perfect hot summer day, of course, but a rainy holiday has its own charms, including a post-war British novel by Margery Sharp, about whom I will have much to say.

*****

After the morning and afternoon of incredible productivity, I took a walk, and then was trying to decide what to do with the rest of the afternoon. And then my phone rang. Long story short, I was this close (imagine finger and thumb almost touching) to having to drop everything, drive to Virginia to pick up two stranded people and drive them at least halfway to Philadelphia. And then the two stranded people got themselves on a train and said “never mind,” and the afternoon once again stretched before me. Well, a few hours of afternoon stretched before me because it was almost 3 o’clock at that point. The sky had cleared enough that rain seemed only possible, not likely, and so I went to the pool and swam my first outdoor laps of the season. I barely got through 10, but that’s about typical for the first time. I’ll build up my endurance. Meanwhile, the water was glorious (though quite cold), sparkling in the sun. No matter what the calendar says, spring is over, and summer is here. And as always, I’m all for it. 

Unfazed

Will no one rid us of this turbulent weather? It rains every weekend now. That’s our new climate here in Maryland. It seems that we just have to learn to live with it. 

We’re one week away from MDW, but nothing seems further away than summer. Yesterday, Saturday, it rained almost all day long with very brief breaks that promised some a lightening of the sky and a few dry minutes but then ended abruptly with more rain. The temperature remained in the dismal low 60s. It’s Sunday morning now and the forecast called for a reasonably nice May day. It’s not raining at least but it’s not sunny either and if I had to guess I’d say that it’ll probably rain again. It’s gloomy, is what it is, and everything feels damp. 

One nice thing is that everything is very very green. The grass is lush and our shrubs and flowers are wildly in bloom. Yesterday, I was looking out my kitchen window at the riot of growth, and I saw what looked like a turkey parading across the front lawn. But it was a vulture. I wanted to chase it away but I know what these vile creatures do when confronted with anything resembling a threat, and I wanted no part of this. Thankfully, it flew away on its own, obviating the need for any action on my part. 

But plenty of other things do require action on my part. Right now, I am fighting my way through a very long list of medical appointments and administrative tasks, two of my very least favorite things. It’s Tuesday now, a beautiful summer-is-coming day. I have a mammogram appointment this afternoon. Last week, my new doctor ordered a series of routine tests and screenings, all of which I had been avoiding. The mammogram was the first on the list, and it was the very last thing that I was planning to do. But they didn’t wait around for me to call and make the appointment because they’d have been waiting around for a while. They called me, catching me unawares, and next thing I knew I had a mammogram appointment. I hung up the phone feeling a little resentful, a little shanghaied, but I also acknowledged the wisdom of their approach because I’d have avoided a mammogram like it was a carrion bird on my front lawn. I even thought of canceling the appointment because I still have to take my car in to get it fixed, but the car can wait, I guess. 

It’s Wednesday now, another beautiful day. My son came in from swim practice at 7 this morning, just as I was getting ready to leave for work, and he said that he got a “whiff of summer” when he got out of his car. It really does smell like summer now. It feels like summer too. The mammogram was fine and I scheduled my car repair and reserved a rental car. I packaged up some items that needed to go in the mail, and I activated my new debit card and cut up and disposed of the old one. So much progress! Buoyed by this unexpected little burst of get-things-done energy, I decided to tackle Verizon, too, always one of my least-favorite things to do. My lifetime record in fights vs. Verizon is a whole other topic about which I might write because I won this round. 

*****

It’s Thursday now and it turns out that the mammogram might not have been fine. They called me yesterday and I have to go back for a second look. There’s a “shadow,” a term that apparently covers everything from scar tissue to cancer, and the only way to find out is to get another mammogram. 

I am surprisingly unfazed by this, considering my well-documented tendency to lose my damn mind over every little thing. In fact, the only thing that really bothers me right now is that I have to fit yet another thing into my schedule for next week. Not only do I have another appointment, but I have to add something back to my to-do list. I had “get mammogram” on that list and when I came home from the appointment, I crossed that item off with a rather triumphant and smug little flourish, and that attitude came back to bite me in the ass, didn’t it? Did I mention that medical appointments and administrative tasks were among my least favorite things? Well having to re-do a task that I thought I was done with is even worse. That’s the thing that bothers me most about this unexpected callback. 

*****

It’s Friday now, Friday of Memorial Day weekend, in fact. It looks like summer and it feels like summer and other than the possibility of a terrible diagnosis next Thursday, I have no problems that summer can’t solve. 

Again with the cavalier attitude. Will I never learn? 

I’m actually not cavalier about this at all. I’m kind of worried, but strangely far less worried than I would expect to be. There's really nothing I can do right now except to rejoice in the return of summer and put one foot in front of the other. It’s a three-day weekend, and other than catching up on the minutes from the last neighborhood association meeting, I can’t check off a single to-do list item until after the weekend. Until next week, everything is fine. After next week, it’s all in God’s hands. 

He-Man Woman-Hater's Club

A few weeks ago, I was sitting at Mass minding my own business when the priest, a priest whom I have always liked, decided that “Catholic marriages would be so happy if you women could stop being bitches for five hot minutes” was a good theme for a homily. I am exaggerating, of course, but only slightly. He scolded us, all of the Catholic married women sitting quietly in our pews, for never letting things go, for throwing things in our husbands’ faces that happened years ago. “Maybe he forgot to pay a bill,” he said, by way of example. “Or maybe he forgot a birthday. Or maybe he cheated. Love is forgiving - if he’s doing his best, you should forgive him and move on.” 

Yes, let’s do that shall we? Let’s be more forgiving. And let’s agree that a married man who is having sex with another woman is “doing his best.” Let’s also agree that forgetting a birthday or forgetting to take out the trash are offenses of exactly the same magnitude as infidelity; and that we women, bitches that we are, will react in exactly the same way to all three. And let’s further agree that it is the women, and only the women, who make mistakes in a marriage. The men always do their best and their best should always be good enough. Got it. Thanks, Father. 

*****

I was just about over this routine Sunday morning misogyny, and then my news feeds started to fill up with stories about an NFL kicker named Harrison Butker, who was the commencement speaker at a small Catholic college. 

First of all, I won’t make fun of this guy's name (although my gosh silver platter amirite?) but I will make fun of his smug pious Catholic punchable bearded millennial face. What is it with young traddy men and their glossy beards? Are you emulating Jesus? Because I'm pretty sure that He didn't spend much time grooming and trimming His beard, nor cutting and styling His hair. 

But really, Mr. Butker, that's none of my business. It's your face. You grow whatever you want on it. And that applies to everything else in your life that doesn't hurt anyone else. You want a million kids? Great. Enjoy, and I wish nothing but good health and happiness for as many children as you have. Mrs. Butker wants to stay at home and take care of you and the children, and forgo a paycheck and a career? Good for her. As long as she is happy and the children are well cared for, then I applaud her decision and wish her only the best. I know many brilliant SAHMs. I was one myself for a short while. 

The whole “you do you” thing breaks down for me a bit in your public utterances about what women other than your wife should do, and how people other than yourself should live. Let’s discuss, shall we? 

*****

First, though, a quick digression. Who decided that a person who kicks a ball for a living is qualified to speak at a college commencement? I understand that Mr. Butker is among the very best at this particular job, but it IS a very particular job, with skills that don’t really translate to any other endeavor of life. What is it that conservatives on the Fox News always like to say? “Stick to dribbling?” Let’s adapt that advice for Harrison Butker. Stick to kicking.

And let’s further digress. Who at Benedictine College, an apparently very religious Catholic institution, decided that a representative of the NFL was the best person to speak to Catholic life and morality? Is anyone at Benedictine familiar with the National Football League’s relationship with organized professional gambling? Is the learned administration of that institution aware that domestic violence and scantily clad cheerleaders are the NFL’s main exports vis a vis women? Is there NO ONE ELSE who could come speak to your graduates? 

But fine, let’s assume, for the sake of discussion, that the very selection of Harrison Butker was not problematic in and of itself. Let’s assume that it’s perfectly reasonable to invite a guy who kicks a ball for a living (nothing else - no throwing, no catching, no running - just kicking) and who represents a famously greedy and corrupt organization to address the graduates of Benedictine College, a college whose student population is over half female. Would it not then be reasonable to expect Mr. Butker to deliver a simple commencement speech, which is supposed to be about the graduates and their accomplishments and their futures, and not about the speaker and his stupid hot takes on a “woman’s vocation?” 

*****

This is the part that really bothers me most; or rather, it would bother me most if I was in that audience as a graduate or a parent. That speech was disrespectful and downright rude. Instead of allowing these young women five damn seconds to enjoy their accomplishments and their moment in the sun, this MF-er saw his opportunity to record a Newsmax audition tape, and he went all in. Watch the video and you can just see how proud of himself he is, out there owning the libs. “Bouta go viral in five, four, three, two, one...the feminists are going to lose their minds.” Yes the speech was misogynist and homophobic and hateful but it was also predictable, boring, and tiresome. And rude - just plain rude. 

*****

I almost hate to post this now, a week later. This bearded little ball-kicker has dominated the discourse for days, and he’s had just about enough attention, as far as I’m concerned. We are now in the backlash to the backlash stage, with the usual suspects screaming as loudly as they can about this tiny tiny tiny little man’s “First Amendment rights” as though the First Amendment is some guarantee that the world owes you a platform for all of your dumb-ass opinions and as though anyone who disagrees with you and says so is somehow infringing on your freedom. 

And at this point, what else is there to say? OK, just a few more things. First of all, wife and mother is a vocation, but so is husband and father. Why is it that only a husband and father can “fulfill his vocation” while also using his God-given talents and making money and generally contributing to the life of the world, and a wife and mother can’t? 

And one other question for Mr. Butker: Did Mrs. Butker’s life really only begin when she married you? Because I thought it began at conception. 

*****

I’m a Catholic - a faithful, believing, Rosary-praying, Mass-going Catholic. And I know that Jesus loves women. I just wish that Catholic men did, too. 

Crash

In the 25 years I’ve lived in Maryland, I’ve been rear-ended four times. The fourth time was yesterday, on my way home from work. I was at the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Hathaway Drive, the first car at the light, just waiting patiently for the light to turn green so that I could make the left turn onto northbound Georgia. 

The intersection is a slightly hairy one. One lane is a left turn only lane, and the other is for right turns and traffic proceeding directly across Georgia. The opposite intersection is the same way, and neither has a left turn arrow, which means that when you’re turning left, you have to wait until the oncoming traffic crosses Georgia. Unless you’re the lady who was right behind me, who saw the green light and just hit the gas and slammed into me. 

It was rather disconcerting to say the very least. It felt like quite an impact, forceful, and the crash noise was fairly loud too.My car is damaged and it needs to be fixed, but the damage is much less than I would have expected considering what the impact felt like. 

*****

The next morning as we were waiting for the start of our daily meeting, I told my coworkers that I had been in a minor accident the previous night. Everyone was concerned and sympathetic. Then another coworker shared his own most recent road mishap. He is a cyclist, and when a driver blew past him screaming “Get off the road,” he decided to approach the person at the next stoplight to explain that he has exactly the same right to use the public thoroughfare as any motorist. This was a risky course of action; much safer for a man then a woman, but people are crazy and if a crazy person has a gun, then it won’t much matter if you’re a man or a woman. 

As it turns out, the angry motorist did have a weapon - a set of Hello Kitty brass knuckles. As my coworker tells it, the youngish (early 30s) woman brandished the brass knuckles, and said - with a straight face - “Do you want to mess with me? Do you want some of this?” He laughed aloud, as anyone would. Do I want some of this? What is “this”? Hello Kitty swag? Because obviously, yes please - who WOULDN’T want some of that? 

Hello Kitty brass knuckles - why does this exist? 

*****

My little fender bender, which I know was minor though it didn’t feel minor at the time, was already an additional measure of fuel for what seems to be a growing case of agoraphobia. And now, of course, the bears are back. It’s May, and for the fourth or fifth year in a row, Montgomery County has seen an uptick in bear sightings. And not just in the quasi-rural north and western ends of the county, either - bear sightings were reported in Rockville and Silver Spring. Last year, we had a bear on the Navy base although you’d think that if a bear was considering enlisting, he’d go right for the Army. They’re already experts at land navigation, bears are, and so he’d nail that part of basic training. These bear visits, once considered rare and anomalous, are now apparently just a fact of life in the DMV.  My newsfeeds are filled with stories about suburban bears (and urban, because there’s a bear in NW, too), complete with commentary from experts telling us to learn to coexist with bears because they’re here to stay. They live here now. They’re our neighbors. So now I’m scared to drive anywhere (more so than even usual) and I’m also scared to walk anywhere. But of course, I’ll still do both. 

*****

There are so many situations in which a Y chromosome would come in handy, and none more so than dealing with an auto body shop. I have to get the car fixed, and I planned to take it to the same shop that fixed my old car after my son’s accident in 2021. I called them this morning, thinking that it would be smart to ask them to look at the car, figure out what needs to be done and how long it will take and what parts they’ll need; and then let them order those parts, and come back when they’re ready to do the work. That is good thinking, right? I thought so. But apparently not. Apparently, that’s dumb girl thinking.

“Oh no,” he said. “You can’t bring it in today. We don’t have any openings until the 20th. And we’ll probably have to order parts, so it would just be sitting here.” 

Hmm, I thought. Is that not exactly what I said? I think that’s exactly what I said, and I politely pointed this out. 

“Yes,” he said patiently. “But I mean if we order parts, and then we take everything apart and find that we need MORE parts.” 

The damage is minor, and there’s nothing to take apart - just replace the bumper, pull out a little dent on the back door, and paint. Easy peasy. My husband said the same thing when I relayed the conversation to him. I hadn’t bothered to push back on the body shop guy.  “I should have called them myself,” he said. Even men admit this now. Even men acknowledge that a woman isn’t going to get a straight answer from anyone in the automotive profession. 

Don’t @ me. It is what it is. 

*****

I have an appointment with the body shop now. I’m still a little nervous at stoplights (I keep looking in my rearview mirror to make sure that the car coming up behind me is slowing down enough to stop short of my bumper) and my head and shoulders don’t hurt anymore. All’s well that ends well as far as that goes. I have no idea what I’ll do if (when) the bear shows up in my neighborhood or on the walking track at work. Brass knuckles, I guess. Hoping the bears won’t want some of that. 

Things to remember

Muriel Spark wrote many of my favorite novels, including Memento Mori, which is about a loosely connected group of elderly people in postwar London. The old people, who are mostly but not all upper class, begin to receive anonymous telephone calls in which a caller asks for them by name, politely says “Remember you must die,” and then hangs up. The police become involved, and the investigator, a Chief Inspector who is rather old himself, finds that each person describes the caller differently, and so he doesn’t know if he’s looking for a young or old person, a man or a woman, English or European or American. 

While some of the victims are upset by the calls, others are unbothered. The message is after all not threatening (the caller never threatens to hasten the listener’s death, only points out that it will happen one day) and ultimately true - true for everyone, not just old people. But of course, it’s an easier message to accept for some than others. If you have regrets - real regrets, not minor ones - then old age is when you have to accept that you might not have enough time to make amends or to do that thing that you always wish you’d done. But that’s the way it is. A human lifespan is finite. Everyone must die, and we need to remember this and live accordingly. We need the occasional memento mori. 

*****

I first read Memento Mori when I was in my late 20s. At that time, I’d have described the novel's characters, who mostly range in age from 75 to 85, as very, very old people. The characters are all quite different, each with their own quirks and foibles, but one thing they have in common is that most of them do and say whatever they want, having reached the age at which people are no longer supposed to care about what others think about them. I recall the phrase  “potent distillations of themselves” to describe old people who don’t so much change as they grow older; they just become more fully and obviously the people they have always been. 

My mother is now a potent distillation of herself. And that is all I have to say about that. 

Except for this: Just because you can get away with doing or saying whatever you want under the guise of old age, it doesn’t follow that you should. Even in TV sitcoms, brutal outspokenness or oblivious-to-the-feelings-of-others behavior has very limited comic appeal. In real life, it’s not funny at all. 

This is something that I’m writing down, so that I can remember it when I’m old.  

Consequences

Have you ever heard of the Order of the Thistle? I saw a headline this morning noting that HRH King Charles has bestowed the Order of the Thistle on his youngest sibling Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh (yes, he inherited the title). I knew about the Order of the Garter and the Order of St. Michael and the tradition of chivalric societies whose only purpose seems to be to honor people who please the King or Queen in some way, but the Thistle was a new one for me. The Order of the Thistle honors Scottish people and honorary Scottish people like the Duke who have performed some extraordinary service to the monarchy. I don’t know very much about Prince Edward, but I’m sure that he has performed many extraordinary services to the Crown, not least of which is that he is not Prince Andrew. 

*****

I just finished watching “Scoop,” the Netflix movie about the BBC’s infamous BBC Prince Andrew interview, an event that I think hastened the inevitable end of the Royal Family. At the time that this interview took place (2019), the Queen was still relatively hale and hearty, and the senior Duke of Edinburgh was still alive though he had pretty much retired from public life. Although the Queen and Prince Philip were living on borrowed time, it seemed that the next generation, led by Prince Charles, would be ready to step in; and the younger senior Royals seemed happy and united and ready to serve the institution well into the future. 

I’m not an expert on the Royal Family. I’m not even that close an observer. And if the UK becomes a republic, there will be lots of things to blame - COVID, the unpopularity of Charles and Camilla, the turmoil surrounding Harry and Meghan; and of course, the death of Queen Elizabeth II, without whom the monarchy seems kind of pointless. But that interview would be a contributing factor because it threw into stark relief the outrageous impunity with which people of that class commit crimes and misdemeanors, and their absolute blank cluelessness about their behavior and its impact on others. I think that it marked the turning point for many Brits who were already ambivalent about the Royal Family and its place in British life. 

“Scoop” conveys the blank cluelessness part very well. Prince Andrew and his slavishly loyal Palace factotum come away from the disastrous interview all smiles, smug and secure and satisfied that the thing went very well, very well indeed. The viewer sees Andrew on the night of the broadcast, retiring to his private quarters to watch the interview, certain that it will be a triumph for him, that it will clear his name and restore his reputation with the British public and press, and that he’ll be able to return his focus to the important things, like a blowout 60th birthday party courtesy of the British taxpayer. Only when his phone begins to blow up with news feed updates and social media notifications and messages does he realize that he didn’t acquit himself quite as well as he thought, and that no one else seems to have noticed that he has a “tendency to be a bit too honorable.” 

A key aspect of this story, emphasized in the movie, is that the interview was the result of the work of three women - a BBC booker, producer, and anchorwoman. Two of the three women (a producer played by the amazing Romola Garai and the BBC anchorwoman played by the brilliant Gillian Anderson) are understood to be establishment figures, well educated and well connected, upper middle class at least. The third woman, Sam McAlister (played by the amazing and brilliant Billie Piper) was the driving force behind the interview, and if the movie hews closely to real life, she was the only working-class person among the three. Billie Piper’s Sam is brash and confident and fearless in the workplace but Piper allows us to see her insecurity, too. We see Sam at home with her school-age son and her mother, their down-to-earth unglamorous household a marked contrast to the Palace and probably also quite different from the households of Garai’s Esme Wren and Anderson’s Stella Maitlis, whose personal lives the movie does not really examine closely. 

It took three women to really clearly see how dreadful Andrew’s conduct was and to understand how important it was to hold him to account. By positioning Sam McAlister as the story’s heroine, the movie also suggests that only a working-class woman would be truly outraged at the impunity with which royals and aristocrats and just plain rich people hurt others and get away with it. Sam McAlister, portrayed by Billie Piper as plain-spoken, flamboyantly blond and label-obsessed (her Chanel pin is like a secondary character) has had enough of Eton and Harrow and Oxford and Cambridge and royals and their hangers-on and enablers, and she’s done waiting for someone to do something about it. By doggedly pursuing the Andrew interview, she not only lands the biggest story of the year for the BBC, she also brings about a small measure of justice for Epstein’s victims. 

Of course Andrew didn’t face criminal prosecution for knowingly participating in sex trafficking because let’s not get carried away here. I wonder how many British people, even if they’re not staunch royalists, would really even want to see a member of the Royal Family in the dock. That’s a question of change vs. revolution, which is quite a bit more than I want to go into right now. But he did face consequences. He lost many of his privileges and his Civil List income. And one of his victims sued him in civil court in the United States, and received a settlement in an undisclosed but presumably substantial amount. Maybe all of this is still not enough but for a person steeped in privilege and wealth and power for his whole life, the loss of those things must have been very hard, very hard indeed. Maybe it’s enough that Andrew had to experience the “find out” part of the proceedings in a very public fashion. 

Game 82

I thought that I didn’t care if the Capitals made the playoffs or not. The season was an uneven one at best, with an 8-game losing streak toward the end; and I thought it was fine to just let this one end quietly, and then hope for better next year. Alex Ovechkin is getting so close to breaking Wayne Gretsky’s all-time scoring record, and that makes every game fun to watch even if you don’t expect many wins. 

But then the season got down to game 82, and a very last-ditch chance for the last wildcard playoff spot. Last night’s game was do or almost-certainly die against the Flyers. Had they lost to the Flyers, there were still a few complicated “if Detroit and Pittsburgh lose” scenarios that might have opened the door to the last playoff spot, but the best thing was for them to win in any way - regulation, overtime, or shootout. And they did, against a team that was also down to the wire and also fighting to get into the playoffs. 

*****

Does anyone else agree that John Tortorella was absolutely born to coach the Philadelphia Flyers? I can’t imagine that guy doing anything other than coaching a Philadelphia sports team. Maybe he can take over the 76ers or the Eagles, too. 

*****

I’m not going to say that the game was fun to watch because it absolutely was not, especially the last period. It was stressful. It was a wracking of nerves that a person my age should not subject herself to. But all’s well that ends well. We get four more games now. The online haters are already predicting that the Rangers will sweep us in four and maybe they will. But maybe they won’t. Anything can happen in the playoffs, as the 2023 Boston Bruins can tell you. Let’s go Caps. 

Low speed

I’m WFH today even though it’s Thursday because I don’t feel well and if I was a normal and reasonable person I’d be in bed or at least on the couch napping and watching Netflix or something but instead I’m at my desk because I feel duty-bound not to take a whole sick day. I have a lot of work to do. 

MSNBC is on as background noise. I turn it off every so often but then I hear weird noises from the attic or the walls or the refrigerator, which sounds like it’s committing axe murder every time it drops a load of ice, and so then I turn it back on so that I don’t freak out at all the weird noises. Whatever is causing those weird noises is still going on, to be sure; but if I can’t hear it, then I don’t worry about it. 

OJ Simpson’s face was the first thing I saw when I turned the TV back on and I wondered for a moment if he’d confessed to the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, or if he’d been arrested again for some unrelated offense. I was actually shocked when I saw the chyron. He was 76 - not that old but not so young that his death should come as a shock. But it did come as a shock. 

A few years ago, the subject of the OJ Simpson trial came up in our house. I think it was because my husband was watching the "American Crime Story" dramatization. I told my kids, who were probably 17 and 14 at the time, that it was just not possible for me to convey exactly how big a deal the OJ arrest and trial were in 1994 and 1995; how completely that story dominated the cultural conversation. “Imagine,” I said, “if Tom Brady or LeBron James or Aaron Judge was suspected of murder, and then they tried to escape into Canada or Mexico with a posse of police cars chasing them. That’s how big a deal it was.” I think they got it, but it’s also one of those things that you had to experience first-hand. It’s a Gen X thing. These kids wouldn’t understand. 

And that’s all I have to say about OJ except that I hope that the Goldman and Brown families have found some measure of comfort and solace. I hope that OJ reconciled with God before he died. I hope that all the dead rest in peace. 

All She Lost

My life is pretty good. It’s pretty good objectively, and it’s also really good compared to the lives of many many many - most - people in the world. Five seconds’ exposure to news coverage or even social media is enough to confirm this. 

But I don’t take my good fortune for granted. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’m very well aware that a natural disaster or a terrorist attack (real or engineered) or a financial collapse (real or engineered) could upend my whole life. We could go from relative security and comfort to abject poverty in the blink of an eye. We could end up refugees. Anyone could. Sometimes when I’m feeling cynical or pessimistic (even more so than usual, that is), I think about how little power most of us have, and how few of the people who do have real power actually care about the rest of us. 

*****

A few weeks ago, I heard an NPR (I forget which program) interview with Dalal Mawad, author of All She Lost, a book about women’s experiences following the 2020 explosion in the port of Beirut. I was ashamed to realize that I barely remembered this explosion, which killed hundreds and caused a ripple effect of political and economic consequences that devastated an already-falling-apart country. 2020 was a hard year for everyone, but this was a pretty major and memorable event that I should have recalled immediately. There's no excuse for that kind of solipsism. I’m the worst sometimes. 

Anyway, I bought the book that day. It’s a series of stories based on the author’s first-person interviews with women who lost children, husbands, parents, siblings, friends, homes - who lost everything in the explosion - and who are now four years later still trying to figure out how to go on. It’s a very simple and beautiful book, but not easy to read. The book is short and the individual women’s chapters are short, but it still took me over a week to get through. 

One of the central themes that Mawad returns to over and over is the consequences of a failed state, which Lebanon essentially is now. What happens, she asks (and answers) when there are no functioning institutions; no real government to enact new laws or to enforce existing ones. One of the main functions of a good government is to protect the weak from the rampages of the strong. What happens when the weak and the strong are left to fight it out among themselves? 

Mawad knows what happens. So do I. Given the opportunity, the strong will always crush the weak - always and everywhere, without exception, without fail, 100 percent of the time. 

*****

Last week, I celebrated the failure of Ted Leonsis, whom I once rather liked but whom I now consider to be nothing more than a greedy billionaire sports owner just like the rest of them, to move my beloved Capitals from Capital One Arena in Washington DC (hence the “Washington” in Washington Capitals, Ted) to a yet-to-be-constructed multi-billion dollar retail and entertainment complex in Alexandria, VA, a place that looks close enough to DC when you’re looking at a map but that is really  kind of a nightmare to get to from Silver Spring, even if you’re taking Metro (Note: I love Metro, but I hate changing trains. If it’s not on the Red Line, it’s dead to me.) There are of course lots of Capitals fans in Virginia but it seems that most of them, except for their stupid Trumpity Trumpster of a governor, also didn’t want the team to move. Northern Virginia is already insanely congested and it certainly isn’t in any need of economic development projects. Leonsis, who had explicitly promised never to move the Capitals or the Wizards out of Washington, just wanted a new arena and like most billionaires in this country, he wanted other people to pay for what he wanted. For weeks, local media shared Leonsis talking points about how public financing of a project that will yield massive private profit is really good for everyone. This is the standard argument every time some greedy billionaire sports owner (that phrase is redundant) wants a local or state government to pay for a new arena from which he and his team will reap all of the profits. I haven’t run across a single convincing variation of this utter nonsense, and there are many variations. 

Anyway, because he’s accustomed to getting what he wants, Leonsis was blithely confident and sure that everything would go according to his plan. But it didn’t, to my great satisfaction. Of course, he ended up getting lots of money from the District of Columbia, which has more than enough other places to spend tax dollars, to stay put, and I think that he was playing both sides against one another. But I also think that the absolute refusal of Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates to allow a vote on the bill to fund the Alexandria boondoggle was real and not a show, and I applaud those Delegates. 

The news about the Capitals’ decision to remain in DC was reported the day after the freighter Dali collided with the Baltimore Francis Scott Key Bridge, which seconds later collapsed into the Patapsco River. The ship had managed to signal mayday soon enough that MDOT was able to close the bridge to traffic, but six people - construction workers - still died. 

What does an explosion in Lebanon have to do with a bridge in Baltimore? What does a warehouse full of ammonium nitrate have to do with the future home of the Washington Capitals? I don’t know, except that the more I think about it, the more these things seem related. In a functioning state controlled by an of-the-people, by-the-people, and (most importantly) for-the-people government, a billionaire shouldn’t get to hold a state and a city hostage to his demands for money and tax breaks so that he can build a new arena or refurbish an existing one, both projects that he can well afford to pay for out of his own coffers. In that same functioning state, bridges shouldn’t tumble into the water. 

*****

My son had a few days off at Easter, which was lovely. I took a few days off as well, and I drove to his school on Thursday to pick him up. His college is in Arlington, VA, not far from home. But again, the map is deceptive when you live in the DMV. If you’re not from here, you’d think that our house to Marymount University would be a 20 minute trip. It’s not remotely like that in real life. The drive there always takes an hour, though it’s usually a pretty easy and pleasant hour. I don’t love the Beltway but I can handle it - I’ve been driving it for years. Then you take the Cabin John Parkway to the Clara Barton Parkway (I can never tell the difference between the two but they’re very picturesque) and then the Chain Bridge to Glebe Road in Arlington. 

The Chain Bridge is really not a scary bridge at all, but it’s old and it spans the Potomac near the rapids at Great Falls, which is not a place where you’d want your car to plunge into the water. I was holding my breath as I drove across that bridge. But it was fine. I got to Arlington in one piece, and then took an alternate route home because the George Washington Parkway is still under construction and it’s a road of terror. 

And that’s enough about the condition of roads and bridges in the DMV. This isn’t a traffic report. IYKYK. 

*****

As I mentioned last week, pretty much everyone in Maryland is still shaken following the Key Bridge collapse. Baltimoreans are especially shaken, particularly the ones who drove back and forth across that bridge (which was kind of a terrifying bridge to begin with) every day and know that but for the grace of God, their cars could have been on that bridge that night. I was definitely thinking about the Key Bridge as I white-knuckled my way across the Potomac last Thursday. But that’s not all I was thinking about. I was thinking about who’s in charge; who do we trust to make sure that bridges remain intact and above rather than in the bodies of water they span? What’s stored in all of those warehouses in nearby ports and industrial parks? Who’s making sure that they’re not filled with toxic chemicals or unexploded grenades or cages full of snakes that Samuel L. Jackson will eventually have to fight, one by one? What happens if a large employer decides that they’re going to pick up stakes and go to another state or another country where labor is cheap and regulations are few and far between? Who’s going to stop them? Who is looking after the proverbial little guy?

We are far from a failed state. I know this. But it’s no longer reasonable to think that we could never be one. 

*****

The sad thing about All She Lost, the thing I keep thinking about now that I’m finished with the book, is that four years later, most of these women seem to have nearly given up hope. The ones who do seem a tiny bit hopeful are the ones who have moved away from Lebanon. The author herself took her daughter and moved to Paris, leaving her husband behind to try to rebuild his family’s business. All of the women, whether they stayed or went abroad, seem to agree that a normal, reasonably happy, reasonably safe life is no longer possible in Lebanon. They’re not talking about rebuilding or transforming their country. They don’t have the energy to fight anymore. They haven’t moved on because how can you move on?