Two Things I am Not Trying to Understand

These two things I am not trying to understand.

1. Supportive, positive, intentional association with the views and practices of a man who promotes a false flag discussion of Sandy Hook.
2. Intentional use, repetition, and promotion of rhetoric supportive of institutional and personal abuse of women, African Americans, Latinx individuals, Muslims, and refugees.

Since the United States voted this week to elect the man who will be our new president in two months, we have heard and read many sentiments and statements. We've heard much about needing and wanting to understand each other, to learn why people we know and disagree with voted for someone whose actions and words we characterize as abominable, dangerous, or unfathomable.

I have said that now is not the time to invest further in understanding why the unfathomable was done.

I believe and strongly, painfully feel this because there are two things that I know go beyond a lack of understanding on my part. I don't want or need to understand why someone that I know - as a human and often as a friend - supported the national, world, and cultural leadership of our president elect.

May I be clear: 

I do not say this is "not my" president elect. That is, he is my president elect.

I do not say that I cannot respect, empathize with, care about, or learn from my friends whose vote supported our president elect.

I do not say that a friend who practiced her or his civil right in support of the president elect believes that no children died at Sandy Hook, no teachers died, no parents grieve, no grandparents mourned, no siblings... Nor do I say that such a friend believes abuse is good or that hateful rhetoric is a positive trait in a leader.

I do not say that a citizen must or does agree with everything a candidate says, does, or promotes.

I do not say that a candidate for U.S. president must or does agree with every person or group who campaigns for him.

I am saying that there are things about which I will not compromise because these things are so wrong and simultaneously so integral to the character - at least as it is portrayed - of a leader.

I am saying that, given the length and mass-social mediation of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, I do not believe or have hope that I will hear something new addressing a good, worthy reason to act in favor of a leader who practiced the two things listed above. I don't feel a sense of responsibility or desire to listen to explanations that don't acknowledge the evil in those two practices.

I am not linking to online sources which have received mass, repeated, and diverse attention during the many months before this week. They not only are there, they have been there; now is not the time for us to re-state and re-link to examples as if fresh data or a fresh debate is that one thing we need. (If you are genuinely unsure what the number one point I list above is, and you want to expose yourself to that information, you can do a google or human-conversation-search for Al*x J*nes. [Fill in the vowels.])

Good will not come from our discussing the relative significance of the two practices listed above. Perhaps right now we might not need to know for whom our friends voted (or why). We do need to know how each other hurts and what each other celebrates. This is one of our high callings.

Let's try to understand the economic and other social struggles and pain the federal government may be able to lessen, and how we can participate in that work of justice and relief. Let's acknowledge, even if not in fraught conversation between you and me, that there is nothing good to say in excuse for two unfathomable practices of our president elect.

The crappiest.

In an email from a friend who might not mind my quoting:

"PS – I was really sorry to hear about Paul Newman, though this is the wrong medium in which to say so. This has probably been the crappiest few months in your entire life, and I’m really sorry about it."

Thanks for helping me feel freer not to pull it totally together if someone knocks on my door while I'm crying or catches me in a blurry or sudden-onset-teary moment mid-conversation in a parking lot or hallway.

And the rest-of-life challenges haven't happened to go away.

The brights spots are true, too. I'm not lying.

But it is crappy grieving and living at the same time.

Fitting Friends and Finds: Antiques Roadshow, Here We Come!

Post Table of Contents
Section 1: Moral of the Story
Section 2: The Story Before Pictures
Section 3: The Story Continued With Pictures

Some of you will want to skim section 2.

The Moral of the Story: Always travel with a friend who can find cool stuff for you, and you for her; remain open to the input and help of others, even if they overly confidently suggest something you just tried and found failing; don't measure things before deciding whether to buy them; and be willing to ask to borrow a screw driver from someone who is actually trying to sell not loan it for free!

The Pictureless Part of the Story
We wandered around the flea market for a couple of hours this morning, admiring kitsch, families, nostalgia, and possibilities. (Shawn also named all the breeds of the many dogs we encountered. But that's not part of the story. I also don't have any pictures of that part.)

Shawn was looking for a ring. A nice, unique ring for $50 birthday money.

I, who really am usually (and happily) just along for the ride on our adventures like this (my contribution to the social calendar this fall was to suggest we attend a high school football game in October; my sister, mother of two teenagers attending the #1 ranked high school football school in the nation, assures me it isn't creepy for non-alumni, non-parents, non-h.s.-teachers to attend; I'm going for the nachos and nostalgia; do they serve nachos at New England high school football games?! At least they should have a marching band. Right? Oh, but I did take us to an art gallery after the flea market, so never mind). . . I announced cheerily as we left early this morning, "I'm going for a bike and furniture!" I'd been thinking about buying a bike for awhile, but not seriously planning to pick one up today. And, I don't need any furniture, but I'd just been admiring a corner shelf unit Shawn has in her dining room, so I thought it would make a nice focal point for me on our trip. I wasn't really looking for furniture, just company and society.

But we weren't finding any nice rings. I kept flirting with a spinning globe that lights up and an unpleasantly framed supercool old map of Boston Harbor, but neither one was priced to sell (to me).

Then I said to Shawn, using my subtly-toned "I'm serious, not ironically pointing out a hideous piece of never-fashionable trash" voice, "I think you will want this." It was a very nice old camera, in amazing shape -- inside the case, the camera, etc. -- for its age. She loved it, bargained it down to just slightly more than she should have paid, and had her find.

We wandered around some more, then she said, "Wow! You must love this!" And pointed out a contraption I'd never seen before or known existed, but didn't even bother bargaining down to just slightly more than I should have paid. It's a library-step-stool-arm-chair. Apparently they exist.

The professional-garage-saler cleared it of the books he was using it to display, showed me how it folded over, assured me it would hold me if I climbed up the steps (it did), and pointed out how it was broken in a few spots and imperfectly mended. I gave him all the money I had in the world (of that time and place) and we distractedly wandered the rest of the flea market until we admitted out loud that we were both a little concerned about it fitting in Shawn's car.

We have a history.

A few months ago we drove a couple of hours west to visit a huge warehouse of letter press equipment. I didn't even know it existed, but Shawn took a class. On the way back, or maybe a little way out of our way, we stopped in a thrift store and I fell in love with a very comfortable green chair. For quite a bit less, I must say, than what I paid for my new ladder-chair. But it didn't come with its own step stool so. . . . But, being two hours from home (so not inclined to find alternate forms of transpo if needed), we used the measuring tape Shawn carries in her purse. For such a time as this. We measured all the several widths, lengths, and heights of the chair. We measured all the openings of the car. We calculated. We did not purchase the green chair. One or the other of us thinks of it and brings it up at least twice a month. Semi-monthly, even. Except for its size (or the size of Shawn's car door openings), it was a perfect chair for me.

I had paid the man for my new chair-with-steps. We had not measured. We drove Shawn's car as close as we could get it to the row with the library-chair-ladder-man's stuff, including my paid-for chair. I won't tell you the part about how we wandered up and down a couple of rows before we found him and my chair again. It was pretty close to the car. The chair is made of solid walnut (he says). Shawn said this would be heavy, but we're two strapping women. I didn't tell her or the man I'm not so strapping. (I just looked up "strapping" on dictionary.com. I changed my mind. I am strapping ("large, whopping" in sense #2); Shawn is strapping ("powerfully built" in sense #1). So, we're good.)

We carried the awkwardly constructed chair (it has folding and flapping parts) to her car.

The Part of the Story With Pictures

And then the comedy began. We tried it front first. Sideways. Back first. Front seat. Back seat. We cleared everything out of the trunk, and there was a lot of stuff in there (I didn't take a pictures, because I sensed Shawn's issues with this part of the story). We tried it frontwards, backwards, sideways, in the trunk. Nine days old.


And friendly, helpful person after friendly, helpful person stopped by. Offering to help. Suggesting we try another way (almost always the way we'd just tried). Several saying they do this for a living ("I move antiques"). One man suggesting I could rent a trailer -- just add another $10 to the cost of the chair. I do not believe I could get a Uhaul trailer in this northern town and use it to bring my library-chair-steps down to my house in my southern town for $10. I did not call him a liar, because I believe he meant well. The little Italian man running the booth right next to where we were illegally parked kept insisting we just tie it in the trunk. "It not going nowhere! I know! You drive all the way to New York, it not go nowhere!" We had no rope; I had no hope. I asked to try it one more time on its side in the back seat, just for my sanity before she went in search of rope and I pictured it flying off the back of the car for the whole drive home.


We tried it in the back on the side again, and a nice man stopped by to give us more advice. It has hinges, he said. Yes, Shawn said, but it's still too wide. I said, "It's so close, let's try to take the bottom step part off the hinges."

The nice lady let us borrow a screwdriver she had displayed on her flea market table with other random tools (how much were they asking to sell that single, used, simple flathead screwdriver for?!).


The steps came off. The chair went in. It's a beautiful thing.


After brunch in a cafe in Salem and visiting my friends-colleagues' home-which-doubles-as-an-art-gallery open house and (both of us) buying art for other friends, we parted ways, I inserted the chair-in-two-pieces in the back of my car, drove home, brought it upstairs, screwed it back together, and: voila!






I haven't figured out yet where I'll put it or what I'll use it for.


Though I do have excruciatingly high ceilings and light bulbs that consequently have been burned out for over a year, I don't have bookshelves up high (and the step stool is not only not nearly tall enough for me to reach the bulbs, it also emphatically must only be used in library-like climbing activities).


Georgie does not like the new chair (nor does she like Buddy).


It's a beaut and I'm pleased as punch and a pickle.


I also found a scary looking bug on it, which I brought to an end, and vacuumed up some other animal's hair off it, but it could use some more cleaning. Which makes it fit in just fine in its new home.


Also, it has wheels (Shawn says "casters"). I love furniture with casters.

Wherever you are, may there be music, strangers, ice cream (if you like it), and fat dogs in strollers

When my bus blew a tire last Saturday evening in The Middle Of Nowhere, Connecticut, maybe halfway between a refreshing visit with my friend Heidi in NYC and Boston's South Station, Humanity reared its interesting head.

No one freaked. Everyone seemed to take it in stride, even while we sat for well over an hour on the side of the interstate while CT staties, take-charge passengers, and the inexplicably smiling driver couldn't seem to make any progress in applying our contingency plan. We have a contingency plan, don't we?

No, everyone seemed just to do their own thing. The college kids made immediate friends smoking and swapping stories about bars, while the rest of us wandered or stood around calmly in the field where we'd pulled over.


One passerby pulled over on the side of the highway and ran the quarter mile back to us, entered the bus and asked if a certain person was aboard. No? She went to the back of the bus to check, then ran back to her car and kept driving. Another car pulled over and the driver came to tell us "I have room for three -- I'm going to Boston." My nervous seatmate and two others ran across the field to pile in the stranger's little car, all of us accepting he was a Good Samaritan and not a crazazy freak.


The young couple in the row in front of me -- he in an Israeli Army Reserves shirt, she reading a novel in Hebrew script -- tried to tamp down their curiosity and enthusiasm. I served them, by getting my camera out and snapping away. He grinned and almost seemed to crackle with enjoyment as he, and soon a few others, confidently documented the misadventure.

After awhile, the state police told us all to get back on the bus. They figured 45 minutes of milling about freely on the side of an interstate was enough danger for that time and place.


The driver never told us a thing that was going on, but one passenger took it on himself to give updates so I wasn't confused when we pulled off at the exit and drove slowly and carefully to the Shell Station parking lot where we lived for the next nearly two hours.



The band members riding across the aisle from me eventually got their instruments out, set up by the dumpster and played not particularly inspiring jazz. The very fact they were playing music was great -- but I wondered if their level of talent warranted taking instruments on the bus back and forth from NYC to Boston: did people pay to hear them outside the context of a surreal roadtrip?





I sat on the bus and ran my ipod batteries down. I finished reading "The Year of Magical Thinking." I twittered and photographed our "progress."



And a mechanic arrived to change the big tire, then a new bus from Boston? New York? pulled up, and with no instructions, we all piled on and headed back to the Big B.






I'd gone to New York to see where Heidi's been living on the upper upper west side for six months (last trip I took down we hung out on the lower east side for a few hours and I took another bus right back up, without staying over night). This visit I took the bus down, the subways up, spent the night in her miniature home, and we thrived in good talks and walks through her neighborhood and then midtown the next day.

There are a lot of people in the world. There is a lot of music. There are mishaps, adventures, dogs and dog poop, cell phones, a limited but sufficient supply of patience, and. . .



Life is a highway. It's beautiful when we manage to roll with whatever comes our way: walk our dogs, take our pictures, play our instruments, keep our cools, and accept rides with strangers across state lines.

Chicks and Pigs

This week on "R & S Visit the Farm," S chats with chickens before our heroes pick-their-own fresh parsley, savory, oregano and thyme while R says "that's not how the song goes" one too many times.



Also, vegetarian "there's way too much produce in this deal for me" S continues her encouraging ministry to piggies by scratching their ears (though asking if they miss their friends who "took a trip" a couple of weeks ago).





R takes pictures with too little attention to lighting (and too little energy for photoshop) and is psyched by the inclusion of THREE HEADS OF LETTUCE and some CILANTRO in their haul today.



(Meanwhile, back off the ranch, G has stealthfully been SLEEPING IN HER CATBED heretofore relegated to toybox status because previously neither she nor B would step foot in it. Pictured here she makes a quick escape insisting "I wasn't being precious like a real kittie in my kittie bed! I wasn't!")