Shit's bad

Friends, I’m not really sure what to say. In short, America is in extremely deep trouble. Uninformed and misinformed citizens are marching willingly with leaders -who at best have been brainwashed and hoodwinked but who are, more likely, fully cognizant of what they’re doing in the name of personal gain and power- into the maw of authoritarianism.

Since the GOP acquitted trump, he has:

• disinvited Mitt Romney to CPAC, and the conference’s organizer stated that ‘the Utah Republican’s vote for more witnesses and documents in President Trump’s impeachment trial would make him unsafe at the event.’ “This year, I’d actually be afraid for his physical safety, people are so mad at him,” American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp said in an interview Saturday on “Full Court Press” with Greta Van Susteren;

• recalled Gordon Sondland (who really cares, but still) for not-enough fealty;

• fired Lt Colonel Vindman AND his twin brother from the NSC and had them escorted out of duty by security officers as if they were criminals;

• worked with AG Barr to interfere in the federal sentencing of Roger Stone, a move so unprecedented, wrong, and offensive to the justice system that all four federal prosecutors resigned from the case and one from his job entirely;

• urged government prosecutors to indefinitely delay Michael Flynn’s sentencing and the judge agreed;

• told Barr/approved of Barr’s decision to create “an ‘intake process in the field’ that could vet information coming from Giuliani, as well as ‘all information that comes to the department relating to the Ukraine.’ This would allow the information to “be carefully scrutinized by the department and its intelligence community partners so that we could assess its provenance and its credibility.” The justice department is NOT supposed to serve as a secretive informational pipeline between the White House and shady, off-book, rogue actors like trump’s “personal attorney,” Rudy Giuliani.

• withdrawn the nomination of Elaine McCusker, a Defense Department official who was to become the chief financial officer of the Pentagon, because she had raised objections to his withholding aid to Ukraine;

• suggested that warmer weather in April will “miraculously” end the coronavirus epidemic.

and on and on.

This is all seriously bad and seriously dangerous. I hope you are doing everything you can to encourage a blue tsunami in November. Everything depends on it, and I am not being dramatic or hyperbolic in the least.

Please call your representatives and demand that Barr be called to testify before House Judiciary MUCH sooner than March 31.

At least Parasite won Best Picture and Bong Joon Ho won Best Director. Sigh.

I-95

Early on this wintry Saturday, I-95 is quiet. Shrouded in fog, lined by spiny, leafless trees, save for the pines. Litter and traffic cones dot the otherwise monochromatic landscape. Here a sleeping excavation machine; there, in a clearing, a shrine to a dead loved one, the cross and wreath tidy, tended. What looks like a hawk wings through the haze. What looks like an owl watches intently, feathers puffed against the chill.

The bus driver pulls into a rest stop. A new driver boards. Wrappers crinkle, a respectfully low din of conversation is a hypnotic white noise.

We resume our journey north. The fog is spectral, enchanting. Was it fog like this that blinded Kobe’s helicopter pilot? What is beautiful can also break, crush, ruin. Just look at the world.

I am heading to New York for refuge in its relentless vibrancy and tolerance, the theater, and a coincidental overlap with my parents’ own week of retreat in the city.

In this bus in this fog in this cold in this path through dead-not-dead, I feel peace for the first time in weeks.

It is welcome.

Sink plants

Ignoring the state of the Republic to bring you a story of sink plants.

Sink plants, you ask? What are they? Do read on.

Several months ago, after brushing his teeth one morning, Ol came in my room and said, “Momma, there are plants growing out of my sink.”

Certain that he was punking me, because Ol is exceptionally good at pulling off pranks of all size and shape, I said, “Sure, Ol. Finish getting ready for school.”

Plants growing out of a sink.

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The next morning, however, Ol returned to tell me that seriously, “There ARE plants growing out my sink.”

“Oliver, WHAT? Ugh.” I kinda stomped into his bathroom, and lo!

Ignoring the disgusting state of the sink and drain itself, or actually not because apparently it sustains life, THERE WERE PLANTS GROWING OUT OF HIS SINK. Boys are really just gross in many ways. I mean, WHAT?

I was so flabbergasted that all I could do was laugh uncontrollably and nearly pee. “Oliver, there ARE plants growing in your sink. This is totally disgusting and also hilarious.”

“I told you, Momma. I have been spitting tomato seeds in there…”

While he was at school, I continued to marvel at the hopeful green sprouts. Our housekeepers had recently scrubbed the sink, Ol had been spitting toothpaste down the hatch twice-daily, there are no windows directly facing the vanity, and oh my god, that drain is nasty. But what did those seeds do? They persevered.

I tenderly removed each seedling and decided to plant them. Why not? Were they in fact tomatoes? What kind? Would they keep growing if transplanted?

Ol’s buddy gave him this dinosaur planter for a birthday years ago, and it seemed perfect for the purpose at hand. I used good potting mix and placed the vessel on a sunny sill in our kitchen. When Ol got home and saw his plants, he was delighted.

Months later, and the sink plants are thriving. One was very alpha, so I had to divide and repot them earlier this week. They’re so damn earnest that I felt I should give them the best shot, and so purchased an inexpensive grow light. This has delighted Oliver, all of us really, even more.

It quickly became clear that the plants were, in fact, tomatoes. And Ol recently shared that he feels they are mini Kumatos. We shall see.