Thank you, boosters, 1/6

This evening after dinner, I caught Tom picking roasted potatoes off the sheet pan with his fingers and shoving them in his mouth. Long story short, yesterday’s post did not describe rare occurrences.

But, you knew that! You’ve experienced it, and I can’t thank you enough for filling my inbox today with such delightful notes of laughter and total understanding. They were the best sorts of hugs and friendship.

I also want to thank scientists, science, Dr. Fauci, Pfizer, quick decisions by the FDA and CDC this week, the Biden admin for urging quick delivery, and the Silver Spring Civic Center for the glorious fact that both J and O received their boosters today. We were in and out in 20 minutes, start to finish (including the wait), and both boys feel totally fine. Hallelujah!

I will add that while in the waiting room, both Beavis and Butthead alerted me to the fact that max capacity is 69. For the love of god, y’all.

Your notes and these shots were such bright spots in an otherwise pretty heavy day. ONE year since that horrible, violent insurrection. I remember it all so clearly. We’d woken up so happy that morning, after Ossoff and Warnock won in Georgia. And mere hours later, Agent Orange called his minions and gave them their marching orders. As the day played out, I became increasingly speechless and horrified. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt like I did on that day. Watching fellow citizens do what they did.

The violence. The entitled-yet-ignorant rage. The flags and the Big Lie and thousands of little lies and the military-grade cosplay.
The screaming and destruction and feces and Confederate paraphernalia.
The gallows and the broken windows and members of Congress pulling gas masks from under their seats and their staffs turning anything into barricades.
The guns and grenades and fire extinguishers and flag poles.
The flash bangs and the havoc. The joy they were all taking in all of it. The utter insanity of being not 10 miles from all of this and yet a world away.

I have family on both sides, mine and Tom’s, who remain trumpers. To this day. Today. Who still believe in the Big Lie and pretend not to know how to pronounce Kamala’s name and who will not, under any circumstance, listen to, much less ingest, anything that does not slip neatly into the glove of trumpism they’ve fashioned and sewn to their own beings. They have and will lose family and friends over their house of cards. They do NOT care what the truth is.

And that right there is the essential kernel of why I feel truly hopeless about the survival of American democracy. I have no idea how to un-brainwash so many Americans who continue to joyfully follow a greedy, stingy, grab-em-by-the-pussy imbecile who does not care for them.

One year later and no organizers, higher-ups, instigators, law-enforcement enablers have met consequence. Yes, yes, many participants in the insurrection are in jail and such, but they are the tail of the snake, a replaceable element that serves the writhing, causal, intentional, toxic head. Am I glad they’re crying in prison? Absolutely. Rot there forever you machismo toy soldiers who peaked in high school.

But what is essential for America’s survival is real accountability and real punishment. The 1/6 Select Committee is working hard, and I am thankful. I hope Merrick Garland and DOJ are doing something, anything. Hard to tell, even after that “speech” yesterday.

Hope. A desire for something certain to happen. The human spirit is remarkable and resilient, but so many are so tired and beaten down after the past 5 years and the pandemic and so little accountability and that 99% of one whole ass American political party continues to peddle the Big Lie and that people to whom I’m related do, too.

It’s a lot, y’all.

This article is worth a read!

If you missed VP Harris’ and POTUS’ speeches today, go find and listen to them. Righteous anger is healing.

If you’d like to read the verbatim responses to 1/6 by many a Congressional Republican last January, this thread is a hell of a damning compilation.

sad but true

If you need inspiration or a lift, go listen to anything Jamie Raskin has said in the past year. He is an incredible human and a remarkable, rare politician. I am beyond blessed to be one of his constituents. He has stood up for America and our democracy with all his heart every damn day, even in the aftermath of losing his son at the end of 2020. He is the epitome of a public servant, and we should all be grateful for him. His new book is out today, by the way. Unthinkable. Read it.

Image by Leah Millis, a senior photog with Reuters.

Why are men?

Ok, y’all, since the first trimester ultrasound that showed, clearly, Oliver’s Y chromosome, I have known that I, as a woman, would always be in the minority in my family. Percy was a boy (RIP, buddy) and Nutmeg is a giant alpha-marking-everything male. I am repeatedly thankful for graceful Ruthie and her pink collar for giving me a sex-based compatriot in this household. She never makes inappropriate bathroom choices, she is gentle and yet quite the fierce huntress, and she does not mindlessly front-load her food. #Bless

I’ve actually found that I’m quite well-suited to boyish energy and humor, and I feel a profound responsibility for and honor in raising a different kind of man. One who is emotionally sophisticated, in touch with his inner self and endowed with an expansive vocabulary with which to process and express the spectrum of feeling and experience we all have, happy to hug and say “I love you,” and so forth.

I think I’m doing a solid job. The boys are marvelous humans. They are kind, generous, both say “I love you” all the time, have zero desire to “be cool,” are good to talk to, and express a decent variety of distinct emotions. My dearest husband is all of that in spades, minus, possibly, the last two. #Bless.

THAT SAID, jesus christ. Why? Why, what? you might ask. Why the immediate veer towards extreme bachelor living? And why must everything return to phalluses? Have y’all watched Mythic Quest? It’s a TV comedy about video game programming, and one of the key messages is TTP: time to penis. How long in any game, with any resources, will it take for a penis to emerge?

Two days ago, we had our first snow of the season, and it was a real one. A beautiful, multi-inch, yes-you-can-sled-and-need-to-shovel snow.

The kids bundled up, and raced out, and suddenly, interrupted from an “I can read now?” leap, there was a knock on the window and I looked up to this:

how pleased do they look? that is NOT a snowman.

TTP: immediate.

Today, both boys finally at school (no school for either on Monday; Oliver was virtual and Jack was home on Tuesday; today was a 2-hour delay), I walked around the house cleaning. What I saw boggles the mind, and some of this is all husband.

Observe:

why dental pick while bathing? must one really do this?

why is all of this? we have so many towel hooks. also, WTF?

Why? What? Who takes a gallon of milk to his bathroom?

Points for recognizing that yes, you do need toilet paper after the other roll is used up, but A) the used roll does NOT (not pictured) need to be thrown under the vanity, not least because there is a garbage can RIGHT THERE, and B) how can difficult could it possibly be to put the tp package back into the vanity from whence YOU grabbed it, presumably while on the toilet?

Y’all. Why?

Happy New Year?

I mean, y’all. After the past -waves hand around somewhat meaninglessly- years, is it not tempting fate to wish loud and boisterous, full-of-hope Happys regarding 2022?

a hat tip to my mother for sending me this gem

Let it not come to pass

It probably is -I mean, for fucks sake, Betty White died today- but I wish you all the very best anyway.

Today we returned home from West Virginia in time to clean up for New Years Eve at the Kennedy Center. I surprised Tom and the boys with tickets to see John Oliver. We all thought it was terrifically delightful, and we were home by 10. My kind of evening. ;)

I was chagrined to find that even with these heels on:

Jack is taller than me. My god has he grown. It’s remarkable to pause a sec and take in the young man who was once so tiny and dependent but who is now neither, really.

A quick update on the goats, y’all. We found a wonderful vet who came to visit and check them out last Wednesday. We learned a TON about nutrition, how to check for worms and anemia, goat lice, and bovine probiotics. All four goats were vaxxed and had their hooves trimmed, Apple and Jemima had blood drawn for pregnancy tests (we find out for sure early next week; vet thinks they are, in fact, preggers but that if so, they still have another 4-6 weeks or so to go), Lefty was treated for worms and lice as well as given an immune booster (she is still pretty compromised post-listeria), and we changed their feed after learning about male goat susceptibility to stones due to having urethras that are tiny and become increasingly so near the exit. Overall, they looked great, and we’re hoping for two sets of twins! (AND, Lefty has become a real screamer when she sees us. It’s the best.)

Twins may pale in comparison to the unicorn moment we had yesterday morning when instead of butting each other out of the way over one bucket, the angels sang and each goat realized and accepted that each has his/her very own bucket of food, and for just a few moments, all was peaceful in the barn. It’s the little things.

Back in pjs now, I leave you with these gorgeous shots I snapped this week. How lucky we are to have a little slice of paradise. Be well, friends. Keep up the good fight! Mwah!

sunrise