Crazy March

Whew! We are finally done with the musical! I thought this week would be easier, because I didn't have to make food for the musical dinners. I considered signing up for one of the bake sales, but so many other people signed up that I could tell they didn't need me. So all we had to do this week was drive Teen B back and forth to practices and performances. But it still took up a lot of time, plus dinner was weird every day, with him not there and yet possibly wanting some of it when he got home at 10 pm. It threw everything off and I got very little done. Also, it was the first week of Daylight Saving Time, so we were constantly tired. Among the things that didn't get done:

• NO writing
• NO protests (though I did do other political stuff, see below)
• Almost NO walks (last Sunday and Wednesday, that was it)
• NO weight lifting or stretch videos
  
• NO genealogy
• NO trip planning
• NO paperwork
• Almost NO cooking, mostly just this and that, a lot of cereal and sandwiches

After the first couple of days I said screw it, it's a weird week, just go with the flow. So we did. 

Rocket Boy and I saw two performances of the musical: opening night, on Wednesday, and closing night, Saturday. For the Wednesday performance we sat in the balcony so we could see Teen B in the orchestra pit, and that was fun, but we couldn't hear very well. They don't have good speakers in the balcony or something. With some of the songs we couldn't understand the words at all, and I kept thinking, what are they shouting about? Why are people laughing?

Saturday night we sat in the fifth row, and the play suddenly became MUCH more comprehensible. But both nights I was struck by how the basic theme of Matilda fits with what we're going through right now, with the autocratic overthrow of the government. From the song "Naughty," which we could hear both nights because the singer articulated so well:

Just because you find that life's not fair, it
Doesn't mean that you just have to grin and bear it
If you always take it on the chin and wear it
Nothing will change

 

Even if you're little, you can do a lot, you
Mustn't let a little thing like "little" stop you
If you sit around and let them get on top, you
Might as well be saying you think that it's okay
And that's not right
And if it's not right
You have to put it right

I mean, doesn't that just say it all?

That seems like a good segue into what I did to save the world this week.

Political Tasks

Monday: At my yearly physical I asked my doctor about next year's flu vaccine, thinking she might have heard something. She just shook her head and looked sad. We talked a little about political activity. She said she signs petitions and gives a little money, but that's all. I told her it was fine, she's a DOCTOR, she has no TIME, and I told her about how I was trying to do one thing every day. She thanked me, and that made me tear up a little.

I also asked my doctor about whether I should get a booster for the MMR vaccine, since we are heading to southern New Mexico and southwestern Texas where all the measles is/are, so she sent me down to the lab to check my "titers." (The results came back a few days later: I have HUGE immunity to everything. I must have gotten a booster before I had the twins and forgotten about it.)

So I went home and wrote a physical letter to Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the one senator who almost didn't approve RFK Jr.'s appointment as HHS Secretary. He's a big vaccine guy, so I told him that I think he's the only person in Congress who has RFK Jr.'s ear and to please USE that power and make him hold the flu vaccine meeting. I realize that my letter will probably be thrown away unopened, because it's from Colorado, but you never know...

Tuesday: The comics in the morning paper gave me my idea today. I don't always care for "Non Sequitur," but today it was spot on. I wanted to write the cartoonist, Wiley, a note, but couldn't figure out how to do it. Finally I just wrote a post on BlueSky. (This only shows the first part of the strip; the rest is just Danae plotting to do evil things.)

Not political, but this week's "Frazz" comic also brought me a lot of pleasure. In a series of three strips, a little girl is looking at a picture of a painting in a book. The painting is "Tornado over Kansas" by John Steuart Curry -- a painting that I have on my wall! I've seen the original in the Muskegon Museum of Art! I cut out the three strips and taped them to the bottom of the picture.

Wednesday:  This morning, while I was sitting with my phone in the living room, watching the NextRide app to see that the kids' bus made it to their stop, doing Wordle and Connections, etc., a text came in. I figured it was from Teen B, telling me something that happened on the bus, but it was from my old friend from high school, Z'bet. She sent me the text of a 50501 action called #TheIdesofTrump" where you send Trump a lot of postcards on March 15th. It cheered me up to hear what Z'bet is doing and I told her I would be sure to do it too.

Later, I wrote Congressman Joe Neguse an email thanking him for three things he did recently and encouraging him to work to make sure there's a flu vaccine next year.

Thursday: I decided to write my postcards to Trump today. The only problem was that I'm trying not to be negative in my political tasks. So I wrote very pleasant postcards. For instance, on a postcard from Wind Cave National Park, I asked him if he'd ever been there, that it was a cool place, and that he should preserve it, and not fire all its rangers. For the Mount Rushmore postcard I told him he would never get his face up there if he didn't shape up fast. Things like that.

On our spring break trip I will try to buy a lot more postcards, so I have more to mail to Trump and other people who need to hear from me.

Friday: This was a tricky day. I was encouraged from all over to call my senators and try to get them to vote against the Continuing Resolution. The problem was, I was really afraid of what Trump might do if the government shut down. So I didn't call, I just watched and waited. In the end, they didn't shut down, and I think that was the right decision, although I know it's controversial. Two judges just ordered Trump to rehire all the probationary employees. If they are furloughed, they can't go back to work and get paid. I want them to have a chance.

It was Pi Day, so I bought a peach pie at King Soopers. Should have made a pie from scratch, but too tired (lazy).

For a political task, I followed Representative Jamie Raskin's suggestion to write to DOGE and request my records from them. It's a little scary, of course, because they might choose to target people who write to them. But I figured, better me than most people. If I get my social security canceled, if I'm declared dead, etc., we have time to fight it, I won't just automatically lose my house, like some people would. Then I mailed it at the post office, and my postcards too, a day early, because Saturday was going to be so complicated.

***

There's a blog I follow, called Necromancy Never Pays, and the author, Jeanne Griggs, is a writing teacher/poet who must be just about my age, since she got her BA in 1982. She also has a PhD (in English lit). Anyway, after Trump was elected for the second time she said something like "You all can fight it, I'm done," because she lives in Ohio, which is getting redder and redder, and nobody she supports ever gets elected (JD Vance, euw). And I felt the same way, of course, but since then I've changed my mind and decided to fight back. So I thought I'd look at her blog and see where she is with all that. And sure enough (from February 27th):

It’s easy to give in to despair.... But if I sink down onto my fainting couch and weep “lost, all lost” then that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, doesn’t it? I need to get up, like my old cat, on my increasingly wobbly legs and see what all there is for me to do.

That made me smile and keep going.

***

Yesterday (Saturday) I didn't really do anything political because it was such a complicated day. I had to take the kids to get their hair cut (at 11 and 11:30 am), and got into a discussion with our hairdresser about the dreadful Trump-Vance-Zelinskyy mess. Then I had to rush off to King Soopers to buy a last few boxes of Girl Scout cookies before they shut down the sale, then Teen B had to be at the school by 1 pm for the afternoon performance, then I spent the afternoon frantically reading the book group book because my copy was due back at the library, then I had to pick Teen B up at 4:30, then we had to make and eat a quick dinner, then we had to get him to school for the evening performance by 6 pm, then we watched the evening performance from 7 to 9:30, and then home to collapse.

Possibly, attending the performance was a way of supporting trans teens. There are a lot of "they/them" pronouns in the participant bios in the program!

We bought a couple of pieces of chocolate cake at the bake sale after the performance and brought them home -- I really wanted to buy a whole cake, but they'd cut it up before I could do that. (The mom working the sale told me I could have them for $1 each, but I gave her a $10 and told her to keep the change.) Teen B ate one after we got home and I ate the second piece at 2 am, while reading in the living room because I couldn't sleep!

You do what you have to do...

Today I probably won't do anything (political) either, just think about what to do this coming week. The news is sobering, though. I'm trying to think of what to focus on this week and it's so hard to choose. I'm still worried about the flu vaccine, I don't want them to privatize the post office, I'm worried about the deportation of people with green cards who haven't committed any crimes, I'm worried about what's going to happen to university funding, there's always Ukraine, and Gaza, and what on earth are we starting to do in Yemen? 

There's a rally on Friday in Denver that Rocket Boy and I might go to, because Bernie Sanders and AOC are scheduled to attend. It would be fun to see them in person. There's also a teachers' protest on Thursday -- that's not a federal thing, it's protesting cuts to education by the Colorado legislature. I support that strongly too, but not sure I want to go to Denver two days in a row. I'll see. The kids have Thursday off because so many teachers have requested leave that day (to go to the protest). Then they go back to school on Friday, and then we have spring break. We're supposed to leave on our trip next Sunday...

***

One other big thing happened this week. My old professor from grad school, John, who has been on dialysis for some time, had a medical crisis this week and is now off dialysis and on hospice. He has terminal cancer, so he'll probably go fast. We were going to have another Zoom call with him on April 5th, but I think he'll be gone long before then. It's kind of a death watch now.

I knew this was coming, of course. In our last call, he said something about "This dying business is certainly protracted," and he also mentioned that he really had no appetite anymore. We all noted those comments, and yet we still planned another call and I don't think any of us thought this call would be our last. But it seems that it was. 

We all wrote him sweet emails, and we heard that his partner is reading our emails to him. But it's impossible to put into words -- to him, to anybody -- what he's meant to us. One of my friends wrote in her email that she wouldn't have had the academic career she has, were it not for him. I haven't had an academic career, not really, so I couldn't say that, although he certainly prepared me well for one. In the end, I didn't want one. But he was still such a huge influence on me. He was like a third parent. A mentor, people call that sort of person, but John was really like another parent. And I love him dearly.

On Tuesday night, I think it was, I had a vivid dream. But it wasn't about John. It was about another professor I had, Jeff, who I dream about a lot too. When I dream about John, it's usually a dream about how I haven't finished my dissertation yet (the one I finished in 1996) and how are we going to get that done. I'm waiting for one more dream where John tells me it's too late, he can't help me anymore. But I haven't had that dream yet. Instead, I had this very romantic dream about Jeff. In the dream, we were either married or thinking about it. We were hugging and kissing, having sex (in that weird dream way), sleeping in the same bed all wrapped up together. We were so in love. (I didn't tell Rocket Boy about this dream -- he's very tolerant of my dreams, but this might have gone too far.) I woke up and just shook my head. If you knew this professor... well, let's just say the dream had nothing to do with reality. But it was so sweet! And then the next day we got the news about John.

In my email I thanked John for "giving me birds." He's a big birder, and I never went birding when I was in Michigan (didn't want to give him the satisfaction), but as soon as I moved to Colorado I got started. I don't think I would have done that if it hadn't been for John. He's given me so much, but maybe birds are the best thing, because being tuned in to birds has enhanced every moment I spend outdoors (and quite a bit of the time I spend indoors, as well). 

I'm really going to miss him.

***

In the slip of a bolt, there's a tiny revolt
The seed of a war in the creak of a floorboard
A storm can begin with the flap of a wing
The tiniest mite packs the mightiest sting
Every day starts with the tick of a clock
All escapes start with the click of a lock
If you're stuck in your story and want to get out
You don't have to cry, you don't have to shout

 

'Cause if you're little, you can do a lot, you
Mustn't let a little thing like "little" stop you
If you sit around and let them get on top, you
Won't change a thing