Upper Peninsula Chainsaw Friday Round-Up

I’m of the opinion that it’s healthy to regularly do things you’re afraid to do. I like this idea as a professional thing more than a personal one. For instance, I might be afraid to write a huge federal grant with a lot of complicated, cranky, self-interested partners who might sue me for malpractice if we lose but consider it a grand challenge. On the other hand, I let the registration date pass for a women’s “Take the Reins” class because I knew the first thing the instructor would do would be to hand me a halter and send me into the corral to fetch my own horse.

I looked at the big box crammed with tampons and pads and thought, “I can carry that.” And I was fine lifting it out of the truck, even though I had to wrestle with it, but walking with it I knew it was too heavy but I looked ahead and it didn’t seem that far if I could just hold out and then I tripped on the top stair and fell. I skinned my knee and it hurt like skinned knees do, although the last one I had was in the middle of a different century, and there were a bunch of other bumps and weird aches along with the astonishment of having fallen. I said to my husband, “Don’t tell any of the kids I fell” realizing the stigma attached to being old and falling notwithstanding the big box one was carrying at the time.

Watching Nancy Pelosi tie Donald Trump in knots is one of my favorite things ever. She knows where all his little scaredy man things are and she goes after them with a hatpin. Remember hatpins? Pop, pop, pop.

When we got stopped by the Michigan State Patrol, two officers came to our car, one on either side. It felt like Bonnie and Clyde. The woman officer came to my side. I said hello, looked at her arm full of tattoos and decided to just stare straight ahead while my husband rifled through his wallet for whatever the man officer wanted. We were warned. Which is always better than the alternative. Still.

“I forgot my chainsaw.” Words I never thought my nice Jewish husband from Philadelphia would say to me. “For what?” I asked. “Whatever” was his answer. Whatever. Yes, we must always travel with a chainsaw. So I just asked him if he minds if I call him my “nice Jewish husband” when referring to his chainsaw comment to which he responded, “It does presuppose that Jews don’t do stuff with chainsaws.” I guess.