All Over the Map Friday Round-Up

We went out to dinner. The first time in over a year. In a fancy restaurant on the lakefront, sitting at a table next to the window where we could watch the sun setting on our city and wonder if the duck swimming by was a Merganser. We were celebrating Howard’s birthday and how we had gotten through the pandemic so far as a couple. It has been a long time since I have felt so lucky or glad.

Going out to dinner meant wearing something other than jeans. For a year, it’s been skinny jeans, boot cut jeans, or the jeans with the hole torn when I got snagged on the latch of the dining room cabinet. But I found one of my 800 pairs of black dress pants bought back in the day and pieced together an outfit that included a silky shirt and a suit jacket that had been hanging in the closet so long, there was dust on the shoulders. It kind of felt like Halloween. Let’s dress up like people who go out to dinner.

I’m glad to report I did not lose my mind at the DMV today. After packing enough documents to get the special letters of transit from Rick, we went to the DMV to renew our drivers licenses. Alas! We were missing a second piece of evidence of Wisconsin residence, our current Wisconsin drivers licenses with our addresses and photos not sufficient to establish residency. Didn’t we have a utility bill with us? Uh no. Couldn’t we send the DMV an electronic copy of our bank statement? Yes, but that seems risky. I showed them my daily email from the U.S. Postal Service with photos of the mail to be delivered to our house today and, amazingly, there was a letter from the DMV itself! Right there, clear as can be. But no, that wouldn’t do. Even my extreme enunciation – THIS IS FROM THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE – got us nowhere. I had to be escorted out by the birthday boy.

There’s nothing like a good demonstration to juice things up a bit. We’re trying to get a bunch of folks to drive an hour from Milwaukee to attend the State Legislature’s Joint Finance Budget Hearing. When the Republicans are in power, they try to avoid having such things happen in major cities, like Milwaukee where, you know, those people could show up, opting instead for little hamlets in the countryside. So our group, League of Progressive Seniors, is renting a van and making a ton o’ signs to advocate for Medicaid Expansion in Wisconsin. It sounds like an arcane issue but what it means for old people is that the person taking care of us in the nursing home can make more than $10/hour. If you think about it, that’s kind of a critical thing.

The Chauvin trial has surfaced more courage and valor than evil. The testimony of the witnesses to George Floyd’s murder, their efforts to save his life, their willingness to video the crime, to call 911 – to call the police on the police – to bring their stories and their scarred souls to testify in front of the entire world – this is the humanity and compassion and courage that we want for our country. These people are our heart. And thank God for them. And for us.