Now’s the Time Friday Round-Up

The very old and seemingly very frail neighborhood lady who walks hunched over while holding her very large purse just got pulled across the sidewalk by her leaping German Shepherd. Her dog heard another dog barking and pulled and struggled to give chase. I got ready to go outside to help her, but she held her old lady ground, gathered in the leash, and turned the dog around to cross the street. She has old sinew and muscle under that rain jacket and a dog who still believes her to be the boss. She never dropped her purse.

I wrote a very good piece about a quite difficult topic and read it to my writers’ group. During the discussion, one of the group offered to help edit the piece assuming I was going to submit it for publication. But, reading it to the group, was its publication. And writing it – describing events from more than forty years ago – was an unexpected putting to bed of some very hard times. It was, as they say, an instance of living to tell the tale.

This is the week that garlic scapes came into my life. I chopped them and put them in a pasta salad, and they were crunchy and spectacular. And then, today, a friend suggested that I make mashed potatoes with chopped garlic scapes or, better yet, potato pancakes. And it is all life changing, I have to say. A whole new world. The same friend offered us little glasses of mint water.

We went to see the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra at a local park. It was lovely and mellow, but we couldn’t hear the orchestra because there were hundreds of people and we were sitting off to the side amidst a stand of trees. We pretended to hear the orchestra and clapped when everyone else clapped but mostly we ate our pasta salad (with the garlic scapes), ate our cookies, and drank wine from an actual bottle vs. our traditional box. It was an evening to remember.

We all have to do more in this election. In 2020, two-thirds of citizens over 18 voted. We need to bump that up, way up. We listened to presentations today about voting – from Black Leaders Organizing Communities, the League of Women Voters, and Souls to the Polls. I signed up to provide rides to the polls with Souls to the Polls. I also signed up to write 300 Get Out the Vote postcards for Postcards to Swing States. I’ve done this in several prior elections – if you’ve got okay handwriting, give it a try. The research says the postcards boost voter turnout. We have to have that – more people voting. Don’t wait for someone else to do something – you do something!