All the Notable Happenings Friday Round-Up

I mowed the lawn. This was my big, beautiful goal for today after a week of anxiety about trying to get the County Board to approve a major project. The whole notion of mowing the grass in perfect rows was tantalizing and I’m not even into lawn care. I even liked the part where I have to mow uphill because the new mower has little levers that makes the mower self-propelled. I was sleek out there mowing. I could have been an ad for something. Pep. I could be an ad for pep or can-do attitude! I love that idea.

The 15th anniversary of my blog happened. I was just a kid then writing about the things kids write about. Now I write about grown-up things, things 77-year-old people find pressing and interesting. Like fascism and how to make a decent No Kings sign. Well, I can’t write about the latter since I’m still stumped. I like demos, like Tuesday night’s against ICE, where I can use a sign I already have like my Justice for Immigrants and Refugees sign. I pride myself on the randomness of my blog, as evidenced by this paragraph.

The cat was lost but then found in a bookcase. While wrestling with the new hose, we saw that the back door had flown open. I decided within seconds that Herc was on the loose, so I turned on the Find My app while I planned what would surely be the remainder of my life on earth mired in a deep and endless pit of despair. The app told me to go 12 feet to my right, then said I went too far, then showed the little cat emoji appearing to move down the street, then it gave me the address of the house next door, so I went there hoping to see Herc sitting on the porch waiting for me. The phone rang. I could hear Herc. No, he didn’t call. My husband did. Herc had been mistakenly locked in his office (my husband’s, not Herc’s) where he was hiding in the bookcase. I shrieked. So close to the edge.

I’ve recovered from a week of having to arrange my face. Part of my thing is to always sit in the front row of an important meeting. This means that decision-makers will see me, but it also means I have to control my face, you know ‘arrange my face’ as Cromwell would say. I listened to someone lying as he was testifying, and I could feel my eyes rolling like I was 14 sitting in home room. I walked out of the meeting into the hallway, stopped at the first friendly face and said, “That guy’s such a lying sack of shit” and immediately felt better. I went back so composed that I would’ve put Mona Lisa to shame.

Grown-ups are playing with markers all over the country. It’s not just about the signs. What’s happening in the country has given many people an unwanted and unsought new purpose in life. We didn’t seek this hideous state of affairs, but it has touched a deep well of patriotism in me and so many people I know. Years from now when all the signs are pulled out from the back of the coat closet from underneath the winter hats and old scarves and cushions for baseball games, we’ll remember the fright of this time and celebrate how brave we all were. I believe that. I really do.