What a Wonder-Filled World

This morning, I woke up in a strange bed.

When the swift passage of time weighs heavy, memories loom large. In my dreams, my unconscious mind gently pumps the breaks, rewinds my thoughts to then. Then, when the canvas of my future was largely blank. When I wake, even the present seems muddled.

The humidity permeated the faux cooled air; there was the familiar sound of gentle snoring, but it seemed distant. No hot boxer breath, no pillowy boxer jowls spread across my shoulder. It took a few moments for me to sort it out. Ahhh. New Orleans. My dear old friend, still asleep. We are visiting my daughter, spring break in reverse, pressing our own pause buttons. For two days, or, to be more accurate, for six meals. At least.

My friend told me her mom and sister thought this trip would do her good. Actually, she said they thought it would "fix" her. She has her own memories here, from when her younger son went to college, before my youngest child began. When I am with her, and even when I am not, I dwell on her older son, the one who passed away so suddenly a little more than a year ago. To fix her, we would have to undo that. To fix any of us, we would have to undo that. I'm a dreamer, but I'm not an idiot.

As dear old friends do, she revels with me in the anticipation of my daughter's upcoming wedding. Then, back then, when Adam was alive and he and my daughter were good friends and the possibilities for all of us seemed limitless, my friend's mother used to muse that someday the two of them would be more than friends. She's too expensive, my friend used to say. No, they were just friends, family really, and always would be. And we were good with that. Oh how good that would have been.

In my dream, I was at a law school reunion. Though more than thirty years have passed, everybody looked exactly the same. Hardly anybody was actually a lawyer, but everyone was happy and successful, and everyone looked to be somewhere in their twenties. In my dream, I breathed a sigh of relief, convinced that I too still looked young, that my mirror was lying.

College visits are winding down, with only one more year to go. This is my third go-round, and my memories of visits to D.C. and New York and New Orleans run together. When I see my youngest child, almost launched, I think of the other two, how much they changed over the years. I think of her, always the baby. Where's Nicki? The older two used to mock me, how I would constantly spin around and wonder where she was, when she was not yet at eye level. It started when she was born, when I feared I would one day drive off, after settling the older kids into the car, with her still in her infant seat on the curb or, worse still, the roof. Where's Nicki? She's my height now, but I still find myself searching, and worrying.

This visit will pass as all of them do -- much too quickly. In two short days, I will be back in a familiar bed -- still months away from Chicago humidity or air conditioning, a gently snoring boxer with his pillowy jowls spread across my shoulder. I will again speed toward the future, looking forward to the joy and never really knowing what else is in store.

These two days won't fix anything or anybody, but they are filled with promise. We will press pause. We will take a deep breath. And eat like there's no tomorrow.

Facts, Schmacts

All 8 Supreme Court Justices Stand in Solidarity Against Trump SCOTUS Pick? Sometimes, my eye catches the headline before I have a chance to check out the source. Without checking, I knew it was false, but I could not resist clicking on the link.

The article had an air of truthfulness about it, and I can hardly blame the folks who shared it for being taken in. They, as I do, believe our new president is uniquely unqualified for the job and is being advised (to the extent he cares to take advice) by a motley bunch of folks whose core values seem to be at odds with those of America as I have always known it. The temptation to believe that the "Supremes," Republican and Democatric appointees alike, would "pen a letter" to resist 45's pick for their newest colleague, was almost overwhelming. The kind of thing that would make Nancy Pilosi kick off her shoes and maybe even tousle her hair.

Yes, years ago, the Supremes had "penned" an opinion in which they rejected the arguments made by Gorsuch (and other Federal court judges) -- arguments which were sufficiently plausible to get the case in front of the Supreme Court in the first place. They had not, by any means, suddenly stepped out of their robes and into the world of politics, a world where results are often dictated by gamesmanship rather than careful reasoning.

For me, skepticism is baked in, and I have even begun to doubt reports from news sources I know to be trustworthy. How do I know them to be trustworthy? History, reputation, and, okay I admit it, sometimes good grammar and proper punctuation goes a long way. But what of others, people who might simply be less judgmental, dare I say more open-minded than I? Why would anyone assume that any widely disseminated spoken or written word is untrue? Why would anyone assume that a stranger might take your purse when you leave it untethered on the floor in a busy urban restaurant? It took me a long time -- and three trips to local police stations -- to figure out that some people do in fact take things that do not belong to them.

These are not "white lies," these fake stories that clog our social media feeds. They are stories told in response to nothing; not to save face, or to protect somebody's feelings, or because to tell the truth would be catastrophic. They are told simply for the purpose of entertaining, or misinforming, or, more sinister still, for the purpose of stirring already simmering pots.

I wonder, these days, how deep the chasm can get. When we feel we can trust nobody, not even the ones who are "on our side" of the divide. Friends of mine have dared to turn on Fox News, even checked out "red" Facebook feeds -- I don't have the stomach for it -- and they have told me how drastically different it is.  One world, at least two distinct versions of it. Somewhere, in the vast morass, lies the truth. It is almost impossible, these days, for most people to find it.

Somebody accused me, recently, of being condescending when I suggested he had misconceived my motivations for opposing 45. My motivations are factual to the extent they are what I truly believe them to be. But my opinions are not fact, and I respect the right of others to disagree. What worries me, though, is the basis for all our opinions -- yes even my own. We all bring with us our own biases and our own experiences, but now we find ourselves bringing to the table "facts" from widely divergent sources. We are becoming, I fear, increasingly irrational as a result.

We all need to be vigilant. Check the source, check the facts, check the commas and the spelling if you think it matters. Leaps of faith may be great, but not when we find ourselves on the edge of a cliff.

Let Them Eat Shit?

The most frightening statement I heard on the news this morning was something about how the Republicans' health care botch job might affect 45's run for reelection in 2020. Seriously?

By 2020, if 45 is still a free man, let alone living in the White House, I expect I will have either renounced my citizenship or taken up residence in a survivalist bunker somewhere in Idaho with a lifetime supply of pasta and Tate's cookies. Every morning, I wake up hoping for news of a smoking Kalashnikov; every morning, I pull the covers over my head in despair.

Corruption in and of itself is disturbing enough. These days, though, corruption is flaunted, a purloined letter right there on our collective nightstand. Nevertheless, the emperor remains fully clothed (a silver lining, in some respects). And he golfs. And his beauty queen wife stays in the gilded penthouse, safely distant from 45's grabbing paws. And his daughter and son-in-law ski,  while our country, the same country that less than a century ago led the fight to save the world for democracy, disintegrates into a pile of rubble. At our expense, no less. Our considerable expense.

Circumstantial or direct, the evidence has piled up to a point where the notion of coincidence is laughable. Money laundering, unabashed secrecy, suppression of adversaries, blatant lies, dare I say treason? We are perpetually agape, yet business proceeds as usual while our unduly elected royal family laughs at our plight. Let them eat cake, they muse, or, better still, let them eat shit. 

A few days ago, I suggested that, with the confirmation hearings of 45's Supreme Court nominee well underway, the Democrats should avoid politicizing the proceedings simply to avenge the injustice done to Merrick Garland last year. To clarify, I despair about the pointless obstructionism that has overtaken Congress, where principles get lost in an irrevocably divisive purple fog. Having said that, there are good reasons to press the pause button, reasons that have nothing to do with battles between red and blue. It is not unreasonable to propose that, if a poisonous tree is be felled, it's fruit must go down with it. It is also not unreasonable to refuse to confirm if the unflappable and telegenic Neil Gorsuch turns out to be less principled than he appears. Then again, he would be replacing Scalia, so as long as we can keep the rest of the justices alive -- on life support, if necessary -- until the emperor and his cronies go down, it's not a particularly immediate problem, in the grand scheme of things. Short sighted, I know, but desperate times....

I am encouraged by the Republican's health care failure. Not because I think the ACA is perfect, and not because I disagree with all Republicans. I am encouraged, mostly, because the silence has been broken, and ordinary citizens have gotten loud. And, whatever hold 45 had on Republican congressmen and women across the board, it was loosened by a rudely awakened electorate.

Hopefully, I won't be peering out of a bunker in 2020. With a little vigilance, and a lot of screaming and yelling, we (and I mean "we," not just the white "we") will get our country back, and 45 and his ilk will be eating shit pie.

The "L" Word

I dreamt that I uttered the "N" word. To a young black child, a student. A student of mine. Absurd on so many levels, not the least of which is the notion that I would ever be mistaken for somebody who possesses the credentials or patience necessary to teach young children.

Though I had spoken the word in the context of a quote, in what I am sure I thought -- in my dream -- to be a teachable moment, I recall my immediate regret. The kids all scolded me, and I knew my job was on the line. My stress level was higher than usual when I woke this morning.

Yesterday, I did more than my fair share of watching and reading about opening day in the House hearings on Russian meddling in democracy and collusion and related issues. There was hand wringing on both sides of the aisle, noticeably partisan to the extent that it was conducted above or underneath the table. The only real surprise was how far some politicians were willing to go to deflect attention away from attempts by a hostile foreign government to undermine our democracy and possible traitorous behavior by high ranking new tenants of our White House and instead focus on the shocking tragedy (gasp) of leaks.

Hypocrisy now knows no bounds in our government. Ideological partisanship has turned Congress into a twisted school yard with lines dug so deeply into the grass that nobody even tries to play well with others. It was bad enough before; now, with the quintessential school yard bully soiling the furniture in the Oval Office, nothing will get accomplished, and there is no end game other than winning.

I am riveted, now, by today's blockbuster legislative mini-series: the Senate's Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Neil Gorsuch. Brilliant, accomplished, likable. From everything I have read, and from what I have personally observed, he is a thoughtful jurist who has always performed his duties with care and impeccable ethics and can be depended upon to do the same in the future. And that is the issue. For a judge, it's about the process, and there should be no end game. Judge Gorsuch gives us no reason to doubt that he believes otherwise. Period.

Frankly, the time for remedying the horrendous behavior of Senate Republicans when they refused to even consider President Obama's pick has passed. Had we anticipated then that the buffoon in chief could actually win, maybe there would have been more of an aggressive push. But there wasn't, and despite the pervasive yearning for retribution by Democrats, this is not Judge Gorsuch's problem, and he need not be our latest casualty in a government gone awry. I was  disgusted by Orrin Hatch's repeated references to "Liberal" groups and their biases; he utters the word with the same hateful sneer that would twist a racist's lips when uttering the "N" word. The "L" word. I was equally disgusted, though, when Patrick Leahy compelled Judge Gorsuch to answer whether "corporate entities" were explicitly mentioned in the First Amendment, as if the answer would clarify the issue of original intent. It would be like asking a religious Jew whether the Bible specifically prohibits elevator rides or telephone calls on the Sabbath.

I am one of those people who refuses to recognize 45 as a legitimate president, and, even if he is ultimately shown to be, I will still refuse to give him a chance. He is unqualified, he is unhinged, and he knows nothing and cares less about what our country stands for. I do, however, hope that Senate Democrats will not try to right the wrong done last year by not confirming Neil Gorsuch (unless he gives them a reason to do so). It is my hope that the hypocrites, on both sides, will ultimately get bitten in the ass, and that the ones who still have principles and still remember what the end game is will rise out of the ashes. This would be a good time for an olive branch, and a little bit of healing.

Layering the Cakes

Yesterday, I overheard a young woman talking about the most wonderful party.

I listened intently as she scrolled through pictures on her phone, to the delight of a gathering crowd of ooh-ers and aah-ers, all of whom seemed relieved to learn that the event had gone off without a hitch.

And there's my beautiful little man, she said. Lord, I hoped she wasn't referring to her husband, and if she was, I was thinking there might not be too many wonderful parties without a hitch in their future. As it turns out, the "little man" is her son, the guest of honor at the party, his first birthday extravaganza.

A minor but fortuitous flood in my laundry room the other day led me to the large bin of old pictures that had moved with me, a few years ago, from the spacious home where I did the lion's share of my child rearing to the little town house where I am finishing off the job. I am a little more than a year away from the third official launch from the payroll and the premises that I have already experienced twice, with a bittersweet mix of elation and melancholy, with college graduation. She's barely home anymore, and the more she stays away, the smaller my townhouse feels. Funny, as they leave, how the walls seem to close in.
       

                             
I dug through the bin, rescuing first the damp photographs from the side of the bin where water had seeped through. The damage was minimal, but still, the faces were barely recognizable. My oldest daughter, soon to be married, dressed in full Minnie Mouse regalia, smiling from one large, round mouse ear to the other. My son, my creative adventurer living halfway around the world, the chubby little brother with two fingers nestled in his mouth, his belly poking out from a pair of Mickey Mouse suspenders. Years later, the baby sister, mugging for the camera, the way baby sisters do, while her siblings seemed so grown up, at least at the time. Suddenly, they all looked so small.

There were pictures from first birthday parties -- three of them. Cake stained faces, plump cheeks twisted into baffled grimaces as they sat in a sea of torn wrapping paper. All the grandparents were there; birthdays in those early years were reason enough to hop on a plane.

I ventured over to the growing gaggle of ooh-ers and aah-ers surrounding the woman who was talking about the most wonderful party. There was a balloon artist, and a three-tiered cake. The mom was wearing a spectacular red dress, dad was wearing a suit. I wondered if it had been painstakingly planned for months, as my daughter's upcoming wedding has been. I wondered if she knew this seemed a bit extravagant for a one-year old. And then I remembered how nothing seems too extravagant for your own one-year-old. There is, after all, a lot to celebrate after that first year. Let them eat a three tiered cake.

Mostly, when I look back, I think of the celebrations, the milestones, the parties. But I rarely think back to how they were, on ordinary days, dressed like cartoon mice, smiling from mouse ear to mouse ear. I rarely think about how I thought they would always be little, how skeptical I was when my pediatrician had assured me, all those years ago, that when my daughter got married she would not have a pacifier in her mouth. Married? No pacifier? It all seemed so absurd.

In a little more than a month, my oldest daughter will become somebody's wife. It's an odd feeling, knowing that this person, my little Minnie Mouse, is launching for keeps this time, forming the beginnings of her own family. As the wedding draws near, as I fear that I must hand her over to somebody else, we draw ever closer. Launching, maybe, but not going away.

Dutch Treat

Kudos to the voters in the Netherlands for learning from our mistake.

Digging in their wooden heels, they pulled back on the shift toward right wing populism and chose, for the time being, to find a more palatable way to preserve their national character without falling into the abyss. Who woulda thunk it? The Dutch?

Not so surprising. I have never been to the Netherlands, unless you count a layover in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport (which I had dubbed, at the time, the "Shithole" Airport for reasons that had nothing to do with a lack of comfort or amenities). I remember signs filled with vaguely familiar words made slightly exotic with oddly placed double-letters and and occasional guttural "cht." I remember how genuinely pleasant the people seemed, as a rule, and I remember shops filled with every kind of cheese imaginable, and then some.

It was nothing more than a "flyover" country to me, back then. Quaint, quiet, with storybook houses and ancient windmills and shoes with no give.  Easy to forget it's the birthplace of Van Gogh, and  the hiding place for Anne Frank. Extraordinary art, an extraordinary girl, extraordinary ordinary Dutch citizens risking their own lives to hide a small cache of doomed Jews. And, now, a surprising hero in the pull back from xenophobia and other garden variety hatreds sweeping though the West.

Maybe there is a silver lining to all this madness. Not the one a stranger pointed out, the other day, when he told me I should stop whining about 45. Yes, he's a despicable person, but our 401(k)'s are thriving. Maybe so, but at what price?

Yes, he's a despicable person, the stranger went on, but I'm not being persecuted, so why do I care? And no matter how many racists have corner offices in the West Wing, local police has all that nonsense under control. The spike in burning crosses may be, at least in part, the federal government's fault, but it's not the federal government's problem. And, I suppose, until a relative's grave gets vandalized or someone I know gets thrown over the wall or my daughters no longer make the rules for their own bodies, it's not my problem either. Give him a chance, he said, bewildered that I had yet to grasp how it is in my best interest to do so.

I have no choice but to "give him a chance." At least in the sense that I don't have the power to physically remove him from the Oval Office and stuff him back under a rock. Not my problem? Maybe. But if I get complacent, I am complicit. It may not be my problem. but it becomes my fault.

The silver lining, I think, is the awakening of sleeping giants and sleeping not-so-giant folks. The Netherlands, at least, got the wake up call. I'm going Dutch.

Fake News: My Big, Fat, Beautiful Eye Cream

I was so close. 

The escalator was within spitting distance when she caught me in her cross hairs. (I could swear she grabbed my arm, but I pretty sure that kind of thing is frowned upon in the employee manual.) A minute and a half, she told me. That's all she would need to give my face a lift. Not that it needed one, of course. 

I thought about this when my friend, texting occasional reports from her royal-watching perch somewhere near Buckingham Palace, informed me she had just bought something called 90th birthday creamer. (This was after she shut me down for what could have been construed as a disrespectful comment about the Queen's vitality). The Queen rocks, she scolded. And then she told me about the creamer. 

Back to this side of the pond, to the wrinkle Nazi. To make a long story short, I took the bait, and, after enduring about 45 minutes of gentle insults delivered with surgical precision by the flawlessly skinned Brianna, I skulked off with a shopping bag filled with miracle ointments and droppers and written instructions about how best to achieve the miraculous non-surgical plumping of my lifeless face.  

Fast forward. It's been three days, and the only detectable plumping in my face is the red blotches. Well, to be fair, the ones in the dark crescents under my eyes are closer to purple. Note to self: text my friend in London, tell her to throw in a few jars of the 90th birthday creamer. Right now, I'd give anything to look as youthful as the Queen. 

Well shame on me for being sold a bill of goods. Again. I hate to admit it, but this was not my first (or even second) rodeo with the likes of the wrinkle Nazi and the flawless Brianna. They had me -- and my Achilles heel -- pegged, and I fell for it, just like they knew I would. It was less about the obviously false promise of smooth skin and filled in wrinkles than the unsubtle reminder of how dire my situation was. Bad, very bad. I had nothing to lose. 

I am off to buy some cucumbers and Vaseline (get your minds out of the gutter) so I can soothe my irritated eyes and flaming cheeks. The best I can hope for is to be no worse off than when I started, before I got caught in the cross hairs. And, of course, I await my jar of false hope, from across the pond. 

A View from the (Brooklyn) Bridge

Growing up in Brooklyn, I assumed that what was familiar was normal. Accents that suggested illiteracy, childhood games played on punishing concrete with an occasional death defying dash into the softer turf of roads filled with oncoming traffic, subway stations that smelled like urine.

Sounds rough, I suppose, but there was order, and there was predictability. Dad walking in the door at six, dinner on the table at 6:02 -- fruit, salad, broiled meat or fish, a vegetable, potato, my favorite cake from the local bakery. One slice only. The world beyond, a world without portion control -- or any noteworthy restrictions, really -- caught me by surprise, left me fat, directionless, confused.

My brother and I used to tinker with the notion that maybe our way of life was not "normal," that maybe other families did things differently, that maybe our family was actually crazy. Even if we thought it was possible, we happily dismissed the idea. There is comfort in the knowledge, however misguided, that you are at least somewhere on the spectrum of what is typical.

Sure, there were hints along the way. At fifteen, on a cross country bus tour with other teenagers from my neck of the woods, I remember overhearing some locals comment on us as we straggled into an eatery somewhere between Nebraska and California. Must be from New Jersey, they whispered. Okay, close enough. Jewish, I heard. Okay, not 100 per cent, but again, close enough. How did they know? I glanced over at them, the locals who lived somewhere between Nebraska and California, and they didn't look all that different to me. Maybe they would have, had I spotted them trying to blend in on Avenue J.

Then there was college, a world relatively low on folks who said things like cawwwfee and chawwwcolate or added a gratuitous "r" to the end of my name. A world filled with kids who already drove their own fancy cars and had never smelled a subway and who knew what it was like to play in a field of grass without being shipped off for eight weeks during the summer. A world with loose schedules and no portion control. By the time I graduated, I had acquired a hybrid accent, friends from small towns who had never before met a Jew, and a good forty extra pounds.

My idea of normal has long since undergone a significant overhaul, and I have adjusted to a world where I can celebrate differences and sameness and, no matter what, always seem to find common ground. At least until recently. I worry about our new normal, where lies are treated as truths and it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the two. Where mainstream is viewed as subversive and what once may have appeared to be abnormal -- if not outrageous -- has become acceptable, quite fashionable even.

I feel fat, directionless, confused. I am tinkering with the notion that maybe my way, and the way of many I know, is not normal. That what I have always believed to be sane might actually be crazy. Finding myself in a world that has become a veritable smorgasbord of bat shit craziness, I yearn for the days of portion control.

That Ain't America

The irony wafted over me, like a dark cloud.

Ain't that America...home of the free.... As cynical as John Mellencamp intended the song to be, freedom was our saving grace. Behind the facade of our pink houses, life often wasn't easy, and it certainly wasn't fair. But nobody ever doubted who we are, or at least who we were intended to be.

As I half dozed in a Tequila and sun-drenched fog on a Mexican beach, I wondered if somebody had cued up the song to mock us, temporary escapees from an America nobody recognizes. A land of white picket fences gone mad, a dream turned into a nightmare of xenophobia and racism and anti-Semitism and anti-LGBT and anti-choice and anti-pretty-much-everything that isn't white and some twisted notion of what is Christian. They shake their heads down here, incredulous. Believe me, I want to tell them, to borrow an empty phrase. It's really happening, and it's worse than you think.

Down here, sunshine and swim-up bars, a seemingly limitless supply of great restaurants, and spotty cell phone reception have shielded me from non-stop cable punditry and "breaking news" alerts. I have not seen a White House press briefing for a week; perhaps Melissa McCarthy is now dispensing one-liners to all who have been excluded from the gaggle of propagandists behind the newly installed iron curtains. Today, in America, anything is possible, and I don't mean that in a positive "aim high" sort of way.

The bar has become so low for "45" that if he manages to read a speech written by someone else without foaming at the mouth or insulting anybody in particular he is applauded for his gentle tone. The details? Yawn. Nobody really cares about the details. He is being presidential. Walk by the Lincoln Memorial; I bet he has his head in his hands.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch on Pennsylvania Avenue, the likes of Steve Bannon are pulling the strings. Rocks have been overturned, and all sorts of despicable ideas have been brought out into daylight. Hate is emboldened. It is now okay to persecute Muslims (or anybody brown); it is now fashionable to desecrate Jewish cemeteries; it is now cool to persecute anybody with a "different" sexual orientation, and it is realistic to think that our three branches of government will soon be sufficiently tainted to allow these creatures who have crawled out from under rocks to undo almost two and a half centuries of really good work in progress.

Ain't that America? Ain't my America, that's for sure. Speaking at John Mellencamp's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, Billy Joel said this:

Don't let this club membership change you, John. Stay ornery, stay mean. We need you to be pissed off, and restless because no matter what they tell us—we know this country is going to hell in a handcart. This country's been hijacked. You know it, and I know it. People are worried. People are scared, and people are angry. People need to hear a voice like yours that's out there to echo the discontent that's out there in the heartland. They need to hear stories about it. They need to hear stories about frustration, alienation and desperation. They need to know that somewhere out there somebody feels the way that they do in the small towns and in the big cities. They need to hear it. And it doesn't matter if they hear it on a jukebox, in the local gin mill, or in a goddamn truck commercial because they ain't gonna hear it on the radio any more. They don't care how they hear it as long as they hear it good and loud and clear the way you've always been saying it all along. You're right, John, this is still our country.

It's time to come out of our little pink houses, to listen clearly and to get loud.