Thanksgiving in a Bubble

 

There's good news for turkeys this year. Lots of pardons in the works, I hear. And lots of birdless Thanksgiving menus, as we gather in our small bubbles and forego traditions, the ones we like and the ones we don't. 

For as long as I can remember, my family has gathered somewhere in Connecticut for Thanksgiving. Happily, the births and marriages have outpaced the deaths and divorces, and the walls in my cousins' dining room have appeared to inch ever closer to the edges of the growing table. The staples remain, with an annual fluctuation in side dishes and activities. The fried pickles, once a novelty, have become permanent. I can barely remember when we didn't spend hours watching the tortured progress, most of us from inside, of the deep fried turkey. The morning after run with my cousin is a thing of the past, as is the Friday shopping spree in a local boutique. The morning after indigestion is eternal.

I suppose we should be thankful for small favors this year. The weary travelers won't have to be weary. The exhausted hosts won't have to be exhausted -- or at least they will share the burden. We have all managed to survive 2020, so far, far flung as we are across the country and, yes, across the globe. We will still talk loudly over each other this year, but on a Zoom call. When we are together, there is no mute button. 

There will likely be no turkey in my Thanksgiving bubble, though I am certain there will be lots of calories. I am bargaining with cousins for my favorite recipes, recipes that, apparently, are kept secret simply because the keepers don't wish to reveal the heart clogging ingredients that make them so good. My cousins did send me a frozen version of my favorite Thanksgiving treat, and I have been warned that I must share with my bubble. How well they know me, after all these years. 

Pandemic Thanksgiving, I suppose, will remind us of all that should make us thankful. That the usual suspects are well, and that we are able to toast each other from our satellite bubbles. That somehow, despite wildly divergent time zones and nap times (including mine, as my cousin pointed out), we will still be together. That my almost 90 year old mother is figuring out Zoom. That my favorite delicacies await, in the freezer. That at a time when pardons are becoming all the rage, turkeys will be the beneficiaries. 

That we will, hopefully, convene next year in person, if only for a day, and share war stories from a blissfully distant 2020. 

Days of Reckoning

    I tried hard, at first, to turn off the news, but I couldn't do it. It's as if it had become my cross to bear, my penance for settling happily into my insulated corner of the universe, refusing to believe there were so many "others" out there. I flipped channels, checked on Twitter, responded to the incessant beeps from friends texting their despair. As if sharing it would somehow make it go away. 

    In the wee hours, when the news broke of Biden eking ahead in Wisconsin, I finally closed my eyes. Briefly anyway. I hung on to the encouraging words of pundits, comforted myself with my firmly held notion that Biden's campaign crew had been making all sorts of good decisions, and this would be okay. I even hold out hope, now, that Biden can win, but my despair is palpable. Millions of Americans cast a vote for a cruel, corrupt, criminal, and incompetent poor excuse for a human who had devoted the past four years to revealing himself (to anyone who hadn't noticed) as a cruel, corrupt, criminal, and incompetent poor excuse for a human. 

    The finger pointing has begun. The pollsters screwed up. We didn't pick an exciting candidate. Biden said a stupid thing at the last debate. We forgot about the Cubans. Well, sure the pollsters screwed up, but that didn't cause the mess; it only enhanced the crushing disappointment. It's why I'm such a big fan of low expectations. An exciting candidate? Because progressives were too bored to vote for our only alternative to fascism? Shame on them, if that's true. Biden said a stupid thing? Has he incited violence, given the nod to gun-toting American terrorists, caged children, denied climate change, disparaged the entire medical profession, lied about, well, everything? And we knew damn well what the Cubans were thinking. We didn't forget; we just brushed aside. They are, after all, brown people, and we assumed they would know better.

    I woke up yesterday feeling optimistic. It was a beautiful day, I had finally convinced my conscientiously objecting Republican friend that he needed to cast his vote, even if it wouldn't matter in Illinois. I remembered my theory that RBG had chosen to leave us on the eve of the Jewish High Holidays so she could guide us from a heavenly bench. I put on my brand new Kamala-esque Chucks and even had a spring in my step.

    The counting continues and we just don't know. We don't know when we'll know. But what we do know is that an astounding number of people who live in the clearly inaptly named shining city on a hill cast their precious votes for, well, a cruel, corrupt, criminal, and incompetent poor excuse for a human who had devoted the past four years to revealing himself as a cruel, corrupt, criminal, and incompetent poor excuse for a human. 

    We have our work cut out for us. The problem isn't the pollsters or Joe or fracking or even our forgetting about the Cubans, though that's the closest. It's about the messaging. We knew what message the Cubans were being fed, and we left it alone. And we've known what messages all the folks are being fed out there, outside our bubbles, by propaganda spreading news empires that have cornered those far-flung markets. While we were sleeping. Or seeking self-affirmation. Or calling people stupid and racist and greedy. I'm as guilty as anybody. 

    The work starts now, even if Biden pulls through. There's a whole country, out there and right here, that needs fixing. 

The Hail Handmaid Pass

There is a difference between smart and judicious. They are not mutually exclusive, but by no means do they always walk hand in hand. 

Before RBG was even buried, the tainted wheels of the Senate GOP began a particularly unseemly and jubilant roll toward erasing her legacy and staining her well-earned and well-occupied seat. Worse still, a woman -- a woman -- willingly accepted the high honor that she, smart as she is, had to know was bestowed upon her only for ideological expediency. Her nomination was unprincipled, her confirmation hearing a sham, her swearing in a fait accompli. 

I would venture to say I am not as nearly as smart as our brand new justice, certainly not as ambitious. I also admit I have not always been judicious, but, for that, I have been exceedingly apologetic and overly plagued by regret. Who would turn down a nomination to the Supreme Court? someone asked me the other day. I'd like to think I would, if it were so obviously and publicly ill-gotten. Premised on utter hypocrisy that will forever stain her credibility and reputation, at the very least she should be ashamed. 

But, more importantly, smart and accomplished as she may be, she has shown herself to be decidedly non-judicious. Not "having, showing, or done with good judgment or sense," to put a finer point on it. Maskless at a Rose Garden tea party, proudly accompanying the vile man who nominated her -- a man whose life itself is anathema to her own extreme views -- on a Mussolini-esque balcony to celebrate her (and his) illegitimate rise to power. 

There are plenty of really smart people out there, but judiciousness, that's what really matters, isn't it, when you're about to spend the rest of your life on the once revered highest court in the land? 

I have yet to see anyone willingly turn down a nomination to the Supreme Court, but I have seen, in the past few years, many "lesser" beings risk their careers -- and their safety -- for a greater good. Many of these woefully unsung heroes have faded from public view and have suffered for their righteousness. For their "judiciousness." But history will, and should, treat them kindly, and they, unlike our newly minted justice, have a right to hold their heads high, and to never feel shame. She clearly does not feel any shame, but she should. 

I hold out a faint hope that the weight of her new seat, RBG's seat, will guide her as she holds the fate of so many in her hands. If precedent is any indication, I'm not optimistic. Just read Justice Beer-Brain's Trump-licking opinion on counting ballots in Wisconsin. 

Hope springs eternal, but, direspectfully, I dissent. 

Life Behind the Mask

Over the past seven months, I've stopped torturing myself with the pros and cons of fillers and Botox and other costly promises of feigned youth. Masks do have their perks. I'm afraid, sometimes, of once again living unveiled; sure, I'd like to keep the wrinkles under wraps, but I've also become quite accustomed to relying only upon my eyes to convey what I'm really thinking. The windows to my soul have become ambiguous, and I like it that way. 

I live in one of those "Democrat-run" cities (redundant, I know), where people either mask up or give you an extra wide berth when they pass. I ran back up to my apartment this morning, a fistful of sweatshirt pulled over my mouth and nose, mortified that I had forgotten my mask. It rests under my chin when I dine out, doubling as a crumb catcher until someone approaches and it rises up to do its day job. We queue up for the elevator, cognizant of the two per ride limit yet still asking if someone minds if we join. Oddly, we've become increasingly polite while we treat others as if they have the plague. 

Twice this month I had intended to finally go east and see my mother, pandemic be damned. Twice, my trip has been cancelled, first due to forces beyond my control, and more recently because it just didn't seem right -- for me, for my mother, for all of us, really, who have tried so hard to follow the rules and don't want to make things worse for everyone else. One  inadvertent slip-up; a chance encounter; a missed hand wash; a lurking droplet. I'm angry that so many have been reckless, and I don't want to relinquish my right to self-righteousness. 

Through two or three degrees of separation, I know of people who have been sick, and I know of people who have died. It's difficult to believe it's real, though, when it hasn't hit home, but still, I can't erase the images of body bags stacked up in the streets of New York. Governor Cuomo and renowned scientists have slipped off the radar, and we are bombarded with images of a president who preaches to an adoring audience that can't quite grasp the concept of a common good. 

Come to think of it, as the circus continues in full swing and the virus spikes, the president and his enablers have removed their masks while their endless misdeeds have slipped beneath the radar. The rampant corruption, like the rule-abiders and community-minded among us, has become veiled, masked. What of the overt lies? What of the grifting? What of the damning tax returns we know about, and the lord-knows-how-damning tax returns we have yet to see? What of the voter suppression and the racism and the stories that Jeffrey Epstein neglected to take to his grave? What about, what about, what about? Out of sight. Like my wrinkles. 

There is so much wrong right now, and as much as I mask up and keep my distance and wash my hands, there is no end in sight. But the seemingly forgotten treachery, like my wrinkles, will out again. 

Tzadek, Tzadek, Karma

I am not generally in the habit of wishing ill upon people, but I'm not gonna lie. I find it hard to feel anything resembling compassion for the newly infected POTUS and FLOTUS. They are vile. 

This is not to say the news made me happy. My first thought went to Joe Biden who, as it turns out, not only had to listen to 90 minutes of spewing bile but may also have been on the literal receiving end of the venomous spew. I was appalled when I watched the entire grifter clan remove their masks as they sat down, despite the guidelines set forth by the hospital hosting them. Little did I know they were doing far more damage than merely setting a poor example. 

I'm feeling a tad bit of pity for the rally-goers, the ignorant ones at least, the lemmings who have bought into the cries of hoax and the propaganda spread by Fox News. For the greedy ones and the haters, not so much. 

My new mask arrived yesterday, the one that says -- in Hebrew and English -- Tzadek, Tzedek, Tirdof. Justice, justice, shall you pursue. I ordered it after hearing that RBG had these words hanging on the wall in her chambers. Injustice. It's what keeps me awake at night, especially as November grows closer and the desperate corruption has reached a fever pitch. Masks are, in and of themselves, a statement. My new one adds an exclamation point.

Tzadik. It's another Hebrew term, another form of the word, really, that's been bandied about since RBG died on the eve of the Days of Awe. A title in Judaism given to people considered righteous. A person saved by God until the last minute, because we on earth needed her. NPR legal affairs correspondent and close friend of RBG Nina Totenberg tweeted just after midnight on that day: “And so it was that RBG died as the sun was setting last night marking the beginning of Rosh Hashanah.” But why take her when we needed her to hang on for just a few more weeks? 

RBG was indeed a Tzadik, a righteous woman, a dedicated pursuer of justice for the rest of us. Tzadik may be righteous, but karma is a bitch, and I'm starting to believe in both. 

My hope is that the president does not die this way. I would much rather see him, and his lackeys, prosecuted and imprisoned. I want to see those whose lives he has destroyed merely because they persisted, or spoke truth, made whole. I don't want anyone to die really. But I do want them to suffer the way far more than 200,000 Americans have suffered, not only the ones who succumbed but the ones who struggled and continue to struggle with the still unpredictable affects of this strange virus. And I want them to be exposed, to all those who have gulped down the Kool-Aid to the detriment of the rest of us.

Karma, because I'm feeling bitchy, and tzadek, because I'm honoring the righteousness that most of us can only dream about. My thoughts and prayers are real, but complicated. 

Never Ruth-less

"Dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, 'My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.' But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow." Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  

    A quiet and unassuming Jewish girl from Brooklyn, a Cornell graduate. The similarities between me and the notorious, brilliant, and indomitable RBG end there. It's a bit presumptuous of me to feel as if a piece of me has died, but, hey, without notorious, brilliant, and indomitable, that's all I got. 

    We had just clinked our wine glasses together to toast this already strange Jewish new year when the text came through on my watch. (I had tucked my phone away in my purse, but my watch bucked my efforts at decorum). We had just bidden good riddance to the old year, each of us expressing some sentiment of desperate hope for better things to come. RBG had chosen this moment to leave us. I gasped. 

    On these Days of Awe*, our celebration was, by design, small and quiet, without hugs. But we were together, at least some of us, and we had matzoh balls and brisket and kugel and challah, the comforting and familiar trappings of holiday dinners past. And wine. If nothing else, our gastronomic traditions would remind us that all is not lost. 

    But Ruth is gone. The woman upon whose shoulders so many of us have stood, often without a thought for the tremendous burden she has carried. We have enjoyed the fruits of her years of labor, felt entitled to the hard-fought gifts she bestowed upon us as we coasted. We ascended through her dissent, and we begged her to stay through our descent, and she did, as long as she could, without protest. 

    She is gone, and she has left us to do what we will with her legacy. Talk about an inflection point. At the very beginning of the Days of Awe, she has let us know it is time for us to take up the mantle, to step off her fragile shoulders and fight our own battles without her, to dissent and dissent and dissent. Sure, we owe it to ourselves, but more than anything, we owe it to her. To feel awe for this small but mighty daughter of Brooklyn is natural; to do something about it is, well, divine. I am not a very religious person, but I am convinced her death, at this moment, is the work of some higher power. A celestial kick in the behind. 

    Rest in peace, notorious RGB, daughter of Brooklyn, warrior queen for so many of us, and know that we will fight to make your memory a blessing. We will buck the evil, the power-grabbers, the mockers of democracy, and we will not let them take from us the gifts you worked so hard to bestow. "So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great, good fortune," said Ruth. May her passing spur us on. 

*The Days of Awe: A delicate blend of joy and solemnity, feasting and fasting, prayer and inspiration make up the spiritually charged head of the Jewish year.  www.chabad.org. 

Take a Trumper to Lunch

For some of us, a bridge too far appeared the day he rode down the escalator. It was unfathomable, this loathsome, good-for-nothing crook, seeking the reins of this country. 

I've already given a pass to anyone with a brain who thought it might be okay, even though I'll never get it. Maybe it was greed, maybe it was true conservatism, maybe just years of brainwashing and a touch of subliminal misogyny. 

Over the course of almost 2000 miserable days, I've become increasingly horrified by his vile behavior, but even more horrified by those who enable him. As he has set the Bar(r) lower and lower, the goal posts have moved, been jettisoned really, to the point where nothing he does surprises us. Well me, anyway. 

What surprises me though, each time, is what it takes for the bridge to be too far; it seems to happen only when it lands in folks' backyards. I marvel that, only now, is he in trouble in military polls. I marvel that, only a few months ago, did many of us march alongside our black neighbors and raise our voices. I marvel that only now are many corporations and even drug companies standing up, or at least appearing to, after almost 200,000 people have died. I marvel that the media still allows him to speak without real time fact checks, that they still address him as Mr. President, that they show up and let Kayleigh spew. I stopped watching CNN early on, back in the days when I thought it was absurd to even think somebody not on the payroll would actually buy into this crap. 

Yet here we are, and I lie awake nights, thinking that for whatever reason, despite all those who have finally seen the light, despite the daily barrage of corruption, he may somehow steal another four years. And then what? His impeachment had no consequence, other than to make democrats seem like whiny witch hunters; it empowered him even more. 

A friend told me about a friend who is still undecided. A reasonable and wonderful salt-of-the-earth person, undecided. A friend's mother refuses to believe that what she hears on Fox is untrue. A salt-of-the-earth mother. 

Is it not our duty, as individuals, to talk to these people, one on one? Do some Trump-splaining? It might be our only hope. 

So...in the next few weeks, might I suggest, take a Trumper to lunch?