Another day of infamy

 

This morning I remarked to a friend that we have had three days of infamy in my lifetime—December 7, September 11, and now January 6. She reminded me I had made an awful omission—November 22, the day of the Kennedy assassination. Still, it’s remarkable to me that my lifetime has seen such catastrophic events in our history. A slight qualifier: I was one year old when Pearl Harbor was hit and have no memory of the event. Still make me old!

If you’re on social media or the internet news at all, there is not much new to be said about yesterday’s attempted coup. But there are questions, a big one being why the Capitol police were not more prepared. Increasingly, talk on the net attributes that to the underlying racism in our society. Law enforcement simply did not expect violence from a bunch of white guys, though they were armed to the teeth and in riot gear for a BLM rally in recent months. My question though is why, since Capitol police basically handled the rioters with kid gloves until the day got away from them, why did they shoot one woman? Granted, she probably knew the risk, and she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it still puzzles me that she was the only apparent victim. Three others are said to have died of medical emergencies.

Today I am in reluctant praise of Vice-president Mike Pence and Leader of the House Mitch McConnell. After sanctioning trump’s antics for four years with their silent complicity, each stood up yesterday and did what they had to do. They probably did more than anything else to defuse the situation. On the other hand, I think Cruz, Hawley and their co-conspirators should not be allowed to help govern our country. The thought of Steve Scalise moaning about violence turns my stomach.

 We’ll be chewing on yesterday’s events for a long time, and we may get some answers. But there are, to me, some good signs—for instance, the Democratic victory in Georgia over two trump supporters. And I bet some trump supporters saw the folly of what they’ve been supporting—too little too late but better than nothing.

Yesterday was sort of a bad day at Black Rock for me even without the national turmoil, though I admit I was glued to the TV all day. I woke in the morning feeling slightly sick to my stomach, a feeling that has bothered me in recent weeks. Never could pinpoint anything I ate and even wondered if it was due to the holidays, covid, and/or the turmoil in our country. Yesterday I contacted my doctor, and he said we would treat it as dyspepsia. The very word conjured up a vision of the gluttonous Samuel Johnson in the eighteenth century. But I got a prescription—something not available to Johnson—and expect to feel better from now on.

Then, yesterday, in the midst of the turmoil in Washington, my computer quit. Cold. A black, blank screen. If you know me at all, you know the computer is where I spend my days. I write, I read, I follow some social media, I send and get lots of emails. Without the computer I was at loose ends—seriously considered going back to bed. The plugs and connections for the computer are where my walker and I cannot get to them, so I had to wait for Jordan to finish an extraordinarily long business call. But when she came out to the cottage, she found the problem right away—the monitor had come unplugged. I was back in business.

We had take-out food from our favorite Japanese restaurant last night and then followed our twelfth-night ritual, which we’d almost forgotten in the hectic atmosphere of the day. Jacob was the one who reminded us when he asked at supper, “Isn’t tonight Twelfth night?” Since my childhood, it’s been a family custom for each person to burn a twig from the Christmas tree on Twelfth Night and make a wish for the coming year. Of course, you cannot tell anyone else your wish. So mine was—oh, never mind! Some years we share this custom with neighbors, but this year, because of quarantine, it was just the four of us. At the end of that awful day, I found this custom and a short prayer for Epiphany comforting. It was as a sign that all will be well in the world.

Still, I was grateful last night to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.

The early presidential debates

 

I came across an article today that gave me great pause: the first presidential debates were between Kennedy and Nixon, sixty years ago! What gave me pause was that I clearly remember them.

I did not grow up with television. When all the other kids on my block were getting sets, I was reading books. My dad listened faithfully to the radio news every night—I’m sure either Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite. He saw no reason to get one of those new-fangled television things. When I confessed that to a friend tonight, she said, “you missed Howdy Doody and Disney on Sunday Night.” I’m sure I did,  as well as Lassie, Huckleberry Hound, the Mickey Mouse Club, Rin Tin Tin and a host of others. But while other kids were watching Lassie, I was reading Albert Payson Terhune’s books.

All that changed when it was announced that Kennedy and Nixon would debate, and the debates would be carried live on television. Dad went out and bought a cheap television on a cheap metal stand—no grand and glorious wood-encased console for us. The thing sat scrunched in an out-of-the-way corner in the living room, between the small entry and the piano. To watch you either had to sit on the couch or on the bottom stairs—or turn Mom’s wing chair around so it faced the TV.

Dad was an ardent Democrat—we were, after all, in Chicago. Mom, to my memory, was just as ardent in her dislike of Nixon. I’m sure if she’d objected to him during the debates, Dad would have tried to shush her. But in later years, when Nixon finally became president, she would demand that we all look at him and note how shifty his eyes were.

I remember watching those debates. No, alas, I was not a young child. I was probably twenty-one, and I watched with my then-boyfriend. I have no idea of his political leanings, but I know he, the son of a widowed father, liked the family atmosphere at our house. And probably the meals too.

After the debates, Dad watched the evening news regularly, but I do not remember that they got a new and better TV set until 1969 when they retired and built their dream house in North Carolina.

Meantime, I think that childhood without TV shaped me. There have been periods in my life when I watched some programs fairly faithfully—probably “West Wing” was my all-time favorite, but I liked mysteries and some sit-coms in the eighties and nineties.

But as the years went by, I became less and less of a TV fan. Reality shows seemed inane to me, as did game shows like “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune.” Whereas most of my friends could rattle off names of people made famous by TV, I was ignorant. I knew and occasionally watched Johnny Carson, but my nose was more often in a book.

Today, in the mornings at my desk, I keep the TV on, mostly for the news and to keep one eye on it so that I don’t miss something I need to see, like this morning’s impressive ceremony in the Capitol when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lay in state, welcomed by an all-woman program. A mind-blowing moment for me—so impressive.

I will watch the debates, though I often turn the TV off when trump comes on because his bluster and lies make me so angry. But I realize we are living in a significant moment in history, and I will watch and try to avoid Mom’s tendency to yell at the TV when he speaks. I would not be the first to draw a comparison between Nixon and trump, though trump usually comes off as the worst of the two. (Mom’s yelling was, by the by, so uncharacteristic of the type of woman she was, it always amazed me.)

Tonight, though, the TV is off, and I have a new mystery on my Kindle that I’m itching to get to. So, sweet dreams everyone.

Nothing much

January 4, 2017

I certainly hope today isn’t a glimpse of the year to come: it’s a nothing day, and tonight I’m unbearably sleepy, can’t stop yawning.

Went to the podiatrist and shivered in the cold. We Texans are funny—we waste more time worrying about a predicted cold spell than we spend taking precautions. So I huddled at my desk today, with a shawl around my shoulders and a lap blanket—and the cold is due tomorrow!. The a/c man came to show me how to use the remote that controls the temperature in the house-really very simple, but not knowing we’d been blindly punching buttons. Christian pointed out last night that it would work better if the battery were securely in place. But tonight it feels cool again.

The TV is doing something funny—the six o’clock Ch. 5 news came on at seven. Before that the news showed the time a full hour earlier than it was. Now it’s only 45 minutes off. Most confusing, and I’m glad I don’t have to be anywhere early in the morning. It’s as though Standard Time got mixed up and tried to become Daylight Savings Time again. It may have something to do with trying to record a program which, if I did, I did it “on accident” as the kids used to say.

Got my second wind and got some work done. One of my goals this spring is to revive interest in my mysteries and make sure they are all available as e-books. Stuck my toe into those waters today.

Sometimes when I can’t go right to sleep I plot a mystery and I end up writing the most fantastic books. Of course, they fade to nothing in the daylight. Sleep tight my friends, and may your dreams be as much fun as mine.

A Jacob evening

Jacob spends a lot of time at my house, and pretty much we're good. He's easy, especially on weekdays when he's necessarily occupied with homework. But sometimes I forget how contradictory and--well, yes, irritating--eight-year-olds can be. Today being Friday, he had no homework so he went home with another boy to play. I was delighted because he's spending the night and I thought all day and all night with the old lady might be too much. His mother called: he had unpacked his iPad and left it on the counter at home. That's a big deal because if I want to work in the evening, that keeps him occupied without kids' TV blaring at me (he prefers to camp in my office). We would have to go pick it up from her at the country club near my house.
So I picked him up at five and told him all this. When we got home, he insisted on throwing his backpack out the window and then climbing out. No sooner done than he said we had to go back because he left his gloves (baseball gloves, crucial even though his season is over--couldn't wait till Monday). So back we went--not a big deal, less than a mile. Once back in my driveway he panicked because he couldn't find his backpack. I reminded him. So he asked for the second time why I wasn't putting the car in the garage. I explained again we would have to go get the iPad.
Once inside, he wanted his TV programs and I wanted the news, so he established himself in the kitchen, drank the red Gatorade he'd collected on our second trip to the friend's house and insisted on a bowl of Fruit Loops (I hate feeding him junk). Pretty soon he came to tell me he'd thrown up. I told him to clean it up but he insisted I come look. It was really minimal spit-up, but he said, "It's red. I'm thinking it's blood." I explained about the red drink and the Fruit Loops, and I made him clean it up while he muttered, "This is so gross."
His parents delivered the iPad, so I quickly went and put my car up while it was still dusk. I hate walking down my driveway in total darkness, even with motion detector lights spaced along the way. Then I cooked supper--scrambled eggs, bacon, and broccoli (which he loves). His first words: "I'm not eating that" and he pointed to the eggs. "It's eggs," I said. "Oh, okay, I'm eating it." He ate every bite on his plate and asked for more, which I didn't have--broccoli was all gone, and I would have had to start over with bacon and eggs. I offered part of the broccoli on my plate--and he came and snatched a piece of bacon with the explanation, "I like bacon." "So do I," I protested. He won that round.
So now he's at his iPad and I'm at my computer. He was of course still hungry and has had ice cream and a peanut butter/honey sandwich. I think all is well with the world. I told him I saw a sign last night that said, "I love you, but you sure can irritate me." I considered buying it but the friend with me asked if Jacob would understand. I said, "Oh yeah." Tonight he said, "Yeah. I understand." But his eyes were laughing.