America will always prevail

Warren Buffet said that, America will always prevail. One of these times we will get it right. We reinvent every time. But so effing slowly. And it all must be the law of the land, or it does not stick. So, let's make sure people go to the polls.

I wrote about the two hour line the first day of early voting. I didn't include the big human interest story of the man who collapsed twice in line, and the second time left in an ambulance. Well, he made it back to the line this week, and cast his vote.

No, I did not make that tree of life wall hanging. But I easily sussed out how it was made. I have a cone of cotton cord that I have not been able to dispose of for grandchildren and cat's cradles. Perhaps some cold winter evening I may sit in front of the fire and make it.

If anyone is interested, I'll write out what I think is the procedure and send it along. It's a new take on macramé, all the rage in the seventies. My most complicated piece was a Roman shade, and the hardest part of that was correctly stringing the cords so the shade folds rose and fell evenly.

A bizzy weekend. The cerise towel yardage is off the loom and in the dryer. If it comes out before I post, I'll include a picture. But probably not.

I downloaded a series of Willa Cather novels, last read in college. The bad part is that my MP3 indexes by author, and at this point I have to remember how many I've listened to in order to move along in an orderly way. When I have to charge it up again, I'll delete the ones I've listened to. Probably except Death Comes for the Archbishop. It is so lovely I could listen several times.

There was a kitchen adventure this afternoon. I bought a butternut squash when last shopping. It's been on the counter going on two weeks, wondering why I didn't cut it. And I, eyeing it from time to time, wondered if I could cut it, or would have to call my sister. I invited her to afternoon tea and cutting my cabbage in half, recently.

Watching her at that cabbage though, I realized it's like loading and unloading a van load of very heavy totes and display equipment. It's all about leverage. We never did get to weaving gossamer, and cotton is so heavy.

Aren't they beautiful! An hour and a half bake in the oven, I had one for supper and one for tomorrow.

Washed, dried and folded. My work today is done.

Remember...

I know how this plays out. Remember Trafficant? That man's chicanery was repeating a lie often enough for a few to believe. A demagogue. Even in prison he carried his persona. America did not crumble.

We accept holstered men. We accept gay activities. Women's political strength expands. People of all color are taking responsibilities for our common good. People are good. People are kind.

America will not crumble. Neither will America return to good old days. There is little good about days directed by bad laws and bad men and women.

People should do as they please, within the law. Stockpile guns. Shoot targets to smithereens. Hurt someone with that gun and spend the rest of your days in prison.

I started this post yesterday, thinking about all the comments from you filtered through the grey brain of an old lady who remains a tree hugger. Then a group of buddies in Michigan decided their "militia" could start a revolution by that tried and true method of kidnapping the state's governor.

And you know what happened. They fought the law and the law won.

So here we are, in another reinvention, boosted by Covid and the  need for new thinking. This one is a biggie. Not only must we outwit Covid, we must address this country's great underclass. And those are not the "militias" that grow up occasionally and feel they can reform the nation by taking over a national area, or a governor.

The underclass is the other ninety plus percent of us,  

We all know the end of the underclass is equal opportunity. Equal access to medicine, to education, to housing. There is enough money in this country to rebuild third world countries and feed and vaccinate the world's children. Spend that money at home, too.

Spend that money at home to provide the education that produces teachers, doctors, mechanics, thinkers, producers who work and live in adequate surroundings. Money at work to this end provides more than more money. It provides a better world to live in.

It's eleven this morning, and I'm past my best thinking time of the day. Fortunately the best tool I have left is my ability to type my little message. I believe we, on the whole, are committed to the continual reinvention for the common good that is this country. 

Be kind. No more political talk from me until after the election. Oh, by the way, absentee ballots in my county are delayed.

Remember to have a plan to have your vote counted.

I wonder if we will remember all that must be restored.

 I'm wrapped in such a sense of anxiety. Time cannot pass quickly enough. It's like the last days before the baby is born. I remember that feeling, rising through my body. It was there before my divorce was final, before my mother died.

Watching this year's events unfold, that sense has started up in me often, and I've sent it away. Literally tell myself "Stop this. Get on with something else!"

The last few mornings, I've read the news summaries in my night gown. The first morning was to assure myself the President still was alive.

My home town paper scrabbles along, and I subscribe on line. A while back I cut back to one big city paper and chose the Washington Post. I don't know why I picked it over the New York paper, and all that matters is my attempt to keep abreast.

That home town paper is Akron Beacon Journal, known affectionately is the Reekin' Journal. The front page story today is early voting, written in their sad, human interest style. The line is a two hour wait. One of those public interest groups spawned in my kind of home town advises the elderly and infirm to bring meds and water and juice.

The rest of the story, on an inside page, drops my explosive. Instead of the usual 150 booths, there are 50. The cause is the pandemic.

I won't go into any of my solutions. There is one. There are many. It's too late, and no longer the point.

I wonder if we will remember the entire list that must be restored.

This is not a third world country. It is one of the longest surviving and improving democracies on the planet. There have been setbacks, we've lurched forward. The latest setback is the whole of the anxiety, the foreboding.

The questions are the answer. How many poor people does it take to make one rich person? 

I don't know. I'm going to weave now.

No overthinking

I slept in half an hour, another day. My second  (?) winter on from a broken leg, I recognize change of weather equals change of pain, from accepted normal to too much. 

Last winter how I wanted those metal rods removed, and the sweet young surgeon said sure, he could do that, but what if a strong wind broke that bone again. So, another winter to get through.

And the news this morning, POTUS and FLOTUS are Covid positive. My stomach turned and my brain thought "You dumb fuck!".  I truly am sorry, even though the two of them walked in, eyes wide open.

I went to the post office this afternoon. The one closest to home, with all the urban cross roads. A bright red truck zoomed out of one, causing me to brake sharply (warning ding from the monitor) and curse softly.

The truck flew two flags from the tailgate, each big enough to swathe my car. On my left, that new American flag with black and white bars and one blue, for all our first responders. I used to respect that flag. Perhaps I was dumb.

The flag on the right was an American flag. So, the standard calling card of an American redneck. I wondered if he would "blow coal", though I also reasoned he probably was not smart enough or old enough to understand diesel and standard shift. He made an unsignaled right turn, and then I saw the entire center of the flag proclaimed TRUMP. 

This year I have read too many books on racism, cast, underclass. I've even set a couple aside, too much to stomach. I've started Caste, by Wilkerson, Deep South by Theroux, Entitled by Marnne, among others. The only book I finished, and read deeply and recommend is Deep South, by Paul Theroux. I could relate to every page of the book, and some of it has even happened to me.

We deliberately maintain an underclass in this country. Not you and me, but the system that only trusts fat white men (and women). The power and the money only goes where the holders of the power and the money wish it to go. 

Theroux has travelled the world and written widely of cast and underclass, and all those places in South America, Africa, India, touched by the money of the Clinton Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He's also travelled our deep South, where the money has never gone.

But of course, there is other news. I've finished the Slate towels. As soon as I post this, I'll post them. And three more towels at home came into my box today. Now that is fun.

It is cold, raining most mornings. The sun was brilliant later in the day and the sky still is cloudless. How I hope to see the full moon tonight. In the meantime, my flowers are between some paragraphs, and here are the new slate towels.

So done with September

 Admit it. September was one discouraging month. I even made a deal with the calendar. If today was October, I would clean the big bathroom. It was and I did.

I am numbed. Life was not always measured out in teaspoons. Finding spontaneity in four walls is not possible, even for the cat. Even his dead run of sixty feet has the same obstacles to avoid. He has regressed to treating me as if he's my dog. 

The children around me are back in school. I read in the paper of schools all around closing their doors, but the two private academies have full parking lots. I used to remember to avoid the road they both occupy, from one cross road to another, when the School Zone lights would be blinking. 

I don't remember that, now. I amused myself with pictures on my way through the four way stop. 

My letter to the people was published in the last issue of YCN. Be sure your vote is counted. If you don't vote, you don't count. Stark, and true.

Life within four walls--groan. After I watch the cat bound, end to end, until he just flops, little remains. Sometimes I cook, even two or three days in a row. I made cauliflower soup the other day. So good, especially with some Swiss cheese and bacon crumbles. Two or three days are stashed in the freezer. Well labelled.

Another keeper is the bruschetta spaghetti. As a not Italian, I've deduced the meaning of "bruschetta" in front of spaghetti. I take it to mean "raw", as in spaghetti from scratch. The noodles wind up coated in red sauce, and are red, and not from a separate pan, or from a can of sauce.

Other people in my world are alive and well. Just not "in". Laura is rooming with Kamaria and sharing her life. It includes bicycling and veganism. Nothing with eyes, I think. Kamaria sent a picture labelled "Back from a six mile bike ride and Laura went up the apple tree!".

Speaking of trees, and other women in my family, Beth has sent pictures from time to time of the progress of the pergola in her back yard. The pergola has been a plan of hers for some time, and life fitted together this year to get it done.

First, the old pear tree in her back yard gasped its last pear last year. The tree was there when she moved in, and that was while her G'ma Lytle was here to admire her house and her accomplishment. Past that, let's just say her children were raised on pear sauce.

Several years ago she and the children laid a patio under the tree, and entertaining moved there. A few more years of shade from the tree, and then it was gone.

Over the course of this summer I received snaps. This is dated August 30th:

A couple of weeks later:

Progress. More stepladders called into service. And Saturday my phone went nutz with a flurry of pergola pictures.

I will save the close ups of the overhead screening and struts and uprights for a really slow day. Here we have Beth's husband, Bill, her college roommate, John (also the primary builder), and the pergola.

And the author of the event? Since the men aren't available to make a picture, wait a bit. Beth's chair is the red chair.