I figured out how to make strawberry jam. I planted those five little strawberry plants in 2020, when Trump and Biden were running for president and the whole world was falling to pieces. The menacing neighbor ran onto my property one Sunday morning in a fit of mania and tore one of those strawberry plants out of the ground, along with a bean pole and most of the broccoli, but the other four plants survived. They sent out runners,... Read more
We need to talk about Donald Trump again. I look forward to the day when I don’t ever have to talk about Donald Trump again, but that day hasn’t come yet. The prosecution and the defense have rested in Trump’s tawdry Hush Money trial. This is Trump’s first criminal trial, but not his first trial for his disgusting dealings with a woman. We’ve heard from the sleaze David Pecker and from Stormy Daniels. We know details we wish we didn’t... Read more
The talk on the internet right now, is all about the stereotype of the Tradwife. A Tradwife, as you know, is a vicious stereotype of a certain kind of stay-at-home wife and mother: the kind who appears obnoxiously perfect, cooking everything from scratch, tending the family garden with ease, caring for children with infinite patience, and all while looking chic in a modest yet sexy dress and manicure. There are social media influencers who claim to be Tradwives, and their... Read more
Last night I went dancing. This was because of the Baker Street Irregulars, Adrienne’s old friends who live at the corner. There were only five Baker Street Irregulars when they moved into the rental house, and now there are at least six, but they never hold still long enough to be counted. The middle child of the Baker Street Irregulars, the one who saw God, is a musician. I didn’t know this until she came pelting up to my... Read more
I found myself thinking about the difference between a human and a robot’s version of Christianity, for the second time in a few weeks. This time, Harrison Butker is to blame. I don’t even know who Harrison Butker is. In fact, when I saw the words “Harrison Butker” next to a photo of a meticulously coiffed bearded man at a college graduation, I actually thought the photo and name were something an AI had mocked up. I believed this... Read more
I’d meant to work in the garden all day, but I kept having to run errands. First I had to pick up Adrienne from school, where they had celebrated the upcoming end of the school year with a Color Run, with all the teachers spraying the students with powdered dye. She got in the car with neon pink residue all over her t-shirt, and left it smeared on the passenger seat. I joked that it was the first pink... Read more
On Sunday night, I tried to see the auroras one last time. I drove up to Fernwood State Forest, to the scenic overlook facing northwest. I could see for miles, and the sky was perfectly clear, but there were no auroras. An owl hooted at me from a nearby tree. I hadn’t heard owls in years and years, not since I visited Pocahontas County as a teenager. Hearing an owl in the dead of night is unnerving in a way... Read more
It was the best kind of Sunday: cool, bright, sunny. We were going to church at the 5:30 Mass that evening, so I slept in until noon. I woke up to Adrienne presenting me with a wooden plaque from Dollar Tree and an origami card she made in school, signed in her best cursive. The school has been able to teach her cursive, something I never could. I praised her for the gift and told her it was... Read more
We saw the aurora, at midnight on Saturday morning. I hadn’t heard anything about the solar storms until auroras were already happening all over the Ohio valley Friday night. My friends were posting photos of a bright purple aurora, over the farmland just north of here. It was visible in Hopedale and in Richmond and all over the Valley, but I couldn’t see it. I kept ducking out of my to look at the sky, but all I saw was... Read more
All I wanted was a shovel. I hadn’t been able to finish my gardening last night, because I broke the shovel. I had a few seedlings still to go in and some seed still to be planted, but I didn’t have a shovel to finish turning over the grass with. There were only two days left before it was predicted to be drenching rain for a week. And it was the middle of the month, that excruciating marathon where... Read more
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