The first step was to coax myself to go to the food pantry. We’ve been having a hard summer. I think things will go better once Adrienne is in school, but it’s very tight just. The utility bills were high with our hodgepodge of window air conditioners, everything was coming due at once, there wasn’t any money to spare except a handful of change in my purse. But I did have the keychain card that the food pantry had given... Read more
During the third Trump arraignment, I took Adrienne swimming. I was tired of seeing our former president and hearing his silly name. I was exhausted of the sound of his voice and the protestations of the cultists who think he’s their savior. I came home hours later and watched a video of the events, from a foreign news network. I listened to a snooty-voiced reporter tell the snooty-voiced anchorman about the trouble Trump was in, the charges against him,... Read more
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew: After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. During the... Read more
We were playing outside. This happened a long time ago, when we’d just moved into this rickety rental house on a moderately bad street in LaBelle. I’d forgotten all about it until I saw it come up in my Facebook memories, and it made me sad. Adrienne, who used to be called Rosie, was almost four. She and I had just gotten back from Dollar Tree. We were even poorer than we are now, and there usually wasn’t a... Read more
On Tuesday I saw the circular saws. The video was going viral on the internet: apparently, Greg Abbot’s barrier stretched across the Rio Grande is equipped with booby traps. In between the floating red buoys are circular saws designed to maim anybody who tries to climb over them. The Mexican government is reporting that two bodies have been found dead in the river nearby– one of them entangled in the trap. Abbot is pro-life. The people who... Read more
We went swimming. We went to the small town of Toronto, Ohio, which would be just ten minutes up Route Seven from my house if they ever finished the construction and opened both lanes. As it is, it takes half an hour. Toronto is much smaller and cleaner than Steubenville. It’s on a steep hillside cascading down to the Ohio, with West Virginia cascading up on the other side. You see rolling trees on the mountains instead of layers... Read more
Let’s talk about Ohio Issue One. Tomorrow, Ohioans are going to vote on a single issue. It looks very strange on the ballot and it’s worded deceptively, so I want to say a few things about it. Proponents of Issue One claim they’re trying to “protect the constitution from outside interests,” and you need to understand that that’s the opposite of what they’re doing. They’re trying to protect the constitution from you and me, the actual citizens of Ohio, at... Read more
I had just about given up on the community garden. The weeds had reseeded themselves in last year’s mulch. I’ve never seen so many weeds in my life. There were towering trees of poke, great elephant ears of burdock, Gordian knots of crabgrass. I couldn’t possibly pull the weeds before they got so gigantic. All I could do was walk back and forth to my own two garden beds, tramping them down a bit. Even that was a gamble,... Read more
Today we will have yet another Trump arraignment. I’m beginning to lose track of them all. This time, the arraignment is in Washington DC, on four charges: “conspiracy to defraud the United States, witness tampering, conspiracy against the rights of citizens, and obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.” That brings the indictment count, adding up the state and local felonies, to 78. It’ll be higher when we get the indictments in the State of Georgia. He’s... Read more
I try not to pay attention to Bishop Robert Barron, and I fail. He’s the one who always seems to be blaming the mass exodus of young people from Catholicism on poor catechesis and “the dumbing down of our faith.” Yesterday, I noticed him being ratioed on Twitter in a spectacular way, with many of my friends leaving frustrated comments. I watched the short video he’d posted, against my better judgement. It was an advertisement for a new scheme of... Read more
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