At the Water's Edge In My Dream

Yesterday, Pete and I took our camera and had a frigging adventure. The man can take a picture that tells a whole story.

Midday, Donaldson Park from the Third Avenue Entrance. The water beyond the trees is the river.

We started at the park, where the park rangers had taped off the roadway. The river regularly floods and overflows into the park, which is why it is a park. The county forgot this and put in some very expensive, years-long renovations. They are about to be junk. People in town talk about the renovations in statements that trail off and nobody knows what to make of it all. Officially, I mean. We know these mistakes make for awesome, dramatic photos and fat, obnoxious geese. A whole herd of folks in rugged raingear turned up to see what they knew they'd see and what they'll see again: the floodplain, flooded.

The tree stood next to the old farm house around which the tiny town was built. Just out of frame to the left is a destroyed car barely visible under the treetop. Yes, we were driving by.

We drove around town, dodging fallen trees and crunching over branches. This house is about five blocks from where we live under trees just as tall. The roaring wind the night before had made Pete and the cats antsy.

Early afternoon: Easton Avenue in Somerset, which Trout described as "the canoe-thru Wendy's." Through the trees, the canal and the river are running at the same height as the road, which I can only remember seeing a few times before.

We had to plot and scheme to get to the grocery store in our hometown, about 2.5 miles away. Fortunately, we rode bikes on the back roads as teenagers, but we had to outwit lost yuppies who moved into town ten years ago. When we got to the fence above Easton Avenue, about a dozen other people were snapping pictures before storming the grocery store, where cashiers loudly exclaimed they thought we were crazy to be out in driving rain, which we weren't. The surface of the water is smooth.

Late afternoon: Donaldson Park from the Second Avenue entrance. The county has been renovating this park since Hurricane Floyd wrecked it in a way that looked pretty much just like this, except with fewer brand new backstops and soccer goals.

Less than five miles upstream, two towns sit below sea level. They get creamed in serious, fatal ways during and after nor'easters. It's hard to watch the same drama play out every seven or eight years. We put on boots and take pictures and join in the cosmic joke.

Let the Red Flames Light the Sky

In the future, where we have jetpacks and that 20-20 hindsight, let us not confuse what we wish with what we are doing. An example: last July, bluegal wrote:

A fellow blogger had a fit last night via email, because that blogger heard a rumor that possibly abortions would not be covered under the Public Option. I. Just. Winced. All. The. Way. To. Bed. We don't HAVE a public option yet. It's not a sure thing. We have to wait for the insurance companies to fail before single payer is maybe possibly back on the table, but let's pour a heaping cup of the most divisive issue of the past fifty years into the pot right now, because it's so very critical.

These are the words of a fake feminist, no matter how she denies it. These are the words of a person prepared to change the subject when other people's problems disgust her. I'd like to make a joke, but what is there to say when a woman who makes panty jokes kicks people below her on the ladder? I lost my cool.

but let's pour a heaping cup of the most divisive issue of the past fifty years into the pot right now, because it's so very critical.

I'm sorry you're squeamish about this but it is, in fact, very critical. Further, I can't really tell what point you're arguing here. Are you saying that we construct a public option, which is already a poor compromise from single-payer, then decide what's in our compromise, and then give away our reproductive rights?

Because: no. No.

I have three words for her: Bart. Fucking, Stupak, whose coming perfidy was visible for miles. She responded:

Tata I'm saying, particularly with this issue, don't throw gas on a flame until you know what you're burning.

We are going to have to work out what's covered and what isn't, sure. For instance, I don't want public option to pay for Arianna's botox injections.

I'm also not going spend one minute this summer getting into an abortion rights versus free-abortion-on-demand rights argument here. And I don't think Congress should, either.

But here's the deal: if Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh get to call Public Option a baby killer option we're politically done.

DONE. FUCKING DONE.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if some cunning insurance lobbyist floated that rumor just to run the public plan off the rails. It just might work.

That explosion you just heard? Yeah, the top of my head blew off. There was no point in trying to show her the future - except what was certain.

O'Reilly's going to be all over that by dinnertime tonight. You've bargained away the repro rights of the people the plan is supposed to cover without a fight.

Game, set, match for the forced birthers.

The health insurance bill will set back repro rights in ways we will spend decades discovering, which makes me so angry I can hardly see straight. What makes it worse is when women like bluegal, who should have been able to see past her Ick Factor problem to observe that strategically when women's groups didn't get out in front of this issue, we lost everything. Again. The reason it was completely foreseeable is it happened every year since Roe v. Wade was decided. Bluegal is supposed to be smart - her masthead says as much - so she either knows that or doesn't care if repro rights survive. The argument she makes is a dead giveaway.

Here we are, in the completely foreseeable future. If you can't guess what's going to happen next, maybe you could ask her what she thinks won't.

With A Deck Of Fifty-One

I've butted into your business before and I will do it again, but this has to be said: make your own damn yogurt!

Recently, 8 ounce wide mouth Ball Jars changed my ultra-glamorous life. The glass jars that came with my ancestral yogurt makers have become delicate with age and I'd prefer not to take them to work. One day, I was foraging in my vast stores of Stuff Dad Gave Me and discovered the 8 ounce wide mouth Ball Jars. They fit perfectly into one of the ancestral yogurt makers and they don't break when Topaz pushes one off the kitchen counter. You don't have Topaz reorganizing your glassware, but the Ball Jars might help you carry that yogurt you're making to work with you.

Lovely Drusy cannot sniff you without playing kissy face.

Miss Sasha calls and asks questions. Is Jell-O gluten-free? This morning, one of my co-workers stepped into my cubicle and said, "You are a genius, I think. Has anyone ever said that to you before?" A couple of months ago, I was walking to the bank when a woman across the street waved and shouted to me in a peppery mix of Russian and English. From a distance she looked like Auntie InExcelsisDeo, who does not speak Russian and though she speaks no other language avoids speaking English if she doesn't have to, so I approached with a smile and realized we did not know one another. By the time I put my hand on her forearm, she had called me a genius and by someone else's name. I said, "Hello, but I am not her." She said, "I thought you were my niece!" I said, "I thought you were my aunt!" Then I laughed all the way to the bank and checked the name in my underwear - and I was only sure I was me when I wasn't wearing any. Memory can be overrated but being able to work out a problem is good stuff, so I told Miss Sasha to call the phone number on the box and ask a direct question.

In fact, my co-workers ask me questions all day long.

Beth: Can I ask you a question? I was just cleaning off my desk and I moved something and do you know what size mouse droppings are? Have you ever seen them? Are they small or big? We were having a mouse problem awhile ago, I remember, and I was just wondering -

Hmm. That doesn't do this justice. Imagine Beth, who is a gentle, lovely person, talking without taking a breath.

Beth: CanIaskyouaquestion? IwasjustcleaningoffmydeskandImovedsomethinganddoyouknowwhatsizemousedroppingsare? Haveyoueverseenthem? Aretheysmallorbig? Wewerehavingamouseproblemawhileago,Iremember,andIwasjustwondering -

Tata: You saw mouse poop and thought of me?

Beth: [Can't breathe for laughing.]

Tata: Go talk to Hal. He's lived on farms all his life.

Maybe it's the decades of working in a library, but I'm convinced that whatever the question, someone - somewhere - has the right answer. It's probably not me, but someone. For instance, someone knows why this bullshit health insurance debacle has gone so horribly wrong and I am afraid it might be Dr. Marcia Angell.

Earth Is In Your Gentle Hands

Topaz and Drusy chase a moth from a strategic position atop the dining room table.

Open a bag of carrots. Cut off the ends, peel and slice on a diagonal. Heat a bigass frying pan and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour chicken or vegetable stock into the pan to a depth of about 1/2 inch. Sprinkle in: ground ginger, ground cumin, salt, pepper, minced dried orange peel. Add: one teaspoon honey. Toss in carrots and one can of mandarin oranges, whooosh around, cover and pop into the oven for half an hour.

You can substitute 1/2 cup dried cranberries for the oranges if you are so inclined. Don't be shy if you like herbs: basil, thyme, marjoram or sage would be great, but don't be afraid to try savory, cilantro, fennel seed, allspice, cnnamon...you get the delicious picture.