Life of Wry

All over the country there are demonstrations against Trump. I’m glad about this because I, too, am furious and feel betrayed. I’ve ranted about this for two days. I’ll shut up.

But, kids on college campuses in particular. You have offended them, Donald. They are young, smart, and I hate to tell ya, diverse. You’ve challenged their ethnicities, their faiths, their rights to be here at all, you have challenged education, facts, science. You sound like a doofus and nobody can take you seriously.

So they’re out protesting because you have said horrible and stupid things. You have not earned their respect, you are not presidential material. You put their future at risk.  You are, apparently, not the boss of them.

Here’s a shot:

This was at UCSD on Tuesday night… Peter thought there were thousands, the San Diego Tribune said more like 500. Still, wee hours of the morning, kids poured out of the dorms and marched in anger, frustration and betrayal. People a few generations removed, stuck in some dated and dangerous paradigms, took the election away from them.

The protests occurred on campuses all over the country. I opened my window that evening and heard hundreds (thousands?) chanting “Not my president” and “F– Trump,” coming from the direction of UCD.

Here’s a letter the Janet Napolitano wrote to students at the ten University of California campuses:

President Janet Napolitano and the Chancellors of the University of California today (Nov. 9) issued the following statement:

In light of yesterday’s election results, we know there is understandable consternation and uncertainty among members of the University of California community.  The University of California is proud of being a diverse and welcoming place for students, faculty, and staff with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives.  Diversity is central to our mission.  We remain absolutely committed to supporting all members of our community and adhering to UC’s Principles Against Intolerance.  As the Principles make clear, the University “strives to foster an environment in which all are included” and “all are given an equal opportunity to learn and explore.”  The University of California will continue to pursue and protect these principles now and in the future, and urges our students, faculty, staff, and all others associated with the University to do so as well.

We are proud of what the University of California stands for and hope to convey that positive message to others in our state and nation.

President Janet Napolitano                           Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks
University of California                                  University of California, Berkeley

Interim Chancellor Ralph Hexte                  Chancellor Howard Gillman
University of California, Davis                     University of California, Irvine

Chancellor Gene Block                                    Chancellor Dorothy Leland
University of California, Los Angeles         University of California, Merced

Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox                              Chancellor Pradeep Khosla
University of California, Riverside              University of California, San Diego

Chancellor Sam Hawgood                            Chancellor Henry T. Yang
University of California, San Francisco     University of California, Santa Barbara

Chancellor George R. Blumenthal
University of California, Santa Cruz

Crazy somebody had to write that letter.

So…

I’m chewing on this idea that he is not my president. 

On the one hand, I strongly support the peaceful transfer of power and believe any new president deserves the respect of the office and a chance to succeed. He hasn’t even assumed office, so I can’t say he’s not my president. He won, we lost, it’s over, let’s move on; that’s the way it works.

(Unless you’re Senate republicans and then you make it known that your one and only objective, announced proudly and publicly, is to make sure the new president does NOT succeed and you obstruct absolutely everything he tries to do for eight years to ensure his failure, then you bitterly complain and use his failures as your campaign platform.)

On the other hand, he is a very bitter pill to swallow. I might take the high road, give the dude a chance, but, damn, I hate how he got there, how he bullied and lied and threw everything I care about under the bus. And I hate everything he stands for. (No need to repeat earlier blogs.)

No, he does not represent me in any way. Further, he hurts my soul.

As New York Times columnist Charles Blow (one of my saviors during this nightmare of a campaign) said today:

It is hard to know specifically how to position yourself in a country that can elect a man with such staggering ineptitude and open animus. It makes you doubt whatever faith you had in the country itself.

Also, let me be clear: Businessman Donald Trump was a bigot. Candidate Donald Trump was a bigot. Republican nominee Donald Trump was a bigot. And I can only assume that President Donald Trump will be a bigot.

It is absolutely possible that America didn’t elect him in spite of that, but because of it. Consider that for a second. Think about what that means. This is America right now: throwing its lot in with a man who named an alt-right sympathizer as his campaign chief.

[…]

I can’t make it make sense because it doesn’t. I must sit with the absurdity of it.

I must settle this in myself in this way: I respect the presidency; I do not respect this president-elect. I cannot. Count me among the resistance.

And bigotry is just one of my many issues with this horrible human being. Is there a time when you just say no, stand up and resist? In the case of accepting or rejecting the office of the presidency itself.. I have to think about this one.

From a Facebook convo…

In solidarity with racial justice and in recognition of the fact we will never move forward as a society until we take responsibility for our history and acknowledge the existence and oppression of white privilege, we put up a new lawn sign yesterday. It was time to take down the school board and measure H signs, and put this up:

I’m inclined to leave our Clinton/Kaine sign up for a while as a wee sign that I’m having serious issues with our new president.

Woke up, checked my phone, he was still president.

I went into my office and stared at my desk… here’s what it looked like last night (well, more like 3:00am) when I finally dragged myself off to bed…

Couldn’t even finish my wine.. what had been my celebration wine. It went mostly un-drunk the whole night.

Still feel like it can’t be possible that we elected Trump to be our president. I’ve felt ill at ease all day.  At one point, just after I’d gotten off the Stairmaster (so maybe it was a rush of endorphins, but whatever).. I just fell onto my bed and sobbed. Hard, wracking sobs. It didn’t come out of nowhere, because I’d been crying on and off all morning, but the intensity was a little alarming.

I just went with it.

It was reminiscent of an experience I’d had earlier in the year. About six or eight months ago, I was riding my bike home from somewhere, and this tidal wave of a realization that Peter was soon to be moving out and going to college slammed into me. Of course his inevitable departure had been a reality for months, years (right?), and I’d certainly seen it coming and shed tears here and there between the frenzied activities of his senior year. But on this day, while innocently tooling along on my bike, I started to cry, and then sob. I could barely keep a straight line, I could barely see. But I just kept riding along, wailing like a crazy person… yeah, what a sight. And it did something.. it helped to be able to face the grief and just go with it, and then, ultimately, it just felt cleansing. I didn’t really cry much after that… a little, but nothing like that day on the bike.

So I figure the big dramatic release probably helped a little, we’ll see.

I’m looking at this intensely emotional reaction and trying to distill it down.. what is it about? Losing is hard. Losing when you totally expected to win is harder still. Losing a campaign in which you invested fully–emotionally, financially, time wise–is also so, so hard.

But that’s politics. I’ve been on the losing end of voting a lot more times than on the winning end, and hate it, but I don’t cry.

This one is different for so many reasons.

One, the man both repulses and scares me. I will never be convinced he ran for love of country. He ran for one reason only: he wanted the biggest brass ring there is, the highest prize, his name in the brightest light on earth. It’s all about the adulation, the validation. Everything he does, he does for attention and praise. He is in it for the pageantry, the pomp and protocols.

It’s a very sad commentary on who he is and the deficiencies in his life, but I’m not going there now. Suffice to say: pathetic little man child.

Two, his tactics for getting to this place were beyond the pale–so indecent, so hateful. He stoked the basest fears among his vulnerable, uneducated supporters. And he just lied over and over and over again.  He further polarized the country, playing people off one another by manufacturing convenient enemies, and created a very intentionally frothed up base, because that worked in his favor.

It also bugs me that his largest and most valuable demographic was “the uneducated white” population. It’s a segment of the country he exploited, and they didn’t care.  I mean please: “I love the uneducated.” Number one: he does not love them. Not his people. They are a means to an end. Period. And the poor uneducated whites don’t even see the slight. Number two: Really? That’s a value we want to promote?

It’s breathtaking to me the wave of anti-intellectualism that propelled his campaign. Anti-higher education, anti-science, anti -liberal elites.. as though education, facts and knowledge are bad things.

Well, the class-gap is a whole nuther complex phenomenon.. not new, fascinating, very worth exploring, but topic for another day.

Back to the profoundly unfair tactics Trump employed to rally his base:

He knew Obama was born in the United States. He knew his rhetoric would whip his base into a frenzy. He totally encouraged the dangerous mob behavior and conveniently looked away when people spoke of lynching, assassination, ethnic cleansing… while never rebuking it. He knows full well who David Duke is and gladly allowed him to mobilize white supremacists in support of his campaign.

He got to where he is on the backs of the uneducated. He used them. He used their fear.

What frustrates the holy hell out of me is that he got away with it all. AND, he can now count on the short memories of people willing to put all of that aside as politics-as-usual gamesmanship.

The reality is, he simply cannot govern the country in the same vile way in which he ran his campaign. His base wouldn’t expect him to, or even want him to. He may now rise to a more civilized discourse. He’ll just remove that ugly costume and throw it away. He got where he wanted to be, by any means necessary.  Now he’ll play president.

Soon, ensconced in the luscious elegance of the office and its institutional civilities, where people–everyone–must call him Mr. President, he’ll not just tone down the rhetoric, it will be completely gone. His frothing base just a manipulated means to an end. He’ll “look so presidential you won’t believe it” (and I won’t for a minute), and we’ll be fully in pretend land.

So that hurts like hell. The unfairness and injustice of it. I am not cut out for this level of fraud. It just shreds my soul.

THE OTHER TRAGEDY is what happened to Hillary! I am not prepared to defend all that has gone on behind the scenes over her lifetime of political public service… that is a world so complicated, so corporately corrupt and so beyond my reach, I just cannot begin to understand it.  But I will say 1) she is not alone in abusing the system for political gain, 2) she has been unfairly and relentlessly pursued for decades by Clinton haters and old white guys not comfortable with women in power, especially a Clinton woman,  3) the conspiracy theories surrounding the Clintons are legend, so he just seamlessly picked up where other fruitcake theorists left off, and 4) Trump, I’d hazard an easy guess, is monumentally more corrupt and devious, which points to yet another painful, cry and cringe-worthy irony in this whole thing. Like, for godssake people: thousands of lawsuits on the books, countless disgruntled employees and contractors, numerous bankruptcies, and, hello?, no publicly shared tax returns! You can talk to me about Hillary’s corruption after we’ve discussed the creepy, filthy, slimy world of Trump’s abuses and questionable morals and ethics…. the lawsuits, bankruptcies, tax returns, AND his numerous marriages, porn flick appearances, and pending charges of sexual abuse. And whatever else is in that dirty, disgusting, entitled past of his.

I will also say that she may have been politically devious, no doubt she was. But I am utterly certain that his corruption and financial manipulation is orders of magnitude worse. Further, his bottomless pit of questionable business practices are done to advance his personal wealth, hers have been done in the service of public programs. Hers is a lifetime of public service. His.. not so much. There is no comparison.

The irony that SHE was labeled throughout the campaign by HIM as the crooked one, and that that became her defining story, makes me sick.

And then, cruelest of all, this country elected him president while Hillary–smart, wonky, experienced and deeply prepared, a person who’s committed her entire life to public service, especially to girls and families, is bullied, humiliated, shamed and sent packing. She had the resume, she’d done her homework, she was the best candidate for the job. She earned it, and she deserved it.

Once again, the big, powerful, abusive guy prevails. The profound unfairness makes it hard to breathe.

This is why I cry.

It was the last thing I ever expected on Tuesday evening when the polls first closed on the east coast. It made for such a shocking evening, as, hour by hour, her victory started to look less certain. I felt totally, totally sick.

~~

I’ve seen people already writing about getting over it. It was election, there are always winners and losers. Move on. Give the man a chance, they say. Stop being so dramatic. Like it’s everyday a breathtakingly unqualified, bigoted, misogynist with no government experience whatsoever rises to the highest seat of power in the entire world. A position in which he is supposed to lead and represent–fairly and genuinely–the most proudly diverse country on earth.

Hell yeah, people are worried. Muslims, immigrants, african americans. And not just minority communities: people who care about women, women’s rights, climate change and the environment… people who value their health insurance.

For starters.

It is NO WONDER universities all over the country and state governments (I’ve only seen California’s so far) are issuing statements to their people to try and calm everyone the hell down and affirm their commitment to basic human rights principles and protections. They are compelled to let their students and constituents know that they will be safe and protected. I am not kidding.

Jesus Christ. When was the last presidential election in which that had to happen?  Is it not absolutely STUNNING that universities and entire state governments are even writing these things?

So no, I don’t think people’s reactions to Trump’s election are over dramatized and out of line. I think their fear and despair are warranted and understandable.  I don’t think, frankly, we’re going to chill out anytime soon. Our country just elected Donald frickin’ Trump. 

I feel numb. What just happened? Someone who is spectacularly unqualified and ill-suited for the job of president of the United States just edged out one of the most experienced people ever to seek the office, someone who’s been preparing for this job, it seems, her entire life. She eked out the popular vote (47.7% to 47.5% … a difference of 224,593 votes and counting) and he won the electoral college (279 to 228). It was one of the most bizarre, most toxic, most divisive election in modern history.

How to process.. what to think.. what to do?

So much of this is shocking and horrible, but how about this one: what do we say to our kids in the morning (a question Van Jones asked on a CNN panel tonight)? What the hell kind of message did this election just send to our children? We teach our kids to be polite, to be kind. We teach them about respect for all kinds and colors of people, how to be a good friend. We teach them basic manners and morals. We want them to be curious, to value learning and education, to be well prepared for challenges. We teach them to respect and revere nature, to be compassionate stewards of our precious planet.

For the last umpteen months, Donald Trump has shown us none of that.

We teach our children not to lie!

What are they to think? Trump spent his entire campaign lying. The nation–and our kids!–watched him lie and lie and lie. And behave very, very badly. Then we elected him President of the United States of America. So I guess we are teaching our kids that it’s okay to do and say whatever you must in order to get what you want.  That the end justifies the means. This was Trump’s signature M.O. and he was rewarded handsomely.  And, by the way, just because he delivered a carefully scripted speech at the end of the night and spoke in conciliatory tones and was gracious in victory, does not make sixteen months of foul-mouthed, bald-faced lies okay. It is not okay. Winning at all costs is not what we teach our children.

What do we say to people who are now very afraid?

What are women to think? He’s been boorish and entitled and rude and condescending throughout this entire campaign. In the course of the campaign, we learned that he has a history of abusive behavior. Misogyny is his calling card and a lifelong pattern of behavior. How do we ever trust him? What’s to become of women’s reproductive rights? Stunning we fear the loss of something as fundamentally basic. What era are we in?

Bigotry, disguised as a concern for safety, is a thread that’s been laced though so much of his campaign. What are immigrants–Muslims, Mexicans, Syrians–to think?  His fixes have been all about bans, walls, deportations, litmus tests.  And what about all the coded language about our need for law and order, and his ridiculous assertion that he will fix “the ghettos,” “vote for me, what have you got to lose?”  And never forget his repugnant role in the birther movement.. what are african americans to think?

He’s got not an ounce of compassion or humanity, or decency.

Our president.

He’s blustered and bullied and insulted and lied his way through the primaries, the general, and, totally improbably, right into the office of president… the most important, high profile job in the entire world. Nothing he said bothered his base. No insult went too far. How is this possible?

He’s coarse and crude. He calls people names.  He is devoid of humility. He is simply not a human being who has earned respect.

He actively campaigned for more guns, against the environment and stands by the idiocy that climate change is a hoax. On and on.

He has been insanely polarizing and outrageous from day one, yet nothing dissuades his supporters–his ill-informed base as well as partisan republican loyalists.

Our president.

He lost three debates. He was cavalier and unprepared, he has/had no policy positions, he doesn’t read, he knows nothing about history. He has no interest in history. He lacks even curiosity.

He has NO experience in government.

How is this going to work? Government doesn’t lend itself to unilateral decision making, Donald. You will not be free to call all the shots. Government is tedious, it’s about compromise, it’s about give and take. It’s about small advances. It’s about losing. Every win includes lots of losses. You are not wonky, you do not love wonk, you do not READ! YOU ARE NOT CUT OUT FOR GOVERNMENT WORK.

Go back to Trump Tower, please. Leave us alone. You have no business running for president.

And now he promises to unify. He has not earned the job of unifier.

What the hell kind of leader can he be to the other half of the country that he insulted and offended throughout the entire campaign. How is he going to lead me? I’m offended by everything he stands for. He abuses women. He bullied and shamed my candidate… we all watched it; it was sickening. What kind of leader could he possibly be to any ethnic community, or the LGBT community? How about immigrants, or people committed to fighting climate change?

Donald Trump raised his middle finger to Obama’s entire legacy, everything progressives care about. Everything.

You are not the unifier of me.

Bottom line for me, it’s just wrong.  A man like that, him in particular, should not be our president. It’s wrong, he’s wrong.

And oh…my god… Hillary. Like Mark Shields said tonight, wow…. this was one devastating blow, a loss for the ages. She’d already survived a crushing defeat to Obama eight years ago, but rose, continued to serve like a loyal foot soldier waiting for her turn. And she did come back to try again.  And, after a lifetime of public service, a lifetime of public office, an interminable, difficult, bruising campaign … she was finally, finally, ready for the job she is uniquely qualified to hold, and has, by all accounts, earned.

Over her lifetime, she’s survived attacks, so many unwarranted and undeserved. She withstood Trump’s relentless, often baseless, attacks for the last six months, most without a flinch. She planned, she worked, she studied, she prepared, she had it. Coming into tonight, she was damn near the presumptive president-elect, ahead in every poll, by every metric. She rented the larger hall, she planned the bigger party. She orchestrated everything: her victory, the celebration, the outfit, the transition, the future. She thought–we all thought–she had it in the bag.

How do you gracefully, publicly concede when all you feel is numb? How is it that you can be so qualified and so ready after a lifetime of preparation… and then lose to Trump, who cavalierly throws his hat into the ring, because why the hell not be leader of the world?, and is nothing but a big, bloated, entitled blowhard…petulant, thin-skinned, mean and breathtakingly ill-prepared? All of it.. the exact opposite of you?

How do you show your face?

Well… I wish she had. She needed to come out and concede. But anymore, it just doesn’t matter, does it? She’s done.

Going to bed. I hope when I wake up, I’ll find out it’s just been a bad dream.

~~

But hey, before I do… some happy pictures from the day:

It was gorgeous…

A beautiful day to wander across the street to the Senior Center and cast my vote for the nation’s first woman president!!

This was clearly a big deal! Lines were long in Rochester, NY, where people gathered to put their “I Voted” stickers on the gravestone of Susan B. Anthony!

By the end of the day, her tombstone was completely covered.

Our biggest news, however, was that this was Peter’s first election… and an historic one it certainly was.  I was so proud of him. He’d followed the presidential race intently for the entire 16-17 month campaign. He was enormously well versed in the issues. He researched all of California’s seventeen propositions (not that he didn’t have questions this morning about a couple of them). He gives me such incredible hope for the future!

Here’s something else that gives me incredible hope… a tweet from this person…

‘Nuff said!!

It’s. Almost. Over.

Longest, most horrifying, demoralizing election season ever. Gratified beyond measure that it’s almost over. After feeling smug during the few certain ups, and despondent during the too-frequent downs, my confidence in Hillary’s victory is now way back up and pretty solid. She’s got it, no question. Fingers crossed on the senate.

I’m most eager to hear how Trump will address his defeat tomorrow night. I am hoping against hope he takes the high road. He’ll need to be gracious, lest we have riots on our hands. I think he’ll do the right thing.

I’d vote for him!

Honestly. Kids can be so cute.

Went back up to Sparks today to canvass with the Hillary campaign. Three more days…

It felt good to be away from my computer (even though our smartphones were always charged and at hand, and we did check in from time to time, because, you know, FiveThirtyEight).

So… here’s a recap of the day:

Met at my house in the dark morning hours, piled into Ann’s van, and headed out…. me, Ann, Darlene, Maureen, Sherri and Pamela.

Watched the sun rise over foggy valley farm fields while sipping our Starbucks…

Were thrilled by snow at the summit…

(Guess the car got pretty fogged up with our steamy political fretting and analyses!)

Slings and arrows hurled at Trump aside, we were a pretty jolly bunch:

Arrived at the Sparks campaign headquarters at about 9:15, having just missed the morning’s training session. Many carloads of canvassers had left already and still the place was PACKED. Maybe a hundred people were still pouring through the doors; signing in; clustering around volunteers getting abbreviated training; standing in lines to get their clipboards, maps and address sheets; grabbing some snacks and water from the food table.

Have you ever seen more determined foot soldiers? Here are Pamela, Ann and Maureen reporting for duty…

Early voting ended yesterday in Nevada, so, as of today, the job of volunteers has officially shifted to Get Out The Vote (GOTV). Recall, that when we went up weeks ago, our job was to register voters. Once that deadline passed, campaign volunteers worked on actually encouraging democratic voters to cast ballots before the early voting deadline (a huge percentage of Nevada voters does that), and even to get people to the polls (California does not have onsite early voting, but Nevada does). Our job today is to knock on the doors of all of Sparks’ registered democrats and remind them to vote on Tuesday. We remind them of their polling place and its hours. We underscore that they live in a swing county in a swing state and every vote counts. We help them make a plan for election day voting. We make a note on our sheets about who they might be supporting in the presidential, senate and congressional races.

This is the woman who trained us. She’s explaining why some voters have been crossed out–they’ve already voted! Early voting in Nevada concluded yesterday and campaign volunteers worked late into the night to update the voter rolls (impressive work).

She also reviewed these canvassing rules:

Then, we were off. The six of us were assigned a huge apartment complex. We worked in pairs. Darlene and I were partners:

In two hours, she and I hit 41 apartments. The vast majority of people were not even home. We spoke to only five real live people–three of whom did not match the data sheet (a lot of turnover, particularly in apartment buildings). We only filled out TWO voting day plans. But that was two people we can confidently count on to show up on election day and vote for the democratic ticket. Multiply that by all the other people knocking on doors in Sparks in the next three days and you have a ground game with significant impact.

And here’s the thing: the ground game is a fantastic effort. It’s passionate work. These volunteers care deeply, each and every one (I count myself among them).  The work, the whole experience, feels like a breath of sanity. It felt so good and so healing to spend a day with informed, smart, caring people with shared world views working their butts off for a cause that feels critically important (electing Hillary).

My contribution a few weeks ago registering voters was tiny (two, even though one registered independent), and my contribution today ensuring that democrats get to the polls was also tiny (two, we hope). But it has value, goddammit! One, it’s a lesson in the multiplier effect… lots of people (in Hillary’s case, LOTS of people) contributing something, adds up… and that’s what a ground game is all about (take that Trump–he with no people-powered ground game whatsoever)! And two, it restores my faith in humanity. It feels enormously gratifying to be with like-minded people working toward a common objective, and just gives me the most blissful sense of social responsibility.

It also felt good to channel a mountain of anxiety and frustration into something constructive and useful and also critically important.

Yeah… that!

So anyway…. we canvassed. Then we broke for lunch.

We picked a great Mexican restaurant and had lively, very lively, conversations about all kinds of juicy topics. Great fun.

We returned to the field office and found dozens and dozens of volunteers all over the inside and outside, cell phones in hand, huddled over call sheets. There were so many volunteers in Sparks (and in Reno and Las Vegas, too, we learned) that they actually ran low on neighborhoods to canvass and were shifting to making calls.

Some shots:

Three of us returned to the streets (Ann, Maureen and Sherri) and three of us started making calls. I sat outside for awhile, then moved inside. I spent about two hours sitting in this cozy little corner (very comfy, I almost fell asleep):

It was a welcoming corner with rotating volunteers. I spoke to so many people… definitely a party vibe.

At one point, one of the campaign staffers brought a woman over to us to meet and chat up. Turned out it was Lisa Jackson, Obama’s very impressive head of the EPA (2009-2013, now the environmental director at Apple). She was on hand to motivate the volunteers.

How cool is that?

We hung around the office making calls, talking, eating (a bit) and absorbing all the good democratic juju until our other three returned, then took some photos…

Here are the “eens,” Darl and Maur:

Here are all of us:

Pamela, M, Sherri, D, Ann and me.

And then took off.

We were able to get through Reno okay (Trump was actually making an appearance there, coincidentally enough… Nevada being a very important swing state). I suggested we have dinner at the Monte Vista in Dutch Flat, which we did (great) and got home around 11:00pm

Whatta, whatta day.

~~

Note: The day after our effort, here’s what the Hillary campaign sent out:

As seen in the parking lot at the Fitness Garage this morning…

I do appreciate the Davis bubble.

I have a rant that goes with this predictable phenomenon: communities with a solid majority of college graduates, large cities with a high proportion of educated residents, college towns….all vote democrat.

But no need to rant. The phenomenon speaks for itself.

It just feels good to be among people who value education, reason, listening, thoughtful deliberation, facts. It also feels good to be among people who appreciate and celebrate diversity, and share a commitment to the common good.

Makes for a nice bubble.

This was kinda weird…

I came home yesterday to find this… at first a curious sight, then an utterly creepy one. Those polkadots you see all over the front wall next to our front door are beetles! Not sure I’ve ever seen whatever phenomenon this is. Here’s a close up:

Believe me, I’m just as surprised as you are that I got this close to a BEETLE! I’m also surprised the photo came out at all, as I was so totally freaked out being that close to a hard-shelled insect…. hard-shelled insects being at the very top of the list of things in life that make me shudder with disgust and run for the hills.

(Though, funnily enough, after nearly 60 years, beetles have slipped to #2 on the creepy list, replaced in the top spot by this year’s republican presidential candidate.)

I love baseball. My fanatical fan-ism for the last 13-14 years has been directed to one team–the one Peter played on, but I’ve always loved the game. I loved it from the time my brothers played little league, to the times I shared the daily recap of Dodgers games in the LA Times with my dad, to all the MLB games I got to attend over the years.

But these days, I don’t have a team. I can’t really claim to be a Dodgers fan anymore, and I’m not one of those crazy Giants fans–like both teams, but don’t keep up with either like a true fan would. I like the A’s and the River Cats, too, but really, I can like anyone.

2016 has been a crazy year and I pretty much missed the entire MLB season…. just like I missed the whole 2015 season and most seasons before that. Without cable, satellite or an MLB subscription, it’s sorta hard to keep up.

But…. during the World Series, the games show up on network TV… so even if I miss most of the season, I almost always tune into the WS.

Everyone knows the Cubs hadn’t won a world series since 1908 and the Indians hadn’t won since, I think, the 40s. Both sets of fans were coming unglued at the prospect of breaking the spell, so the World Series this year became quite the event.

And like good, instant fans, Jim and I watched the last few games together…and it was so much fun!

Tonight was GAME SEVEN!  The Cubs had come back from a 1-3 deficit to even the series so tonight was the big championship showdown. Look how thrilled we are!

(Took this selfie to text to Peter, who was watching with friends at school.)

The game was one for the ages… Cubs lead through most of it, the Indians tied it 6-6 in the bottom of the 8th, the Cubs got two in the top of the 10th, and the Indians could only answer with one, leaving them one short. But wow… it was an exciting, tense game–lots of hits (24 total!), lots of home runs, tons of thrills.

Some shots:

Moments after the final out, Cubs hop the dugout fence….

… and head for the traditional pile up:

Fans were happy… like Bill Murray…

… because it was a big deal…

Hordes gathered outside the stadium in Chicago too (even though the game was in Cleveland) ….

And that was that. Big congratulations to the Cubs and their long-suffering fans. The insta-fans on A Street in Davis had a great time.!

Bonus: it was a fantastic, politics-free few hours.

… in 2001:  Peter at the Impossible Acres Pumpkin Patch.

Scouting, apparently, the perfect pumpkin…

Locating said pumpkin and making off with the goods…