Life of Wry

Funny. I have been in that state that has become so common these days: agitation, mixed with normal life. As I was reflecting on that — on how it’s so weird to be baking Christmas cookies, for example, as I listen to the news which is, of course, stunningly disturbing — and just now sitting down to write on that all-too-familiar juxtaposition, I opened WordPress and note immediately a blog post from a couple of months ago (I note it because it was among the blogs read yesterday by mystery people in my readership and I get notifications of such on my dashboard), entitled “It Was the Scariest of Times and the Worst of Times.” Which.. is about exactly that.

Well.. I thought it was funny (odd funny, not haha funny) .. in a frightening sort of way. We are in such weird (dangerous) times.

I think often — especially as I read the daily newsletter of my favorite writer these days: historian Heather Cox Richardson — about how we are living in a very historic moment. Not historic in any good way. Historic in the worst possible way: on the verge of the collapse of our democracy, combined with, you know, a deadly pandemic. A pandemic made worse by the very guy who’s at the root of our democracy’s collapse.

God, I hate that guy. I seriously hate him. I hate him for what he’s wrought.. here, globally… everywhere. I don’t care that we were maybe primed for this following a couple decades of republican shenanigans ineptly addressed by ineffectual democrats. I place the lion’s share of the blame squarely on the-man-I-loathe-to-the-depths-of-my-soul, aided and abetted by an immoral, corrupt, power-drunk, spineless, scaredy-cat congress.

I know. Rant alert. I can’t help myself. Feel free to skip (I mean.. of course).

So yeah.. I was making Butterballs and groovin’ on the tradition of it, the aroma, the holiday lights and cheer. I was in my happy mom place — having had a two-hour-and-twenty-minute Zoom conversation with Peter this afternoon. Beautiful, wonderful Peter (moms get to feel this way). And as I was in this nice, apron-clad place, sneezing on inhaled powdered sugar, I was listening (ill-advisedly) to CNN. There was good news: the approval of, and imminent release of gazillions of doses of, a proven-effective vaccine that will turn this pandemic thing around in the most profound way. So that was a great bit of yin. And then, of course, there was the yang: news of the destruction that a petulant, vindictive, aggrieved loser president is continuing to wreak. Sigh (because what else is new) and holy mf’ing crap (because this is really bad).

I care not one wit about him and his pathologies. And don’t even want to rant, yet again, about the insanity and danger of his every move. But here’s what I was thinking today:

How stupid are these congress people? Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. Let’s accept that for most of the 126 of them who signed on to the amicus brief to reverse the election results in four states, it wasn’t because they don’t believe that Joe Biden won. I’m pretty sure most of them signed on not because they’re buying the election fraud ruse that Trump is pushing (to save face), but because they fear Trump’s retaliation if they don’t. They acquiesce to absolute fealty because they are afraid of a mean tweet and the resulting effect on their careers. They fear him, period. They need to stay in his good graces in order that his base votes for them. His base. It’s all about hanging on to the Trump base and avoiding getting primaried. Trump put pressure on each and every one of them. They were told that he was scrutinizing the list of signers, that he would be “anxiously awaiting the final list to review.” (Seriously.) If their name was not on the list, there would be consequences. When the brief was initially filed, only 106 names were on that list. By day two, another 20 had added their names. We were told “a clerical error” was the reason behind the missing names on the first go-round. Uh huh.

Definitely, fear is top of list. But, actually, I don’t think they give a hoot about democracy either. As Heather said: “Since the 1980s, Republican leaders have managed to hold onto power by suppressing votes, promoting disinformation, gerrymandering states, gaming the Electoral College, and stacking the courts. Now, so unpopular that even gaming the mechanics of our system is not enough, they have abandoned democracy itself.”

And that’s where we are.

But what I don’t get is.. where are the real leaders? People like leaders, preferably inspiring leaders of integrity. These republican congress guys (and handful of gals) are, for the most part, smart and well educated. Most of them run circles around Trump, brain-wise. They know stuff, they know history. Not only are they smarter than Trump, they are way smarter than the people they are afraid of pissing off. They COULD be leaders. Instead, they’re being led. They’re allowing themselves to be threatened by the least qualified, least knowledgeable, least honorable person ever to lie and manipulate his way to the WH. And they’re allowing themselves to be threatened by a voting base that is hugely ignorant and misinformed, who seem hellbent on voting against their own interests. They, of all people, NEED leaders who will truly hear them and fight FOR them, not whip them into a frenzy of anger, resentment and distrust. And not trick them into giving their money to a [self proclaimed] millionaire. Trump’s got them knotted into balls of fear and hate, thinking only he can help them, when, in truth, it’s all a con.

Congress should lead. They should put their heads down and work for the people they represent. Instead they are afraid and spending all their time staying out of Trump’s crosshairs. Why are they allowing Trump to have that power over them? They are smarter than he is. This party of Trump, the cult of Trump, is so, SO stupid. They should have denounced him a long time ago. Still should. They don’t even have a party platform anymore! The platform is whatever Trump wants. And now they’re following him off the cliff. This is the real cliff, the democracy cliff. He never cared about democracy, but now THEY are walking right along side him.

They signed the brief. I just can’t get over that.

Congress: you are smarter than this. You took oaths. You swore to defend the constitution. You’re supposed to be serving the people. Instead you’re afraid. Weak, spineless, reduced to scaredy cats, signing ridiculous, embarrassing legal briefs. He’s controlling you and you’re letting him. You’re trapped. He’s also manipulating his base, the most ardent of whom are ignorantly following him, rejecting masks, rejecting science, rejecting vaccines (all at their peril), threatening democratic public officials, carrying guns into crowds and statehouses. Why are YOU at the bottom of this trash heap, a bunch of lowly sad sacks begging for a stupid president’s approval, doing anything to get it, selling your soul. It’s embarrassing to watch. You’re so afraid to anger him or his base you’ll sign on to a legal brief demanding the Supreme Court throw out votes you know were fairly and legally cast for Joe Biden. You’re so afraid he’ll mean-tweet you, you’re willing to completely undermine the election, the will of a majority of voters and democracy itself.

Real leaders are guided by principles, laws, facts, and govern in the best interest of the people they are sworn to serve. Like John McCain. So what if your decisions are not popular? In the end, you earn the support and respect of people if you fight for them. You’re supposed to be the bigger person. You were entrusted to make the hard choices and do the right thing for the PEOPLE, the COUNTRY. Not Trump.

You’re now all losers. History will forget about you in a millisecond. You stood for nothing and violated the people. All because you were afraid.

Exciting things happened in both the back and front yards today.

In the back, it was bark day. Ruben’s crew showed up at 8am and were done in a couple of hours. Nothing like a whole bunch of hairy bark to finish the look. Check this out:

Still details to come: some furniture on that mini-patio, including a neato handmade tile table, and a really cool looking screen that will support a flowery vine of some sort. Plus there are two fig trees in that corner that will ultimately grow tall and shady (and figgy… we ALL want some figgy pudding, ya?)

Here is the view from said mini-patio, back toward the house:

Lots to figure out here: there will be a small, colorful tree over by the irrigation valves (this is also where I planted a bunch of poppies last week). There will also be some deck furniture, large flower urns, and who knows what else to spiff up the deck. The barbecue will likely be relocated..

But it’s coming right along. Next big things are the patio (settled on color and concrete stamp today), raised beds (settled on a design today), arbors, another pair of vine-y screens and patio furniture .. all just out of view to the left in this pic.

Okay. And here’s what happened in the front yard this late afternoon: We got our lights up!

That’s Jim on the 16′ ladder. I’m ladder support and light feeder, way down below. And here’s the 8′ ladder part…

These are cool lights.. they attach individually with clips, rather than hanging on nails. Maybe that’s the way they all work now, I’m not sure, but it makes for a nice tight line-o-lights. These are blue-green-purple. I wuv them.

Both yard events happened seconds before the rain fell. Not big rain, but enough to be glad each chore was completed in a timely way. Yay weather karma.

It’s been time to call the question for years, but now it’s really time. This feels like the moment. You either stick with Trump, or you choose country. Can’t be both. We’ve entered a new level on the ridiculous scale. It’s ridiculous but not funny. It feels like everything’s at stake. We need republicans to finally stand up.

Where are we in the current farce of a presidency, about five weeks beyond the election, about five weeks until inauguration and a supposed imminent transition of power.. ?

He’s taking his election fraud case to the Supreme Court. He got the attorney general from Texas to file a brief with the high court challenging the results in four states (GA, PA, WI, MI). And then yesterday, 17 other red state attorneys general joined in. That’s shocking enough. Then today, 106 congressional reps added their names to the brief. I’m telling you.. this is so weird, and so wrong. He apparently called republican members of congress and applied all kinds of pressure, issued all kinds of threats. Their careers are over if they don’t go along. So, sure, some under duress, 106 of them just ensured their place in history.. forever tied to an historic, ugly, dangerous con that undermines everything, most especially fundamental principles of the constitution. This is no game.

We are living this unraveling of our democracy in real time, right before our eyes. Every single day, the firehose of daily abuse is numbing. It’s been four years of this. We’ve just come to expect he’ll disregard decency and honor, it’s barely a thing. And they just go along, because fealty is required. But this audacious case filed in the Supreme Court! And these attorneys general… the premier arbiters of law… from a majority of red states, PLUS a majority of the republican house? Really? They all signed on! That confers credibility for his case, a case that actually has no credibility at all. It’s 100% frivolous; it will be thrown out. He’s already lost (or had thrown out) fifty-some cases in the last month. This is all simply a PR stunt, a fundraising device, a way to juice his base. Only. But, by lining up a majority of the republican leadership, his version of the story will always have legitimacy, at least with a huge percentage of the country. These folks will never accept that a democrat won this election. Probably not future ones, either. For his part, this is all about 1) soothing his brittle ego, 2) providing him an exit lane and a forever excuse for “losing,” and 3) a way to organize his next chapter. For the country, it’s a threat to everything going forward, damage that will last at least years. We may never recover a healthy democracy.

If it wasn’t clear before, it’s super clear now: He’ll never concede, never admit loss, and will forever claim that he, in fact, won. Is that just crazy? How is this even possible, or okay? A majority of the country thinks this is bonkers… yet, he’s managing to control the whole show, country, world. That POS. Somehow, we are allowing this to happen.

Astoundingly, since his loss in the election, he’s raised hundreds of millions of dollars from his poor, misled base to support his fraud cases (joke’s on them; he can use the money however he pleases).

If any republican ever thought, even privately, whew, he’s now gone, we can get back to being republicans again. I don’t think so. They’re tied to him as long as he’s alive and has a Twitter account and a willing media outlet. They belong to him now. They can’t denounce him; if they do, he’ll destroy them. Hope they enjoy their monster.

Because none had the backbone to stand up at the beginning, so drunk were they with power. So willing were they to bend. They deserve him. But we don’t.

We’re all stuck with him. He’s got the Senate leadership under his thumb, which means no working with Biden on anything. Whatever we get in the next four years will be through executive order, and whatever it is, it will be a fraction of what we should have been able to do. He’ll be calling the shots and directing the reps. He’ll be tweeting his demands and they will follow. Continued absolute fealty will be required, or else.

Where are the people who are elected to represent? Where are the the people who swore to defend the constitution? I feel like this is a moment… they either come to, or we go further down this shockingly grave road.

I just can’t believe they want this.

What I really can’t believe is how numb we are to the true horrors of this presidency. Have people forgotten who he is and what he’s done? How is this even debatable? He’s a pathological liar. His key operating principle is to divide us, turn us into enemies. He is not, nor does he care to be, a president for all of us. He has demonstrably abused his power. He was impeached! He is uninformed, incurious, vindictive, and supremely unethical. He cares not a wit about the people, the diverse people, of this country. He doesn’t value democracy. And let’s not forget that while thousands of people are dying every single day from a virus he failed to adequately address, or even acknowledge, he is watching TV, playing golf and wailing about an unfair election. He is, always and forever, the world’s most long-suffering victim.

Why are they willing to break their oaths to defend the constitution, give up on serving the people, give up on good government, on noble democracy? They’re giving up everything for him?? How the eff does he have the entire world wrapped around his fat fingers. How did he get the entire republican party to bend to his weak will. His grip on these fools has to be pried off. If not now, in this moment, when? They seem ready–at least 106 congressional republicans and 18 attorneys general and who knows how many Senators–to keep their wagons hitched to him… for power, out of fear? (Yes.) I swear to god.. if somebody on the rep side (followed by a tsunami of others) doesn’t stand up to him, I just can’t imagine where this thing goes.

Sigh.

Here’s what I’m already thinking: next year’s going to be really special.

For this year, I’m grateful we’re healthy. I’m grateful Peter’s safe and happy. I’m grateful the biggest struggle is missing Peter. And reality check? That’s all huge.

So I’m going to cowboy up here and figure out how to create a reasonable level of holiday cheer. And especially make sure Peter feels connected and loved, even though he’s a trazillion miles away (not really… only Michigan). We will all reflect on how incredibly fortunate we are, all things considered, and totally raise a glass to 2021, which will surely be a year for celebration, and reunions galore.

Whew. That feels better.

Our tree.. decorated with the ornaments Peter made over the years, and a few other sentimental favorites:

Hey honey… you’re right here. 🙂

Courtroom drama and snacks! Nothing better.

Jim was an expert witness in municipal court today on a boundary dispute. I’m not supposed to record it (I didn’t), nor take pictures (well.. )…. I took a couple:

First, here’s Jim looking very… expert, no?

And here’s me, enjoying the show:

The trial continues, so I won’t comment. But it was fun.

(* I know… I couldn’t think of a good title. When in doubt, go with something that rhymes.)

On a quiet Tuesday, a week ago, Jim and I decided to get our Christmas tree. The pandemic has affected tree buying, too. Of course. This will be a year when Christmas is just Jim and me.. Peter won’t be home. Since the beginning of time, Christmas has not been just the two of us. Not a soul will enter our house during the holidays. We both feel like soldiering on and making something of the holiday even so.. but it’s not gonna be the same without Peter and I’m finding it hard–even wrong–to go whole hog. He should be here.

So we’re going half hog.

For the last umpteen years, we’ve gone to Silveyville. For the first bunch of those years, we cut a tree from their vast acreage; in later years we opted–when available–to go with a Silvertip. Silveyville sold Silvertips as part of their fresh cut offering… these cut and trucked in from Oregon. Silvertips are harder to come by than most. Typically Silveyville had a relative few, if they had them at all.

We’re not so much snobby about our Christmas tree choice as traditional. Silvertip was the kind of tree my grandparents used to get. My grandpa, per Danish tradition, used to carefully place candles (in specially designed holders) on the stiff, horizontal branches of his (and my grandma’s) tree and it was a great ritual to gather around and watch him light the tree and then to methodically snuff the candles out when they got dangerously low. In between the lighting and the snuffing, in a huge living room illuminated by candles only, there was lots of oohing and ahhing, and there were carols. My grandma would accompany on the piano (the very piano that is in our home now).

See? Super nice memory, right? Who wouldn’t want a Silvertip?

But, for us, it was never about the candles (I’m not sure why.. that’d have been very cool!). Silvertips are a nice choice because they have a lot of space between the branches which makes hanging ornaments easier. I like the way each ornament can hang and swing freely… as god intended!

Here’s a pic of a typcial Silvertip. This one’s narrow, but you can see the branches are stiff and spaced out (optimal for candle purposes).

Anyway, back to our pandemic Christmas and half-hog tree buying. We decided not to go all the way out to Silveyville, opting instead for the nursery at Davis Lumber. They had a bunch of nice trees and we decided to go with a Nordmann. Had never heard of Nordmann fir trees, but there they were. (I’ve since read that they are popular in Germany and, bonus, don’t drop their needles.) My goal was to trim it, literally, to come as close to the qualities of a Silvertip as possible. Seemed doable.

So here is the before shot:

Jim put it in a bucket of water until we were ready to bring it in. A couple days later, I started the trimming process:

And today, I finished the butchering. We brought it in and got it settled into its spot.

Tomorrow Jim and I will get the lights and wooden beads up, I’ll decorate it and get the tree skirt in place. All told, that oughta take about 15 minutes! It will look a bit more festive… a picture sure to follow.

Can ya take another couple fall shots?

Somebody said something about that tree being a redwood, one whose needles turn orange in the fall. I’ll have to investigate this. Here it is a little closer, taken from the bridge (I’ve taken numerous photos of this tree all season).

So, this is a funny graphic…

…. except that it suggests we’re out of the quarantine woods right about now. But we are not.

As of tonight, most (all?) of California is back to a stay-at-home order. This sort of reminds me of having a 100+ heat wave in September: I can bear it because I know fall is just around the corner. Heat waves in late, late summer are a-ok in my book because it’s that last blast of heat, but it won’t be lasting.

Same with this newly issued public health order. We will be in so-called lockdown for a while, maybe a longer while than we’d like, especially with the holidays upon us. But, the vaccine is coming, help is on the way, as they like to say. So I can deal.

Peter won’t be coming home for Christmas; we finalized that decision today. Extremely disappointing, but we all agreed it felt like the right thing.. better to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Clear conscience. It will make our eventual reunion all the sweeter. We will have earned a great homecoming, or trip to A2, or wherever/however that reunion happens. It will be a true celebration. It’s been a pretty shitty year for marking occasions and milestones: no college graduation ceremony and celebration; no Thanksgiving; no Christmas. But hey.. we’re all in this awful boat together. Doin’ our part.

Here’s the truly bad news:

~~

Were it not for the above sad state of affairs, I’d have written gleefully about our successful fundraiser for the two Georgia Senate run-off races (Jan 5) and our dance party Zoom event tonight: The Dancing Went Down to Georgia. Our team — the Dancing Democrats of Davis — returned for round two! After our enormously successful October dance party fundraiser raised nearly $48,000 for Senate races in numerous key flippable states (turned out not to be so flippable after all), we — lead by UCD physics professor Lloyd K — organized yet another dance-a-palooza, this time raising just a whisper shy of $30,000. The event was lovely and the music was infinitely danceable! Turned out to be so much fun.

No pics, but take my word for it: it was a hoot… all those squares full of dancing fools. And all that money raised. And ja, ABBA’s song was on the playlist.

When you get married and decide you’re keeping your last name, you resign yourself to all manner of last name implementations. It’s all fine, as far as I’m concerned. People often go with what they’re comfortable with. I have older relatives who address me as Mrs. James Frame on envelopes. I never say anything. I’m not bothered. It’s funny (but the effort so very appreciated) when someone goes the full mile and addresses an envelope with Jim Frame, Kari Peterson and Peter Frame. Or they might combine the two Frames. Or they might say The Frame Petersons.

We got a good batch of holiday cards today. It’s starting. Glad to see the pandemic isn’t cramping anyone’s style. Fun that these arrived today:

If I thought I could put my hands on a few (without spending hours searching my ridiculously vast photo archive), I’d post photos of Jim’s and my favorite name butcherings … which are business communiques that are supposed to be addressed to The Peterson Frame Little T Trust but which, as you might imagine, come in a hilarious assortment of creative, if confused, interpretations. Financial institutions just can’t seem to get this one right. I mean, how hard is that? We named our family trust after Peter’s favorite stuffed animal (Little T). Doesn’t everyone?

Reminder: here’s Little T, forever memorialized (not just in the name of our trust–that Peter will have to deal with when we’re long gone, but laughing about from heaven–but in his little case on the piano). Cuz we’re kinda sentimental about this.

It’s been a lot of years since I planted anything in our garden. Broke that long spell today.

Bought these yesterday:

And had these — a gift to Jim from our landscape designer Claudia, who knew Jim loves poppies:

Gave the bulbs a bit of a lukewarm bath to try and coax the roots into action before planting them in some late fall cool dirt (I did not figure this out on my own):

Then set out to plant them. I was pretty rusty… couldn’t find gardening gloves, or a trowel, or pruning sheers (something I needed to trim, literally, our christmas tree). I have apparently lost my gardening mojo. But I managed to loosen the dirt with a digging fork and hand dug the holes and got about 30-ish bulbs into the ground and scattered a lot of poppy seeds in a spot near the deck.

Here’s a before and after hand shot:

Good news: finally found the box in the garage that had all my gardening stuff… so next time, trowels and gloves.

And.. if I’m honest, I actually enjoyed crawling around in the dirt again. If I manage to set up a nice gardening station, and I’m confident I will, gardening will be fun again. Bring on the raised beds.