Author: Jaclyn

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (October 12, 2020)

Good morning, friends. Happy Indigenous People’s Day! And if you’re getting a day off work, I hope you’re enjoying it. I have a few things to do on that front, but am hoping to take the afternoon off, at least.

My weekend was a good one – indulgent. My birthday is tomorrow and since Tuesday birthdays are terrible, Steve declared this my “birthday weekend.” I felt very celebrated! On Saturday we spent the entire day outside, which is just what I always want to do. Two hikes – one at Riverbend Regional Park and one at Fletcher’s Cove – plus a picnic and kayaking, also at Fletcher’s Cove. We paddled farther upriver than we have before and checked out a section of rapids right before the river calms down. Sunday was gloomy on the weather front, so it was more of a relaxing day. I spent it puttering around the house. Nugget and I went to Michael’s for Halloween decorations (it was totally picked over – bummer) and both of the kids helped me bake an apple crisp, which we enjoyed for dessert after a feast of Greek food. And now I have a stressful week ahead, but at least I’m fortified by a lovely weekend.

Reading. Slow reading week – again. Partly because Marilynne Robinson needs to be read slowly (I knew this) and partly because of yet another week of crazy news cycles. I spent too much time scrolling through my Washington Post app and not enough time relaxing with my book. I read Home over the course of the week and finally finished it on Sunday morning. Needing a break from Marilynne Robinson, I spent a peaceful hour or so over The Lost Words, which was beautiful. And then, fortified by the break, I returned to Gilead and Lila. I loved Lila the first time I read it, so I’m sure I’m going to love it again this round.

Watching. This and that. The VP debate on Wednesday (“Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking.” And that fly!) Some Rock the Park. The first episode of The Right Stuff, the new Disney+ original series about the Mercury astronauts (which was great, but as it happens, not very kid-friendly – so that will be an adults-only show). And we’ve been attempting to watch Miracle as a family, but the dang kids keep falling asleep. Hoping to finish it up tonight – our third attempt.

Listening. Earlier in the week I was listening to my audiobook, another Great Courses series. Eventually I switched back to podcasts, specifically Sorta Awesome, and am working on catching up. I’m midway through a back episode on the subject of invisible labor, and man is it good.

Making. I was treated to takeout all weekend long, so there was no elaborate cooking this week. Unless you count the sandwich I made for the family picnic on Saturday – goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, and tofurkey and vegetarian pepperoni on olive ciabatta bread. The kids hated it. So uncivilized. Oh, and on Sunday afternoon my sous chefs and I mixed up an apple crisp (recipe from King Arthur Baking) using some of the apples we picked last weekend. Some may consider it kinda sad to make your own birthday dessert, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Moving. I was a bit lazy this week – lazy and extra stressed about work (which is exactly when I should make a point of exercising – I know, I know). I made it out for two runs and one strength training session in Mommy’s Jungle Gym – better than nothing, but not as much as I wanted. And there was the epic Saturday of activity – two hikes and a long paddle. That felt good.

Blogging. Getting philosophical on you this week, so my apologies in advance. On Wednesday I have a quote about contentment from Elizabeth von Arnim to share with you, and on Friday I am dragging out my soapbox and shouting about the “no geotag movement.”

Loving. This might be the lamest ever, but this is what is improving my life right now: friends, I am the proud owner of a garage fridge. Yes, I am officially old! A few weeks ago, frustrated by my poorly designed kitchen fridge (there is no place for produce, none) I mused aloud to Steve, “Maybe we should get a garage fridge.” He was immediately on board (actually, I think the direct quote was: “That’s actually really sensible.” I tried not to get offended that he sounded surprised at me being sensible) and before I even knew it, my half baked idea had turned into a new fridge in my garage. I now have a place to hide my La Croix from greedy little hands, and overflow vegetable storage space. I am living large, friends.

Asking. What are you reading this week?

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When the Book You Need Swims Up to You at the Exact Right Time

‘I know that if I made myself sit with the panic and look at spiders again – you know, like, faced my fear – eventually I’d feel fine.  But that process, well. . . It’s just so horrible.  I really don’t want to.  And it’s fine most of the time anyway.  I mean, it’s an issue in September, when they come into the house.  And I know I could never visit Australia because there are spiders everywhere.  But apart from that it’s bearable.  I can live with it.

‘You need a decent motivation to stick with fighting a phobia,’ says Mandi.  ‘I just don’t have it.  Do you?’

Most of my friends know that I have a huge, irrational, overwhelming phobia of butterflies.  Chat with me long enough and it will eventually come up.  The very thought of them fills me with revulsion and horror.  Their bodies, their wings, the flapping, the erratic movements – ugh.  I just can’t with them.  It’s a fear that dates back to a bad experience one summer when I was about Peanut’s age; I’ve hated them ever since.  At this point, I’ve accepted that this is a thing about me and it’s never going to change, and I’ve decided that I’m pretty much good with it.  I’ve gotten much better about managing it; these days, I don’t even yelp and run anymore when I spot a butterfly on a hike.  (I do walk a little faster, and sometimes I shout “GO AWAY, UGLY BUG.”)

A less well-known fact: I also have a moderate thing about fish and other marine life.  Specifically, I cannot abide the idea of them touching me.  I know what you might be thinking: But don’t you visit aquariums on the regular, when it’s not a pandemic?  And watch “Blue Planet” religiously?  Didn’t you spend five days sea kayaking just last summer?  Yes, yes to all of these things.  But I don’t touch the critters.

For a couple of years now, I’ve been thinking that this thing I have about fish – which I don’t think extends to marine mammals or sea turtles – I’d like to get over it.  I’ve basically accepted that I am always going to be repulsed by butterflies and I’m fine with that.  But I love the ocean, and I want to experience it more fully and with less fear.  Specifically, I’ve been toying with the idea of becoming scuba-certified.

English author Georgie Codd had the same idea.  She too struggled with a fear of fish; hers, far more intense than my moderate squidginess, was full-on ichthyophobia.  In Georgie’s mind, the shadows in her dining room were sharks.  The London buildings she walked past on her way to work were entwined by the tentacles of colossal squid.  Georgie had lived with her intense fear since childhood, and she did not want it to dominate her life.  So she decided to do just the very thing that I’ve been considering doing: she decided to cure herself of her fear by learning to scuba dive.  But Georgie wanted to take it one step further: not content to just dive with any fish, she set her sights on the biggest fish of all – the massive, mighty, elusive whale shark.

The truth I need to face up to is that fish do not exist to scare land mammals like myself.  For millions of years, before humans even existed, before even the existence of trees, they have sat at the top of the ocean food chain, weeding out unhealthy marine life and sustaining the overall balance of eco-systems.  Without sharks, smaller herbivore-eaters flourish, the herbivores themselves decline in number and algae growth is left unchecked, meaning less space and fewer resources for life-giving reefs.  The effect of shark intimidation in grassy areas also stops ocean herbivores overgrazing.  In turn, this prevents the collapse of habitats.  And helps the sea do what it has done for aeons: regulate the carbon dioxide released into our atmosphere.

Georgie’s journey to learn diving and to track down her leviathan takes her from the fishy metropolis of Thailand’s Richelieu Rock, to underwater caves in Mexico, to chilly Scottish waters, an island off of western Africa, and beyond.  Along the way, she meets and talks to diving experts and psychologists, learning simultaneously about diving history and culture, and the science of overcoming fears.  Many of the divers she interviews encourage her to learn as much as possible, pounding home variations on the same refrain: knowledge dispels fear.  Through her journey, Georgie discovers that this is precisely what she needs to do in order to manage her ichthyophobia and stop it from taking over her life.  Preparing for a dive on which she hopes to finally meet a whale shark, Georgie travels to Scotland to attempt to swim with the second-biggest shark, the basking shark, and has the following epiphany:

When the lecture is over I feel like I know basking sharks better than ever.  I feel like this knowledge will get me through.  Help me stay calm in the water.  I also feel horribly culpable.  The violations Luke described seem to form compelling evidence of what can happen when something living (a human, a fish, a shark) is reduced to no more than a concept (a source of income, a pest).  And isn’t that what I’ve been doing?  For years now I’ve been turning fish into something abstract and other: fear, danger, death, the unknown.  What I still haven’t done is accepted what they are.  Accepted that they are different.  Accepted that their difference is not intrinsically negative.

I’m not going to spoil the book by telling you whether Georgie succeeds in swimming with a whale shark.  And this isn’t a book review, either (although if it was, I’d be raving about it; as it is I suspect I am going to be buying multiple copies to give as gifts this holiday season).  What I want to talk about is the way that sometimes the exact book you need to read finds you, at the exact right time.

Like I said, I’ve been thinking for awhile now that this thing I have with fish, I want to get over it.  I’m not afraid of them.  I know the little ones can’t hurt me even if they wanted to, and most of the big ones won’t.  I know the statistical likelihood of an unprovoked attack by a marine animal – any marine animal – is extremely low.  So I am really not afraid.  What I am is intensely creeped out by the idea of a fish touching my bare skin.  But what if… I had no bare skin to touch?

My BFF is in the process of getting scuba-certified.  She’s completed the coursework, but was prevented from doing her final open water dive by hurricane season descending on Florida.  She plans to finish her certification this year, and she and her husband have a big trip booked for next year – to Australia, to dive the Great Barrier Reef in celebration of her fortieth birthday and their ten-year relationship.  My brother and sister-in-law also dive, and I have not even tried to swallow my jealousy while watching my sister-in-law’s serene videos of diving in a kelp forest off the Channel Islands.  I’m not a follower; I won’t do something just because someone else is doing it.  But these are people I know and love who have strapped on air tanks and jumped into the water, and I want to do it too.

I had already been thinking that scuba was something I wanted to try.  I worked out that my issue with fish is related to the idea of them brushing against my skin (shudder).  But if I was encased in a long-sleeved, long-legged wetsuit, with every possible inch of my body covered and protected against fishy affection, I think… I could be okay?

Enter COVID.  I had already been turning the idea of diving over in my mind when the pandemic hit.  As we all adjusted to, ugh, the “new normal,” I mostly stopped thinking about it.  There were too many other things to focus on – figuring out a new schedule for working from home and educating my kids, staying safe at the grocery store, you know.  But it’s stretched on for more than seven months now, and while I am still not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, I’ve started to think about what I want post-COVID life to look like.

I’ve never been a big one for sitting on the couch at home.  I like to be out, having experiences, making memories.  The pandemic has forced me to slow down and wait, and I’ve mostly avoided thinking about what we’re all missing out on right now.  But as I consider what will happen when we all emerge from our shells, the life I want is taking shape before me.  I want to travel more, be more open to new experiences.  (As the kids are getting older, I believe this is possible.)  I don’t want to be controlled by fear.

I noticed We Swim to the Shark while scrolling through a list of recommendations from a book blogger I follow, and it immediately grabbed my attention – I focused first on the absolutely stunning book jacket, before being stopped in my tracks by the subtitle: Overcoming Fear One Fish at a Time.  I clicked over to Amazon to read the description and knew immediately that I had to read it.  And right away.  It was odd; here was this idea I’d been turning over in my head for some time – overcoming my moderate fear-ish-thing about fish by learning scuba – sharpened and made urgent by pandemic-induced life musings, and here was a book about THAT EXACT THING.  Does that ever happen to you?  The exact book that I needed to read, showing up on my computer screen at the exact time that I needed to read it.  It felt like a message: do the thing.  Go live.

This time in the water, I reassure myself that the present moment is all that matters.  That and the gauge.  The breaths.  The line.  I accept that I am going into darkness.  Shining a light towards the unknown.  And while the thought of this unknown may be appalling, at least it’s a direction I can aim for.

Have you ever gotten an unmistakeable message from a book showing up, unexpectedly, just when you needed it most?

 

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Dreaming of Being Footloose

As many of you know, I am a fan of the podcast The Mom Hour.  I love tuning into hosts Sarah and Meagan’s conversations about raising a family in these crazy times.  The show covers everything from school issues, to clothing and gear recommendations for all ages, to feeding a family, to listener Q&As and reassurance for moms in every stage of life.  The hosts are funny, refreshingly real, and gently validating; I’d love nothing more than to grab a cup of tea with them and let them set my parenting world to rights.

Over the summer, they ran a massive two-part episode about moving – covering the entire process from dreaming up a move to nailing all the logistical details to make it happen.  The episode was prompted because Sarah, one of the hosts, recently moved back to her hometown of Santa Barbara, CA (where I have family as well – so I’m always interested when she talks about the town).  Meagan had also moved recently, so they both had a lot of thoughts.  And one of the questions they posed to listeners was: do you dream about moving, and if so, where?

As you all know, I’ve moved a time or two in the last several years.  I could probably count the number of houses and apartments that Steve and I have occupied since we’ve been together, but not off the top of my head; I’d have to think about it.  Most recently, we moved from Alexandria – a town we love – to the exurbs, largely for the public schools.  I love living in Virginia, I am content in our area, and I don’t have any real desire to move to another geographic location.  I do fantasize regularly about buying a house in our current town – maybe a short sale or foreclosure that needs some love, and fixing it up to be exactly what I want.  That’s a realistic dream and we’re working towards it, saving as much as we can towards a down payment and planning out a long-term future of owning a home in the same school pyramid.

But while I have no plans to leave Virginia, and no real desire to do so, everyone has crazy fantasies of living somewhere else entirely.  I’m no different, and I regularly entertain visions of pulling up stakes entirely and rolling on to some completely new adventure.  For instance:

  • ColoRADo.  Back when we were planning our move away from Buffalo, we had two serious location contenders: northern Virginia (where we ended up) and Denver.  We were actively sending resumes to both D.C. and Denver, and planned to move to the first job opportunity that came along.  D.C. was enticing for obvious reasons – we knew and loved the area, and we still had a large community of friends and friendly acquaintances here.  The main benefit to Denver, aside from the outdoor adventure possibilities, was the prospect of living near my brother and his wife, who were – at the time – living in the Boulder area.  I’m glad now that Denver ended up not working out, because Dan and Danielle have since moved to western Colorado (near Utah) so if we were in Denver we wouldn’t really be local to them anymore.  We’d still be closer than we are – a four hour drive instead of an airplane ride – but not in the same metro area.  (Although in recent years I have had three different friends move to the greater Denver area, so it’s not like we would have been completely stranded and without connection.)
  • The Other Washington.  Another location we’ve actually considered – Seattle.  Again when we were planning our move out of the Buffalo area, I was contacted out of the blue with an interview request for a job out that way.  At that point I hadn’t really considered moving to the west coast at all.  I took the interview and it was interesting, but ultimately not a good fit.  I had mentioned to Steve that I could see us enjoying a life in the PNW – again, we have a few friends out in Seattle – and he said he thought I’d hate the weather.  It’s true that I am not big on rain; I get chronic headaches and changes in barometric pressure seem to exacerbate them.  Layman’s terms: my head hurts when it’s wet outside.  But when we vacationed in the San Juan Islands and Seattle last summer, Steve and I both agreed that we could totally live here.  As we sat sipping local brews at the Friday Harbor Beer House, enjoying the smell of the salty air and no humidity, Steve looked around and said “Remind me again why we don’t live here?”
  • We Love New York?  I have no desire to move back to Buffalo – for many reasons, I was deeply unhappy there.  And I don’t really have any desire to live in New York at all.  But if I ever did, I’d move near my family – near Albany and Saratoga, at the eastern end of the state, a short drive from Vermont and the Adirondacks.  Growing up there, I didn’t appreciate the natural beauty, quaint towns, and cool independent businesses all around me; I certainly would now.  And the idea of jumping in the car for a short drive to paddle Lake Placid, hike in the high peaks, relax on the beach at my parents’ camp, or leaf-peep and wander picturesque villages in Vermont and Massachusetts (covered bridges! maple syrup!) is certainly attractive.  But then I remember the blistering, biting cold of January in upstate New York.  As I told my aunt recently (in response to her suggestion that I should probably just move on home RIGHT NOW), every summer I think, “It’s so beautiful here, maybe I should move back,” and then every winter I think, “NOPE.”
  • O Canada.  Back in 2015, during the Presidential primary season, I was fond of jokingly suggesting that if Trump won, I was moving to Canada.  (That was in those innocent days when we all thought he’d never make it through the primary, let alone actually end up in the White House.)  At the time, that would actually have been very doable.  We were living in Buffalo, not far from the Canadian border.  I had several co-workers who lived in Ontario and commuted over the border every day.  Setting aside the logistics of immigration, we could have moved less than an hour away from our home at the time, kept our jobs, and had a lovely life in the Niagara area.  Obviously, that didn’t happen.  But I recently floated the idea again, telling Steve (not jokingly): “If Biden doesn’t win, we should seriously consider Canada.”  His response: “I’m not saying no.”  So, where in Canada would we go in this fantasy?  Well, I’ve always dreamed of living on Prince Edward Island, like Anne Shirley.  Or there’s Halifax, which I visited with my grandparents many years ago, and loved.  Or – my brother and I have discussed living that PNW life and moving our respective families to Vancouver.  (I know it’s expensive to live there, and I know it’s easier said than done to emigrate to Canada.  Don’t @ me.)
  • Americans abroad!  Definitely not going to happen these days, since every sane country has banned us.  But who hasn’t fantasized about living overseas?  When Steve and I were first married, we were friends with an older couple in our condo building (they ended up moving to Washington; see above) who had a cottage in the Cotswolds where they spent several months of the year.  Can you say “hashtag goals”?  I mean, really.  Can’t you just see me bicycling around the Cotswolds, or Yorkshire?  I’d have a blue cruiser with a woven basket and I’d always carry a bouquet of flowers, a thermos of tea, and a Jane Austen novel in it.  Oh, I have it all planned out.  And because I tend to be a practical fantasizer (<-that’s a word) my pipe dreams of living in England are often followed by unproductive thoughts such as “hey, my firm has a London office.”

None of these are going to happen.  Or, at least – if they do, I’ll be as surprised as anyone.  I’m really content where I live now (I mean, I hate my house, but I like my town; if we were to buy a little house surrounded by some big trees and settle in, I’d be perfectly happy).  But it’s fun to consider, and to picture myself living somewhere totally different.

Do you fantasize about moving?  Where to?

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (October 5, 2020)

Goooooooood morning, friends. How were your weekends? Mine was definitely good, although I felt vaguely unsettled all weekend. The usual, right? Between a couple of projects hanging over my head, a professional change for a valued colleague (excited for her, but I’m going to miss her), and the crazy news cycle of the last week, I just had this creeping sense of lingering dread all weekend. Which was too bad, because it was a beautiful one.

We had a super social weekend planned, which was exciting. (Ah, pandemic life and all the changes it brings… pre-COVID, I’d have been stoked about a weekend curled up in my own house, without social obligations. These days, I want to see all of the people.) We started the weekend out at the apple orchard; we were supposed to go with friends, but had a hard time finding an orchard that we all wanted to hit. It ended up being just us, at an orchard we’d been to a few years ago and thought was only okay. It was still just okay, but reservations were not required, so: a win. After apple picking (big plans for applesauce and homemade maple apple dumplings; watch this space) we headed back toward our neck of the woods to meet friends at a farm market and pumpkin patch. No pumpkins for us yet – it’s a little early – but we had a nice walk and left with some decorative gourds; another win. Sunday was more socializing: we were invited to lunch at our former neighbors’ house. Zoya had a surprise for the kiddos: two-day-old kittens, in a box in her spare room! She has added “cat midwife” to her long list of talents (along with kickass photographer, ancient chicken egg excavator, and gardener extraordinaire). We ate lentils drizzled with honey (AMAZING, who’d have thunk), traded book recommendations, and got caught up on all the news from our old neighborhood. It was good to be back, if just for an afternoon.

Reading. Bit of a slow reading week, which is fitting. Marilynne Robinson will not be rushed. I read through the rest of Gilead over the course of the week, and then turned to Home and have been reading it bit by bit. Still committed to my plan of reading through the entire series – my copy of Lila, which I loved, is waiting on my bookshelf, and brand-new Jack is on my coffee table. But I’m getting just the tiniest bit anxious to be on to my Halloween themed reads.

Watching. The usual. Still working our way through one episode of Rock the Park per night, with the kids as they wind down for bedtime. Not sure what we’re going to watch as a family after we’re done – which will be soon. Oh, and like everyone else in the Horrified States of America, I watched the first Presidential debate. (Almost forgot to mention that; every day has felt like a week and I had to think a minute before I realized that was just a few days ago. Yikes.) I wasn’t actually planning to watch. I already know who I am voting for and nothing is going to change my mind. So I was all set to spend the evening with Gilead and a glass of wine, but Steve said he felt like he needed to watch. He said that it turned his stomach to think of watching Trump talk for that long, but he felt like he needed to bear witness. I couldn’t make him go through that alone, so I kept him company. Gracious Hecate, was that not awful? I don’t usually drink on weeknights, but I had to get up and pour a whisky halfway through.

Listening. This and that! A couple of hours of my current audiobook (a Great Courses series on “The Art of Reading” – really interesting) and snippets of podcasts. I’m currently halfway through the Sorta Awesome fall coziness list and loving. it. As always.

Making. Lots of this and that! Some good dinners this week – a vegan chili packed with butternut squash and kale; maple-mustard tempeh; and an escarole and white bean dish served over baked potatoes that Steve requested I add to “the regular rotation.” Outside of the kitchen: a finished roll of film, progress on setting up the sunroom, and most excitingly: progress on unpacking the bedroom! The boxes and piles of stuff have lingered in the bedroom while I worked on getting the rest of the house unpacked and the kids settled in. But it was getting stressful to try to sleep in a chaotic space, and honestly – I deserve a peaceful bedroom just as much as the little animals I live with, who throw their laundry and toys everywhere. It doesn’t actually look like much has been done, yet, but I assure you progress has been made. Specifically, I cleaned out the closet! We have a huge closet that spans the entire length of the room, and I completely emptied and reorganized it. Just knowing that part – kind of the most daunting part – is done, is making the rest of the job so much easier to face. One more day of effort ought to do it! It’s also bumming me out a bit, because now that my clothes are all organized and hung up, I’m realizing that I have absolutely nowhere to wear most of them. I have one floral blouse that is making appearances on Zoom calls, and a herringbone blazer for online court appearances, and everything else is just sitting there. Blah.

Moving. Lots of movement this week! On Monday, I ran a trail 10K (for the virtual Fountainhead Classic), and yesterday, banged out a fast (for me) 5K around my neighborhood. The 10K was crazy difficult – lots of up and down steep hills, negotiating my way over rocks, roots and streams. I was exhausted afterwards, but I’m pleased to report: no injuries, other than a rolled ankle that’s already fine. In between, there was another neighborhood run and two strength-training sessions in “Mommy’s Jungle Gym.” Feeling strong!

Blogging. I’m doing a lot of dreaming this week: on Wednesday, talking about moving pipe dreams (don’t worry, I’m not moving) and on Friday, big adventurous plans for facing and overcoming a fear after the pandemic is over – and a book that is inspiring me.

Loving. I was going to tell you all about my new fridge, but you’ll have to wait, because how could newborn kittens not be the most exciting thing I have to report? These babies were literally two days old. Zoya was there when they were born (and gave us a very detailed description of the process of midwifing a cat – she “winged it” and it sounds like it was interesting, especially for the cat). Their eyes aren’t even open yet. You guys. I soooooooo wish I could take one home, but Steve and I are both allergic (although I wore my face mask in the room with the kitties and felt surprisingly fine). I even picked out the one I want: the little one with the black, tan and white splotches. I’d name him (her?) Cappuccino – Capp for short. Well, it’s not to be. But I got to pet two-day-old kittens, so basically, I’ve peaked.

Asking. What are you reading this week?

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Reading Round-Up: September 2020

Reading Round-Up Header

Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby.  I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book.  Here are my reads for September, 2020…

The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens – I so enjoyed this comedic interlude!  The Pickwick Papers was Dickens’ first novel-length effort – published in serial form like so many other Victorian novels.  Following along with the adventures of Samuel Pickwick, Esq., and his disciples Augustus Snodgrass, Tracy Tupman and Nathaniel Winkle was good fun; I reviewed it at length here.  My only complaint was that every five to ten chapters, Dickens would pause the narrative to have some side character tell the Pickwickians a lengthy and irrelevant story; the extra stories added nothing but length and broke up the momentum of the main plot – I’d have dispensed with them.  Other than that, loved every word.

Down in the Valley: A Writer’s Landscape, by Laurie Lee – After Pickwick, I needed something MUCH shorter, and I had a new acquisition that fit the bill.  Down in the Valley reads like an oral history of Laurie Lee’s life and it turns out, that’s pretty much what it was – a collection of recollections, delivered (mostly) down at the pub, about Lee’s youth and his recollections of the landscape of his boyhood.  I blew through it in a day and it was a total delight.

One Fine Day, by Mollie Panter-Downes – Another one that had been on my “to-read” list for years, and I loved every word.  One Fine Day is a slim quotidian novel following the movements of a no-longer-young wife as she goes about her day in newly post-war England.  Laura battles overgrowth in the garden, does her marketing, visits neighbors, and muses about her marriage and the changes that have come to England with the end of World War II.  It was ruminative and beautiful.

A Memoir of Jane Austen, by J.E. Austen-Leigh – I’ve long been interested in reading Austen’s nephew’s “memoir” – really a barely-concealed family effort to control Austen’s image.  So much of the “Dear Aunt Jane” trope (that we now understand from historians’ work was pretty inaccurate) comes from Austen-Leigh’s book, so I wanted to read it to see the origination.  I was also interested in a Victorian perspective on the notoriously rowdy Georgians; Austen-Leigh was at great pains to downplay that, too.  Hilariously inaccurate, but really interesting.

We Swim to the Shark: Overcoming Fear One Fish at a Time, by Georgie Codd – I have a longer post coming about this book, but for purposes of this recap – I loved it.  I happened upon the recommendation on BookTube and immediately ordered it.  Once you get past the gorgeous, eye-catching cover, it’s a totally fascinating and absorbing read.  Georgie Codd is severely ichthyophobic – afraid of fish – as is her grandmother, Granny Codd.  Georgie decides that she doesn’t want her fear to control her life, so she learns to scuba dive with the goal of swimming with the biggest fish of all – a whale shark.  There is so much here about overcoming fears, mixed with the history and culture of the dive community, mixed with Georgie’s own personal diving experiences (my favorite parts of the book).  I loved every word and was tempted to go back to the beginning and re-read the book immediately I’d finished it; not something that happens often.

September, by Rosamunde Pilcher – Had to read this one in September, for obvious reasons.  This was only my second Pilcher – I’d read and loved The Shell Seekers – and I really enjoyed it.  I kept thinking of Jane Austen’s words – “three or four families in a country village are the very thing to work upon” or something to that effect – as I read Pilcher’s doorstopper of a novel about the Blair/Balmerino and Aird families and the characters in their orbits.  September included all of the little details that Pilcher is famous for – she is not going to tell you that someone made tea in the kitchen, she is going to tell you what kind of tea it was, and describe the kettle’s exact shade of copper, and describe the kitchen at length down to the net curtains.  And as I said to Steve, sometimes that is exactly what you want.

Mr Tibbets’s Catholic School, by Ysenda Maxtone Graham – This was a quick read, but great fun – a profile of St. Philip’s, a prestigious Catholic school in London, from its founding in the 1930s through to the 1990s.  Graham is currently a mother in the St. Philip’s system (or at least, she was when she decided to write a history of the school; I don’t know if her son has aged out at this point) and she lovingly describes the early days, in which founder and headmaster Tibbets would bump along in his private car to pick up all four pupils and drive them to school, all the way to near-present day.  I loved the concept – sixty-odd years of history through the lens of one little school – and the execution was flawless and completely delightful.  It made me wish I lived in London so I could send Nugget to St. Philip’s.

Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings: How to Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends for Life, by Dr. Laura Markham – Hmmm.  What to say about this one?  I read Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids years ago and thought Dr. Markham might have some good tips for getting through this extended period at home.  For many months now, Peanut and Nugget have been one another’s sole playmates, which is not normal.  They’re heartily sick of each other and I can’t blame them.  So – I listened to this on audio and mostly skipped over the third part, which was about introducing a new baby to the family (I’m past that point now).  Some of the tips were helpful but others were unrealistic (does your kid complain that you work too much? just tell your boss that you’ll be leaving at 4:00 p.m. from now on, that will definitely go well!).  I’ve tried to put a few of the tips into practice with varying levels of success.  And I remembered why I stopped reading parenting books: they always make me feel like a total crap mother.

Brendon Chase, by BB – Another one for my “back to school season” reading: BB’s classic novel of wild boyhood.  Young brothers Robin, John and Harold Hensman, faced with the prospect of returning to boarding school for the Easter term, decide that instead, they will run away to the woods and be “outlaws.”  They pull off a brilliant escape and spend the next several months living rough in the woods, shooting and trapping their own dinners, befriending a local hermit, and learning every inch of their forest habitat by heart.  The chapters about the boys are interspersed, every few chapters or so, with hilarious send-ups of the villagers’ frantic reaction to their flight – especially that of the hapless police officer, Bunting.  Total delight.

Dancing Fish and Ammonites: A Memoir, by Penelope Lively – File this in the category of “not what I expected, but still fantastic” – I should have known, since it’s Penelope Lively.  What I was expecting: a relatively linear memoir starting with Lively’s childhood in Egypt and focusing on the war years and mid-century Great Britain.  What I got instead: lovely musings on aging, memory, and books, with a few references to Egypt and world events sprinkled in every so often.  The writing was beautiful, of course, and I enjoyed every word.

Gilead (Gilead #1), by Marilynne Robinson – A re-read to end the month; in anticipation of this past Tuesday’s release of Robinson’s latest novel, Jack, I thought a read-through of the entire Gilead series was in order.  I’ve read Gilead and Lila before, but somehow missed Home, and of course have not yet read Jack.  I think the first time I read Gilead, I was not quite in the right frame of mind for it – I remember liking it very much, and thinking it was an excellent book, but not really being blown away.  Not so this time.  I sunk right into the world of Rev. Ames, Boughton, Glory, and Lila and found myself swept along on the current of Robinson’s beautiful words.

Quite a September in books!  I am still really enjoying reading from my own shelves – as reflected by the fact that I enjoyed pretty much everything I picked up this month.  It would be hard to choose a highlight, but since I must (that’s the rules, which… I made up, whoops) – it’s probably Gilead, because how could Marilynne Robinson not be the high point?  But I also loved One Fine Day and Brendon Chase, and We Swim to the Shark was fabulous.  I couldn’t go wrong in September, apparently.  For October – I’m looking forward to more good reading, naturally.  Starting with the rest of the Gilead books, and then wherever fancy takes me.  I want to read Lolly Willowes in October, so expect to see that on next month’s list, and I’ll probably revisit Poems Bewitched and Haunted and Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party towards the end of the month.  I’m just really anticipating, as you can see.

What did you read in September?

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Garden Chronicles: A Bounty of Green Tomatoes

Whew!  Changes are afoot (see what I did there?).  Although fall doesn’t really hit Virginia until October – it’s still warm enough for shorts and t-shirts – the leaves are beginning to drop, just a little.  Other than those first few fluttering leaves, not much to report around here.  I have not given the garden much attention this month.

We’re heavy into planning for next year.  This jungle is our front walk; Steve has decided that he wants to rip this all up and start fresh (with something inexpensive, because we all know my position on spending a lot of money improving someone else’s property).  Since I don’t know which of these plants are the weeds and which are planted here intentionally, that seems like a good idea.

As for this, I confess myself stumped.  I suggested to Steve that we plant a pumpkin patch here.  I figured the vines would act as ground cover during the warm months and then we’d have pumpkins.  (My friend Bridget has a pumpkin patch in her suburban Alexandria backyard.  If she can do it, so can I!)  When he stopped laughing and realized I was serious, he was violently against that idea (why?).  Since the backyard is my domain, I might still do that.  Or I might spend the next two summers scratching my head, and then move.  Time will tell!

While we’re in the backyard, there has been another bird feeder reshuffling.  This is very exciting news: we actually saw a hummingbird buzzing around our front yard tube feeder!  After we all stopped jumping up and down and shouting, I darted out to Home Depot to pick up some nectar, and hung up Steve’s hummingbird feeder in the backyard, thinking we’d maybe entice a few more to stop by for fuel as they migrate south.  Since then: no hummingbirds.  Figures.

As for the title of this post: we continue to watch the tomato plant like hawks.  And… it’s mostly a fail.  I did find this:

A ripe tomato, still on the vine (not knocked into the dirt by aggressive squirrels or children).  Since I was alone in the backyard, I got to eat this.  Success.

Sadly, most of the tomatoes look like this: green, green, greeeeeeeen.  Anyone have any recipes that use green cherry tomatoes?  We’re weeks away from our first frost, so I don’t think it’s time to declare defeat.  But I’m also not convinced we are going to have enough hot sun to actually ripen these.  Blah.

Closing out this disjointed update post, I thought I’d show you a few spots in the yard that don’t get photographed.  First up, the woodpile.  This was actually bigger before we got our firepit, so: progress!

Fall bonfires ahoy.

I need to figure out some solution to keep the wood dry during wet weather, if we want to keep this fire thing going into the fall and winter.

Finally, this is the side yard, which the kids have named “the sandlot.”  There’s no sand, but we do play catch here.  Nugget’s red glove is starting to get nice and flexible.

I borrowed Steve’s glove, which used to belong to his dad.  Nice and supple, but no good for me because I’m not a lefty – whoops.  Also, is it me or does this glove look angry that it is being asked to catch a Washington Nationals baseball?  This glove is a Yankees fan.

That’s it for the September garden brain dump… how are your green spaces looking as we transition to fall?

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (September 28, 2020)

Goooooood morning, friends.  How goes life?  Two weeks since I checked in with one of these – whoops.  Last Monday I was just too sad about Justice Ginsburg; I couldn’t will myself to this space.  Do you forgive me?  Hope so.

So, anyway, what to report?  Fortunately, I lead a very boring life and two weeks of check-in material is about the same as one week.  I can’t even remember what I did last weekend – probably cried about RBG – so I’ll blow right past it.  This past weekend was kind of a bust.  It was my firm’s annual all-hands retreat, which meant that Saturday was a full day of conference activities and workshops.  But because: pandemic, instead of conference activities and workshops in San Antonio – as planned – I spent all of Friday toggling between zoom sessions, wondering if the partners would judge me for the wine rack right behind my head.  (My local partners in D.C. think it’s hilarious and awesome, but who knows about the rest of the firm…)  The silver lining was that I didn’t have to travel, so at least there was no rushing to the airport after the last meeting on Saturday; I just closed my computer and that was that.

Steve was determined to make the weekend decent for me, and he made sure we got out for hikes on Saturday and Sunday mornings, so that I could get my fresh air quota for each day.  On Saturday we headed to Fraser Preserve for a good shake-out hike before my big day of zoom meetings.  The kids griped the whole time about not getting to ride their bikes.  We were all tired because they’d had one of their nocturnal parties on Friday night, and I was extra grouchy about losing half my weekend to zoom, so I wasn’t all that patient with their complaining. On Sunday we hit our local favorite – Riverbend Park – and hiked downriver about a mile, then turned back.  The kids complained about being tired.  (Are you sensing a pattern here?)  The rest of the day was low-key.  They finally got those bike rides – in the neighborhood, while I fretted about oncoming traffic – and I discovered that my bike has two flats.  Super.  I made a Target run and got out under $100, so great success.  And the rest of the afternoon, I just poked around the house.  The usual.

Reading.  I’ve felt like I was cruising through books, but this doesn’t actually look like much of a total for two weeks.  Hmmm.  When these world-rocking events strike, I’ve noticed that I have a harder time reading (perhaps there’s a blog post in there somewhere) and maybe RBG’s passing affected me even more than I realized.  That’s possible.  Anyway – everything I read was wonderful, even if there wasn’t much of it.  At the beginning of last week I wrapped up Mr Tibbets’s Catholic School, which was a complete delight.  Then reached just a bit to the left on the same shelf and pulled out Brendon Chase, BB’s classic novel of three brother “outlaws” who run away from their aunt’s house on the eve of the school term, and live in the woods.  Yes, please.  I enjoyed every word and then picked up Dancing Fish and Ammonites, a memoir I’ve had on my “TBR” pile for years.  It was nothing like what I was expecting, but wonderful.  Finally – a re-read.  I’m going to read through the entire Gilead series again in preparation for Tuesday’s release of Jack.  Starting with Gilead on Sunday night and very excited.

Watching.  Less to report here: a lot of the same.  An episode or two of Rock the Park every night (whatever will we do when we’re current?) and one episode of Our Planet.  We are utterly predictable and I’m fine with that.

Listening.  I set aside audiobooks last week to try to make my way through Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings: How to Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends for Life.  There has been an awful lot of bickering, and more fisticuffs than I would like, in my house recently and I was hoping for some strategies to get the kids on a friendlier footing.  (They do love each other, very much – sometimes too much – but they’re heartily sick of one another right now and I don’t blame them.)  This was… okay.  There were some good strategies in there, but the problem is that “peaceful parenting” doesn’t do much good when they’re both so deep into their fight that they’re just totally tuning you out.  I spent a lot of the week standing physically between them, saying things like, “I sense a disagreement here.  Let’s problem solve together!” while they ignored me and tried to rip each other’s heads off.  Also, some of the book was just unrealistic.  (Does your kid feel neglected because you work too much?  Easy fix!  Just tell your boss you’ll be leaving at 4:00 for the foreseeable future!)

Moving.  It was a good week for movement, at least.  Several runs, and the aforementioned hikes.  Plus I’ve got “Mommy’s Jungle Gym” – as Nugget calls it – all set up in the sunroom now, and I’ve enjoyed several sessions in there, doing yoga and strength training in the peaceful morning light.  Steve is setting up my treadmill and I have an indoor bike trainer coming in a month or so, so there will be more dispatches from Mommy’s Jungle Gym to come.

Making.  Meh.  Not a lot of creativity around these parts lately.  A few yummy dinners – last night featured a cornmeal-crusted flounder that I was particularly proud of; it was baked, not fried, and oil-free, and so good.  As for progress on the home front – I’m sorry to report that I did not make my self-imposed Mabon deadline for being totally unpacked.  Some progress was made, but not enough.  I need a weekend of productivity, but the problem is once Saturday rolls around I am so fried from my week of working while simultaneously being tech and emotional support for a five-year-old that I don’t want to do anything.  I just want to hike, run, and laze about with my book.

Blogging.  Last week of the month catch-ups coming atcha this week!  I’ll have a garden post on Wednesday and the month’s reading recap on Friday.  At least, I think I will.  Neither one is drafted yet.  Send beer, friends.

Loving.  One area in which I have made progress in the house is: hanging artwork.  I’ve got art up on the walls in almost every room – Steve’s and my bedroom being the only exception.  And let me tell you, it really does make all the difference in the world.  I’ve been sitting in the living room most nights, and it was already a lovely spot – between the flickering candlelight and my curated bookshelves – but now I can look over my left shoulder and see two pieces that I brought back from the Outer Banks and a painting of a woman reading by Joe Todak (a Pennsylvania artist who was a friend of my grandparents’), and over my right shoulder I have a collection of my own photographs – framed and unframed.  It’s so much nicer to be surrounded by my favorite art, and I don’t even mind the hideous band-aid colored walls as much.  This is what I do in every house: I get all tied into knots about putting holes in the walls and end up waiting for months, then I go around in a tornado of activity and hang everything at once.  Glad to have that over with.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

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Tales from the Exurbs, Vol. II: Masked Bandits

Y’all, we have moved into a lawless neighborhood: there are masked bandits at large, wreaking havoc.  The other day, Steve noticed a small patch of bare earth in our front yard, where there used to be grass.  He assumed that it was Nugget, digging in the dirt, and made a mental note to have a word with him about restricting his digging activities to the sandbox.  But the next day, the patch was bigger – really big.

That same day, Peanut and Nugget reported that there was a raccoon in the neighbors’ yard, and that they’d seen it out Nugget’s window in the middle of the night.  They do tend to be midnight wanderers, but their information was based on some trash cans that were upright when they went to bed and knocked over when they got up the next morning.  A raccoon is certainly a plausible explanation, but so is a late night automotive encounter, if you catch my drift.

But then we discovered this:

Why yes, those are muddy footprints on our trash can.  We showed them to the kids and they both immediately insisted that they didn’t do it!  Well, kids, of course you didn’t.  Do you have paws?  Do you walk around on trash can lids in the middle of the night?

Nugget has become determined to catch these masked bandits in the act of terrorizing the neighborhood.  We went for a walk between rainstorms the other day, and he made a list of the clues that he spotted.  In addition to our torn-up lawn and muddied trash cans, we noted the following:

  • A plastic water bottle on the side of the road.  The raccoon must have put it there!
  • Critter poop.  Raccoons for sure!  Probably a daddy raccoon!
  • Scratch marks in the gravel by the side of the road, one street over.
  • A small divot in someone’s driveway.  Raccoon footprint!  Powerful enough to make an impression on dried pavement!
  • A small box midway up the neighbors’ chimney.  Raccoon door!  (Side note: I don’t actually know what it is.)
  • Overturned trash cans by another neighbor’s side door.  (I pointed out that they are oriented the same and neatly arranged, so it was probably an intentional act by the neighbors to keep them from filling up with rain during one of our recent storms.  But: no, Mommy!  Raccoons!)
  • Torn cellophane around an old bookcase that a neighbor set out for garbage pickup.  Trash panda attack!
  • Missing branches on a cherry tree across the street.  The raccoon must have bitten them off!

I’ll tell you guys, this raccoon is a pest but he sure is delivering endless entertainment.  I know that raccoons can be an urban problem, too, but we didn’t encounter any in Alexandria.  (We did see some roaches that were almost as big as raccoons, though.)  But out here, we are surrounded by wildlife – deer, foxes, wild turkeys, and it looks like, raccoons.

Do you get nocturnal visitors to your yard?

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The Classics Club Challenge: The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens

Beginning in 1836, the then-24 year old Charles Dickens, writing under the pseudonym “Boz,” began publishing a series of stories about Victorian gentleman Samuel Pickwick, Esq., and his faithful friends Tracy Tupman, Augustus Snodgrass, and Nathaniel Winkle.  Mr. Pickwick is the founder, patron saint, and conscience of “The Pickwick Club,” a gathering of these and other gentlemen that appears to have no specific purpose.  At a meeting of the club, Mr. Pickwick proposes that he and his friends travel around the countryside observing life, and report back to the club their observations of the same.  The motion is heartily carried, and the four gentlemen set off from London and immediately become embroiled in all sorts of wine-soaked adventures.

“Nothing the matter,” replied Mr. Pickwick.  “We–we’re–all right.–I say, Wardle, we’re all right, an’t we?”

“I should think so,” replied the jolly host.–“My dears, here’s my friend, Mr. Jingle–Mr. Pickwick’s friend, Mr. Jingle, come ‘pon–little visit.”

“Is anything the matter with Mr. Snodgrass, sir?” inquired Emily, with great anxiety.

“Nothing the matter, ma’am,” replied the stranger.  “Cricket dinner–glorious party–capital songs–old port–claret–good–very good–wine, ma’am–wine.”

“It wasn’t the wine,” murmured Mr. Snodgrass, in a broken voice.  “It was the salmon.”  (Somehow or other, it never is the wine, in these cases.)

The four quickly become acquainted with a stranger who gets them into all sorts of trouble.  The stranger – Mr. Jingle, as it turns out – is a “stroller,” or a traveling performer.  He lives by his wits and by outwitting innocent souls with a little too much money for comfort – including Mr. Pickwick and his friends.  Within a short space after making their acquaintance, Mr. Jingle accompanies Mr. Tupman (an admirer of the ladies) to a ball, where he proceeds to insult a very easily-offended and heavily armed gentleman.  As Mr. Jingle was dressed in a suit borrowed from Mr. Winkle at the time (unbeknownst to Mr. Winkle), Mr. Winkle passes a very unpleasant next morning, having been challenged to a duel for an offense he has no memory of giving.  (And indeed, an offense of which he is innocent, having passed the ball upstairs in his room, sleeping off a quantity of wine.)  The duel scene is hilarious, and things only get funnier from there – and always seems to lead to lady trouble.

“Is it not a wonderful circumstance,” said Mr. Pickwick, “that we seem destined to enter no man’s house without involving him in some degree of trouble?  Does it not, I ask, bespeak the indiscretion, or, worse than that, the blackness of heart–that I should say so!–of my followers, that, beneath whatever roof they locate, they disturb the peace of mind and happiness of some confiding female?  Is it not, I say–“

The Pickwickians meet up with an old friend of Mr. Pickwick’s, one Mr. Wardle, who has two charming daughters and a spinster sister.  They all toddle over to Wardle’s manor house at “Dingley Dell,” where more hijinks ensue.  Mr. Jingle is involved, naturally; there is a failed elopement; a high speed chase in a post-chaise; and sundry other silliness.  Having thoroughly embarrassed themselves, the Pickwickians move on and spend two years roaming the country and getting into and out of difficulties.

There’s also a lengthy side plot in which Mr. Pickwick is sued for “breach of promise” by his former landlady, after a misunderstanding leads her to believe he has proposed marriage to her.  He spends some time hiding in Bath – in the Royal Crescent, of course – before returning to London to face the music, and he spends several months in prison alongside his faithful valet, Sam Weller (who is by far the best character in the book – somehow managing to carry out his employer’s business while kissing pretty housemaids on the regular).  The Bardell v. Pickwick plot gives Dickens the chance to vent his spleen about lawyers, which is a practice I heartily endorse.  (And has given me a good line to use on the next opposing counsel that irritates me in discovery: I shall call him a “mean, rascally, pettifogging robber.”  Kidding…)

Pickwick was a delight – no less polished than later works, but much more lighthearted.  Far from bogging down in the more than 950 pages (having been published in serial form, it was perhaps a bit too easy for Dickens to just keep the fun rolling instead of wrapping things up at an earlier point) I settled down with it every evening with delicious anticipation.  All day, every day for a week and a half, I wondered what scrapes the Pickwickians were going to find themselves in, and all evening I laughed away as I found out.

My only complaint about the book: periodically, every five to seven chapters or so, Mr. Pickwick and friends are either regaled by a new acquaintance in a pub, or happen upon a previously unknown manuscript, telling a story that is completely unrelated to the plot or any of the characters.  There is a former debtor who seeks revenge, a demon kidnapping, a talking chair that arranges marriages – you know, the usual sort of thing.  I didn’t find the stories added all that much, and they were an irritating diversion from the plot.  I’m sure “Boz” added them in to keep the serial going longer (and the paychecks coming) but the result in book form is a bloated narrative with annoying diversions.  Had Dickens cut out the storytelling parts, the book still would have been over 800 pages, but it would have been pacier.

That’s a minor quibble, though.  In all, Pickwick was wildly funny and a wonderful read.  I’m sure I will come back to it repeatedly in future years, although I will skip the storytelling chapters.

“I shall never regret” said Mr. Pickwick in a low voice, “I shall never regret having devoted the greater part of two years to mixing with different varieties and shades of human character: frivolous as my pursuit of novelty may have appeared to many.  Nearly the whole of my previous life having been devoted to business and the pursuit of wealth, numerous scenes of which i had no previous conception have dawned upon me – I hope to the enlargement of my mind, and the improvement of my understanding.  If I have done but little good, I trust I have done less harm, and that none of my adventures will be other than a source of amusing and pleasant recollection to me in the decline of life.  God bless you all!”

What is your favorite Charles Dickens novel?

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Remembering RBG

In fall 2003, I was a first year law student in Washington, D.C.  In class one day, my criminal law professor assigned the entire section to go down to the Supreme Court, observe an oral argument, and write about it – just a few paragraphs about the case, the argument itself, and our impressions of the experience.  So on a bitterly cold morning, I huddled outside the Court with friends, waiting to enter through the public doors, sit in the gallery, and watch an argument for the first time.

We arrived early – 6:00 a.m. – because we had decided to watch argument of one of the line of “Pledge of Allegiance” cases that were making their way through the courts and garnering lots of media attention (or what passed for media attention in our little law school bubble).  My memories of the day are foggy; it was so long ago.  I remember that my friend Mike was in the group.  I don’t remember who else joined us.  (Mike and I did everything together throughout most of law school.)  I remember gazing at the separate entrance for members of the Supreme Court Bar and wondering if I would ever be part of that group.  (Spoiler: not yet, although my BFF is being sworn into the Bar of the Supreme Court in April.)  I remember filing past the Supreme Court cafeteria and the partially obstructed view behind a pillar in the gallery.  I remember wondering if the rumors were true that the reason Justice Thomas never asked a question was because he slept through every argument.  (Answer: I don’t know, but I can confirm from visual evidence that he was asleep during the argument I watched.)

Justice Ginsburg asked a few questions – just a few.  Although the argument we watched was a high profile case, I don’t think it was all that controversial, by which I mean the Justices all pretty much already knew what they thought about the legal issues – although they certainly were giving the arguments their attention.  I don’t remember any of the questions now, seventeen years later.  I wish I could remember what Justice Ginsburg asked about.

I do remember the chills I felt at seeing the legendary RBG in action.  I was a female law student; obviously she was my idol.  (To the extent that when I got married, I elected to have “two last names” and not to hyphenate: “If it’s good enough for Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it’s good enough for me!”  Big mistake.  Justice O’Connor and Justice Ginsburg clearly had more organized minds than I did and never said “I don’t know” in response to the dentist’s receptionist asking them what their names were.)  So: chills.  And a powerful sense of a grave responsibility from joining the same professional universe – however many millions of degrees removed from Justice Ginsburg’s powerful perch.

Yesterday, I planned my running route to go by the Supreme Court.  I have been working through my grief and my fear for our democracy over the past few days, like so many.  And I wanted to go in person, to stand before the pillars, to read the words “EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW” inscribed over the door – that principle that RBG made the core of her jurisprudence – and thank her for breaking ground for me and millions of other female attorneys.

I’ve been watching and marveling at the social media posts celebrating RBG’s legacy.  As a woman, I owe her so much: because of RBG, I can sign a lease or a mortgage in my own name; have a credit card, again in my own name; work while pregnant without fear of discrimination; play a high school sport – all of which rights I have personally enjoyed – and so much more.  So I ran to the Court (I felt RBG would approve that part, too) stood before the front entrance, bowed my head, and thanked her.  Then I cried the tears I needed to cry, squared my shoulders, and continued on my run.

As I ran down Capitol Hill and onto the National Mall, on my way back to my car, I noticed a sign in front of the U.S. Capitol: Stop Trump.  Vote.

I wish that we could all just mourn RBG and celebrate her legacy without a political firestorm.  But this is 2020 and that mourning period – like so many other things this year – has been denied to us by malfeasance and hypocrisy.  So along with grief must go resolve.

I did not agree with the “McConnell Rule” in 2016.  I do not believe there was any justifiable – or logical – reason to deny a Supreme Court nominee a vote, or even so much as a hearing, as was done to President Obama and Judge Merrick Garland.  At the time, I believed that the American people had spoken on who they wanted appointing Supreme Court Justices.  We spoke in 2012 when we elected President Obama to another four-year term.  Not a three-year term.  A four-year term.  And there were still, at the time, nine months left in that four-year term.  (Enough time to grow a human.  Certainly enough time to approve a Supreme Court Justice.)

Although there was no logical support for their position, Republicans under McConnell took the position that there was somehow precedent for not appointing Supreme Court Justices in an election year.  (Do the research: not true.)  So they created the “Mitch McConnell Rule” that SCOTUS Justices are not confirmed in an election year.  Fine.  It’s a bad rule.  It doesn’t make logical sense.  But they decided that this was a rule because – at the time – it was politically expedient for them, and it doesn’t magically become a not-rule when it is no longer politically expedient.

My legal practice – which I owe, in large part, to RBG and the ground she broke for the women lawyers who would come after her – involves a lot of counseling managers in the application of work rules.  What I tell them is: don’t have a rule unless you’re committed to applying it every time the situation comes up.  Don’t make policies that you are not sure you can apply evenly and consistently.  Because inconsistent application of rules leads – in the best case – to diminished workplace morale.  In the worst case, it leads to litigation.

I would say the same to Senate Republicans, if they would listen (they wouldn’t).  The “Mitch McConnell Rule” is a stupid rule.  It doesn’t make any logical sense.  The “precedent” they cited in support of this harebrained idea – that SCOTUS Justices are not confirmed in election years – was about 20% based on the fact that SCOTUS Justices don’t often pass away or retire during election years, and 80% imaginary.  It was always a dumb idea.  But it’s a rule now.  And you don’t get to have one set of rules for when it benefits you, and another set for when it doesn’t.

Steve doesn’t think there is enough time to ram a nominee through the Senate even if they want to (which, clearly, they do).  One of my law school friends agrees.  I hope they’re right, but I fear that they are wrong.  So it is left to us – the voters – to tell the Senate that there will be consequences at the ballot box.  It is left to us to vote them out.  To vote blue up and down the ballot, to send a message that the American people demand better from our representatives.  We demand that they choose country – us – over the craven clawing of any scrap of power they can find.

Thank you, Justice Ginsburg, for everything you have done for women.  Now it is up to us to carry on.