nice/surprise

 It's April 1st tomorrow and who knows what the day will bring--here are a few things that took me by surprise on this last day of March.

I woke up from a dream in which I marveled how in a crowd of strangers we unhesitatingly call ourselves "we." It's true, isn't it? There's something beautiful and magic about that.

I was on a walk and 30 mins from home when a neighbor called to say she'd found Max wandering around her yard and had put him in her screen porch. Obviously, I panicked and called Nu to go over and get Max. Nu went downstairs and then called to tell me Max and Huck were downstairs cuddling on the sofa. Ha. The other puppy was reunited with their family soon after.

For the first time ever, a book I put on hold at the library (Claire Lombardo's The Most Fun We've Ever Had) came in before I caved and got it myself.

Yesterday, while sheltering from the tornado, I realized that Nu and Big A had ordered an arcade Ms. Pac-Man game for the basement. I thought we were in our frugal era! I'm mad. Also that thing is going to be 5-ft tall when it's put together.

Pic: I commented to Suzanne that I planned to make sushi cups from an insta reel I'd seen. I did! I did not expect them to be as as easy as they looked or come out so well (esp. as I ad lib a fair amount). They look a bit color deficient to me as I want all five colors at every meal, but a blueberry-mango-raspberry compote completed the gap at dinner. 

like an open window

today I go on into

this leftover world 
with its great gifts 
of unfastened earth
and lightened tasks 

                                walking altogether
                                talking to myself 
                                and my gods--as if
                                anyone else would
                                even be listening--

waiting for beauty
opening like a fire 

connection a flash

the moments of 

understanding like

                                the peace that passes 

                                in the long silent times

                                of waiting as my heart

                                circles red the sounds 

                                of recovery and rises 

________________________________

Pic: This love. I get to handle this level of mopey, smitten affection for hours every day. Mostly from Max. Huck (further down) is a bit more sophisticated about it. 

family worries

Around my sister's birthday, she seemed to think her job was in jeopardy, and it turns out she was right. She spoke to H.R. yesterday and will be leaving the company at the end of the month (She is a Managing Director at Accenture). This will mean some upheaval for all of us since our parents are currently on her health insurance, but we'll have to figure it out. She's been looking for a lateral move for a couple of months, but feels her age is working against her. I'm very worried about all of this.

And I have a tiny worry about Nu. It feels silly to say it out loud, given the state of the world. But Nu  has worn the same seven shirts (washing them like clockwork every week) and Converses for at least three years now--everything is faded and falling apart. It's very environmentally responsible and it's waaaay better than being trendy just to add to the world's trash. But for some reason it makes me sad that my child is limiting themselves this way. When I've brought it up, Nu will rightly point out that they consume a lot of baked goods, CDs, books, and skincare products so they're not exactly an ascetic. 

Pic: Huck and Max went to the groomer and came back with spring-themed bandannas that say: "Finally Spring!" And it cheers me up just to look at it. Nu's disdain for the gender-themed blue and pink was also entertaining.

could that be

Last night, I was hanging out with Max and Huck when Nu showed up in the rumpus room at 2:30 or so... They'd headed for bed hours ago, so I was confused, but they told me they were going outside to see the blood moon...

I had no idea! Nu is in an astronomy class at school and that's where they'd heard! Edcuation! Don't disband the Department of Education!

Anyway, we went outside and it was beautiful and surreal. I liked the reversal of Nu showing me something in nature.

Pic: My blurry phone pic of the blood moon. It's Holi today too, and for once it's warm enough to play outside but I didn't plan ahead.

Marching Forth Again

I had a full teaching day, talked to my parents on the way to work, got lots of birthday visitors at work, and just... a lovely birthday! 

Friends, thank you for your wishes--I felt surrounded by love all day and your wishes in multiple places helped... I am so blessed and so, so grateful.

I wish I'd come to appreciate the serendipitous significance of my March Fourth/March Forth birthday earlier, but I'm running with it now. This year, apart from fighting fascism, I hope to prioritize working meaningfully on some of my longer projects. This was a new year's resolution that didn't quite take, but this is a good time to reset, I suppose.

Big A texted to say he'd "fucked up the cake." (He usually makes the chocolate cake from the recipe on the back of the Hershey's cocoa box, but there was no Hershey's in the store... and chaos!). It was just terrific, BTW. Went out for sushi with the fam, Nu made me a Kandi bracelet, At gave me books, Big A gave me a leaf blower of my very own so we could have leaf blowing duels and the now-customary card scrawled with all the dear details of our year that makes me cry every time.

(Now I can't wait for tomorrow and to be allowed to do stuff again. My parents used to do this, so I probably brought this tradition with me, but the birthday baby isn't allowed to do *anything* over the birthday weekend and sometimes it makes me feel a bit like I'm on a rest cure.)

Pic: Clockwise--Kids (Nu, At, Max, Huck), cake, me.

Pre-birthday!

Mondays aren't teaching days, so I had a soft reentry to the second half of the term. I got class preps in early, and worked on some reviews for a while. Then the heating tech came by to fix our broken heater. I forgot to mention we didn't have heat over the weekend--thankfully, the hot water was still working and I got by with sweaters and puppies.

Big A and I took off for a hike in Sleepy Hollow State Park, I've wanted to go back with him ever since I went with work friends last month. He downloaded the six-mile loop trail, but I wanted to go around the island too, as it's really picturesque, and then we got lost for a bit--so it ended up being more like eight miles. 

At one point, Big A pointed at a plastic tube and looked at me very meaningfully, and I didn't know what he meant--like was he mad that someone had dropped their chapstick? Turned out it was a shotgun casing. I'd never seen one in my life before. We found a bunch more further down the trail, but didn't meet any hunters.

Birthday cards and a garden catalog (Spring is coming!) were in the mail and we got Subway for dinner as a treat. Online birthday greetings are beginning to trickle in (my school friend's big sis in New Zealand is always the first one to wish me), I've had birthday calls with my sister and my uncle, my birthday fundraiser is over halfway there (I set a bigger goal than usual, fingers crossed), I'm on my way! Yay! 

Pic:Lake Ovid behind me. Sleepy Hollow State Park.

Updates and Pup-dates

Nance and Lisa mentioned GoodsUniteUs in the comments the other day as a way of checking out the politics of companies we're giving our $$ to. I agree that they're outstanding.

On a similar note, I've used Buycott in the past to check out specific brands--the app can scan UPCs, QRs, and barcodes while you're in the store. 

Engie mentioned looking up local stores on social media to get a read on their politics as well--I hadn't thought of that! 

J mentioned that she would be supporting local businesses and using cash, and that's such a great way to bypass the system. Several friends have mentioned this as a way to support small businesses as well. 

Stephany wondered where one would go for basics in the long term, and I haven't figured that one out yet. Bodegas?

The People's Union USA is taking the lead on Friday's economic shutdown--they're very new and worth/need keeping tabs on.

Pic: I find it so hilarious when Max does this--he bops Huckie on the head when he wants to play. They've already cleared all the pillows off the couches, but apparently there's more wild rumpus to follow.

a stranger sonnet

I let the ecologue in my head be interrupted
for it is also right there and alright
ready to wait for these letters 

that make all these words

that then go on to make

so many meanings

and things

watch how

it is wayward

and a bit word weary 

and yet bright as a ribbon

tossed up, a road trip through 

options: what is / what we wanted /

how we find our way as we brake for beauty

_________________________________

Pic: A hike in Sleepy Hollow State Park with work friends (none of whom I'd ever hiked with before). Also four new-to-me doggos. Would repeat. In the proverbial heartbeat.

the drumming in the wilderness

by the time this day ends 

I've  run  out  of  prayers

but  I've  made  an  altar

where  I grimly offer up 

my  pride,  my  surprise 

other  words  are  missing

(we'll  always  miss  them)

there is also indifference

its easy caress like a hook

escaping edicts, their edits

dim redactions--it's official

it's artificial--how we are all 

desperate as gossips--telling 

and listening at the same time

__________________

Pic: Store-bought chocolate cheesecake bites, store-bought valentine's day picks; assemblage 100% me. Max still doesn't know chocolate Valentine's Day treats are not for him--it's a good thing there are other treats he can have. Several long meetings today, but I somehow managed to power shop for our Post-Valentine's potluck tomorrow. We've already had some cancelations from long-distance friends due to the winter storm though... I think local friends will still be able to make it. Let's see. 

killing medicine

Big A posted this publicly, and I'm sharing a part of what he wrote here. The whole thing is basically a valediction for the medical progress he's seen over the course of his career and the reverses that are already beginning to happen. 

This is just one of the many, many, many stories from people like him who have devoted their lives to making a difference and are now seeing everything they've worked for being dismantled in a matter of days.

"As a premed at the NIH in the mid-90s, I volunteered at D.C.'s largest HIV clinic during the ongoing AIDS epidemic, and got a tour of Tony Fauci's lab from one of my co-volunteers who also worked in Bethesda. One of the most astonishing changes in the 30 years since is that we rarely see complications of advanced HIV infection in the ER.

As med students in Cleveland, we were regularly awestruck running into Fred Robbins, who received a Nobel prize for their contributions to the development of the polio vaccine, in the hallways,. I have never seen an acute case of poliomyelitis, but it's suddenly plausible I may. (Until 2024 I had never even diagnosed whooping cough; I've already been exposed twice in the past two months during a recent pertussis outbreak triggered in no small part by the number of unvaccinated children.)

I'm eternally grateful for having trained at Bellevue Hospital during the era of Lewis Goldfrank, who always put the needs of the marginalized and afflicted above those of corporate medicine and the capitalist healthcare system. And I'm lucky to have had support from the NIH as a postdoc, which has allowed me to devote some of my hours outside the ER to helping prevent fatal opioid overdose among my fellow Michiganders.

But the grants that pay for free naloxone come from the HHS, now led by an infamous anti-vaxxer and conspiracist (while, simultaneously, an unelected far right-wing industrialist is rapidly dismantling pieces of the global public health safety net)."

And so it goes. Sad and scary times. And it's happening all over, in the National Park Services, the Kennedy Center, and all across the federal workforce.

_________________

Pic: Huck and Max aren't ready for me to take this picture. Max is like: Mom! Do you mind? I just want to pee! We had a massive snowstorm--Huck is wading in snow.

my tiny domestic tragedies

Big A seemed a bit better yesterday. But he didn't think so. I think he likes being taken care of. It makes me think of my hero, June Jordan, saying "None of us has known enough tenderness" and how Big A is usually the one taking care of people. Today A says he's better... but not well. Tomorrow he's scheduled to work. He plans to go for it despite my misgivings. 

Last year, when he ended up in the hospital for a week it was because of complications from the long Covid he got when he went to help out in NYC at the peak of the pandemic in May 2020 (way before any vaccine). So this third round of Covid terrifies me on a deep level--I keep imagining the effects lingering on even after things seem normal.

In the hits keep coming department: Nu's extensive filling came out, they slipped and fell on the ice, and their phone stopped working. Guess which thing made them cry? I'll have to get things fixed for my baby tomorrow.

This piece by Mhawish "I Spoke With 20 People in Gaza After the Ceasefire. My Heart Broke 20 Times" is as heartbreaking as it sounds, and is searingly poetic and will live inside me forever. This is massacre delicately uncovered to help us understand how excruciating the human loss in *each* of the hundreds of thousands reported dead, injured, and bereaved. How domestic tragedies multiply into humanitarian disgrace...

Pic: It's still icy, but there was some fresh snow, which made it easier to walk on and brilliant blue skies and sunshine. Max, Huck, and I are easily pleased, I guess.

it's not novel anymore?

After weeks of  warning everyone around us to be careful out there as there were all kinds of respiratory illnesses out there in the ether/E.R., Big A has developed Covid-pneumonia. He had this weekend off and we had all kinds of plans and I'm so sad and mad about him being sick and me having to quarantine. He gets antivirals tomorrow, so hopefully he'll start feeling better. 

This is round #3 of Covid for him. 

Also, if that wasn't enough, he accidentally got stuck with a needle from a patient with Hepatitis-C as it was being disposed. That's counted as an active exposure and so he'll have to get tested and keep getting tested for a few months to make sure he doesn't develop that too. Hep-C is very serious, and the more I read about it, the the more it feels like I'm looking down an abyss.

Both these things are exposure because of his being in the E.R., of course. We joke about how his job is apocalypse-proof and he'll get paid in potatoes and eggs because he delivered people's babies or set their bones. But I'm ready for him to find another job. (Nu too, probably. They weren't happy about having to cancel the sleepover they had planned for tonight and they were going to hang out and get ready for the school dance with friends here tomorrow too.)

Pic: Everything is frozen and this morning Max and Huck decided to play right in the center of the pond we dug last year. I know I could wade in and rescue them, but I do worry about the ice cracking and dunking them into the water... 

"Ladies' Liquor and Cake"

I am lucky to know JS, the wonderful poet and human, whose brainchild "Ladies' Liquor and Cake" is.

When the invitation to this "essential frivolity" came a few weeks ago, it urged: "These are desperate times and we must cut to the quick: good company (essential), cake (of course) and liquor (naturally)."

I was happy to attend. Now I'm full of good company and cake, sushi (it's my Boss Day), I made time for a yoga sesh, I'm deep into a couple of good books, and also At came by and I got a good cuddle in with the best human cuddle baby I've made! What I can control is going really well.

Outside is still a mess.

Pic: JS had a place for people to post uplifting upcoming events at "Ladies' Liquor and Cake." Her baby's name is Scout too, and that's yet another reason I like being at her place.

uneven thoughts in uneven times

I break the trail     with an ice pick of panic      winter is removal       after all      and carry on      as if      I don't care     I don't want anyone     to see     I care

as it grows dark        with unwritten books      the ink shrinks     into ripples     of edict after cruel edict          they've called this chaos

shock and awe     rising to the center      into centuries    the injury       piercing the moment      everything swelling    out of reach     I witness     what is made--     

--for other people      watch it      come for me      I wait      as the wind loses its way     and wake to the wound     through which     the poem comes

_______
Pic: Max dares me to chase him on the icy snow. Look at his lope, he looks so lupine! 

even the chipmunk does what it can...

One of my favorite bits in childhood retellings of the Ramayana is when Rama is building a bridge from the peninsular tip of India to Sri Lanka to rescue his partner Sita from Ravana who has kidnapped her. He has the help of his semi divine siblings and the Vanara army under the ace engineer and architect--Nala. But he also has the help of a little chipmunk who carries pebbles in its mouth to supplement the work of the huge army. Rama is so moved by the chipmunk's altruism, that he picks it up and gently strokes its back... and that's how the chipmunk got its stripes!

But the real point is that everyone does what they can to right a wrong. In fact, in some versions of the story, the chipmunk's pebbles cement the gaps between the giant boulders and are actually crucial to the structural stability of the bridge. I am reminded of this in so many ways. Two examples stand out for me today. One is StephLove putting her body on the line by protesting near the White House at the freezing of federal grants (the freeze has since been blocked by a federal judge). The other is a student who has been using their skill sets (English and Political Science) to annotate three significant executive grants so people can read and understand them more easily. 

Heroes. All the hearts. 

Pic: Huckie and Max, who clearly haven't eaten in days at the dinner table yesterday.

somehow tomorrow (will be the twentieth anniversary of our first date)

I would believe anything 
that started with you

I--still--do  

sure as any day climbing 

for hours then coasting 

down, on time

inside the churn of memory

time is a secret waterfall 

of it all

the soft singing at breakfasts

battles opening voices

love closing eyes 

oh, how we've danced our way 

for twenty unwritten years 

now going away

with the magic suddenness of deer 

whose hoofprints are filling 

with blowing snow

_____________________

Pic: I moved to the living room as Nu has a sleepover in the rumpus room, but Max found me for our evening cuddle. 

small bridges

the world is burning      the stars are burning

                    how can we tell 

between catastrophe          and astral beauty 

                 it is no way to live

in my mother's eyes      there was always

                a waiting, waiting

and sometimes            she was more dead 

              than she feared I was

inside night's shadow         a solid darkness

               a series of searching
in impulsive skies     and a patient earth

                    or vice versa 

in drifts of memory       and burning snow 

               grainy as television 

I am important               I am impatient               

                find hope untidy

but keep it rooted        and learn to grow it

                    hearty although 

still watermarked         by tears and time

_______________

Pic: The puddle of napping puppies around my feet... I love how their paws are all entwined. (Max's head is off camera as he's flopped off the edge of the couch. The red haze is from the red and blue lights Nu likes to have on in the rumpus room.)

"life is never just one thing"

I didn't see Big A at all today. He'd worked an overnight in Ann Arbor and I left for work an hour before dawn to make it to an 8 am meeting. By the time I got home after a late evening at work, he'd already left for work again. 

But to quote Connie Schultz, "Life is never just one thing;" other than that, it was a lovely day. 

We inducted new members to the English honorary and it's always such a delight to see students dressed up for the occasion and meet their families. I mean... you think you see your students grow in the classroom and love their work and the people they are and then you meet their families and it's a whole new level of understanding how much they're cherished, seeing the wonder their grownups have about these humans they have made in one way or another. It's kind of transcendent. 

Also, somehow I was going to place an order with the catering company and then decided to do it myself and found myself after classes at MacCurdy (the feminist house I advise) borrowing their oven to heat up trays of hors d'oeuvres. And also, I have the best colleagues... ok, the best women colleagues--who seamlessly did everything from setup to clear-up. The whole evening was busy and bright and social and fun--all the stuff I adore. 

And then when I came home I was so tired I couldn't even bear the sound of the loud TV show Nu (who had no school today and has no school tomorrow because of our frigid temps) had on. I just wanted to sit with my arms around my babies for while. Then Nu went to bed, I FaceTimed my sister for her birthday (it's already her birthday in India!), and then snuggled up to read with Max and Huck.

Pic: This treat of lovely words and signature shortbread was waiting for me after my first class today. I did work hard today, but this wasn't about that. It's from a lovely and private colleague in another department and says way more about their wonderfulness than anything it might imply about me.

it's her birthday, and I don't want her to cry (or even want to)

My sister's birthday is coming up next week and I'm so excited for her to see my present: it's a pair of  necklaces--one with her name in Greek as a memento of our trip together last year and another with her name in hieroglyphics looking forward to our proposed trip to Egypt in a few years. 

But today I woke up to a text she'd sent me (just me, not on family chat) that her job seemed to be in jeopardy. She's already started looking, but she's at the very top (the next level is CEO) and thinks there aren't any openings. This makes me very worried for her (she loves what she does) and how it will affect her dynamic with her partner (I'm not a fan). And also, our parents are on her health insurance (it always boggles my mind that parents aren't considered family enough to be on your health insurance in the U.S.) etc. I'll certainly have to step up in many more ways if my sister's job disappears. 

Also, what terrible timing! It's her birthday on Wednesday! I know corporations don't know or care that it's your birthday, but it doesn't keep my sadness or outrage away. 

Pic: Today was another super long day, and it's still cold, with more snow on the way--but when I went out with Max and Huck after a few hours of work, the sun was coming up. I pulled my shoulders away from my ears, and pressed reset on the day. 

Pongal Sonnet

I've come such a long way

... north  I   now  celebrate 

this  Pongal  in  the   snow 

all  of  us  have  journeys 

I   suppose, we're all  from 

somewhere else as we know

like daffodils, not even Hindu 

still, here they are, little suns

intimate on the offering plate 

with the shakarapongal where

they  relate a welcome  flight

through pressure, sludge, ice--  

bright in the salute and shatter 

of our  planet's  feral sunlight

___________________

Pic: Late evening Pongal offering with Nu, Huck and Max. I took a picture to share with At who couldn't make it to pooja... Huck is dancing!