please distract me

I found some late hellebores and early daisies by the pond to distract me... Then work with students took up the rest of the day.

My social media is heartbreaking right now, with Indian friends looking for leads on plasma, drugs, ventilators, hospital beds... 

My sister and I were wondering if our parents should get tested--I was worried about further exposure, but apparently there are teams that do home visits. 

Late (very late) last night, a bookclub friend posted that their little one had broken their arm and that they were headed to the E.R. Big A was working in the ED, so I checked with him and gave them his work cell.  This morning when I thanked Big A, I told him that when he's away, working nights, taking care of populations usually under-cared for, I feel I'm doing something good for the world too (although all I'm actually doing is wandering around insomniac and doomscrolling). 

sweet/hurt

My sweet Nu made me a matching rainbow kandi bracelet and taught me how to trade it proper P.L.U.R.-style.

Definitely the highlight of my weekend.

I'm worried about Covid spikes in MI and even more worried about the tsunami of numbers coming out of India. Extremely worried for my parents who got their second vaccine shot last week, and are experiencing some persistent and alarming discomfort / symptoms.

break

I had to push myself to put on my hiking boots and meet L this morning, but I'm glad I did... a bramble-y, mossy trek through Ely Woods along the Red Cedar, a brilliant blue sky, and L listening without judgement made things a bit bearable.

I thought I would work in the garden for a bit when I got home... but I didn't. 

I actually don't know what I did today. Ha.

a nothing burger

 

A big day and I'm drained--I have nothing left in me to share. 

But this picture on family chat made me chuckle. 

These three had headed out to bring back some Impossible Burgers (there was an ad on tv), but the Burger King on Grand River Ave was just not there. How did we not notice? 

Apparently, it has been gone since August?

CW

I'm awake for all the usual wrong reasons

and     Adam Toledo      Adam Toledo 

Adam Toledo     Adam Toledo.

Adam Toledo              Adam Toledo

And now     FedEx Indianapolis.

mass shooting       police shooting

police shooting     mass shooting

Adam Toledo      Adam Toledo

           Adam Toledo

just sayin'

Nu isn't allowed to say the "B" word. 

None of us really do--but I did buy some Bitchin' Sauce because the name made me chuckle (and it's tasty!). Now the sauce is all gone and Nu has a new earring.

And it's definitely making a statement.

And reminded me of a long ago moment.

simmer

I'm stopped at the traffic light at on my way home and it turns into a wait for the slowest train in the world to pass.

There's a rap on the window and At's face beaming down at me. I unlock the doors, he pops in, I hug him so hard. He takes off his mask; I tell him to keep it on; he's all "but we're vaccinated;" and I'm all "you haven't had the second shot yet." Then he's referencing something about Bill Gates and vaccines--maybe this? 

I begin laughing because it's so random--and as I told him, in a couple of days I'm going to think I dreamt this whole sequence of things.

And I'm laughing because I'm so relieved to see and hold him on yet another day when to be the mother of a brown-skinned man is a day for a slow simmering fear.

Scoutie Scoutie so very pouty

Scout really does take after me--he hates going to the doctor. 

Big A had to take him in because we found a mass--it didn't seem to bother Scout (and that it didn't bother him bothered his doctor dad, actually). 

The clinic said he's put on 10 pounds. Probably pandemic related, right? Humans home all day, sharing additional table food and treats?

Big A called him "Mr. Fatty" on family chat and the lovely human kids immediately jumped on him for body-shaming. I don't think Scout's forgiven him yet.

Fingers crossed on his microscopic report.

Breath Song

Your breath's so imprecise in meaning
I can barely make sense as it swells
like lichen or love, the secrets it tells 

in its hard-earned and happy prison

Drawn between its vague borders

I learn by tracing the link of veins--

times, tie them to how you hold me 

sweet/safe for a heart-beat/a life-time 

[Picture from my perch where I was reading in the afternoon sun; wearing a faded, stained--but still favorited--summer blouse; marveling how the cherry blossoms are here practically overnight.]

Furrow

I might meet you in the street

"wait, wait" you might say
kneeling right there 
in the cleavage
of the year
so honest

pouring beauty
rubbing my belly 
keeping full the promise 
soon scrambling across my face

[Day 100 of 2021; Baker Woods with L this morning.]

Plants (they're also what's for dinner)

Everything is coming up! Daffodils and pansies here, and cherry blossom, roses, and honeysuckle elsewhere--being outside is an olfactory treat this week. It's also getting to that point in the year when I'm in danger of spending more on plants than food at the supermarket.

A vat of spring-y green soup for dinner--used up most of the fennel, celery, bok choy, cilantro, and curly kale + cannellini beans, a dash of parm, and lemon zest. It was ok, I'm not likely to recreate this again--my choices were dictated by what was in the veggie box and needed to be consumed. 

In classes I sometimes like to ask when the last time people learned something and changed their mind was. For me, it was yesterday when CJ posted this Dr. Sarah Taber Twitter thread from a couple of years ago. The Imperfect Foods and Misfits Market boxes have felt like extra work lately; learning how I'm not really "saving" anything gave me permission to cut the cord there. At the height of the pandemic--MI is doing so badly, so I guess I mean at the height of the pandemic panic--it was a comfort to have these delivered, so I say goodbye with gratitude.

tiny hellos

These (rue anemones?) yesterday--unlooked for and delightful. I thought back to them all day.

A long day of teaching, lots of individual conferences checking in on student research projects, and very little time for admin stuff that needs doing. 

Tomorrow is another day. 

A quick visit to At to drop off groceries and measure his chest (for a birthday present). 

LOTS of hugs.

 Back home, Big A's poke for dinner, and a snuggly semi-sleepover with Nu, Scout, and Huck. 

(Meaning--I'm supposed to be watching Umbrella Academy with Nu, but I fall asleep ten minutes in. The show is good, it's just that I'm tired.)

tiny observation

somedays just can't contain
all the budding--

new/s shoots 

insane: email says everyone

is sick with the virus

/vaccination shots

[Pic: greening in Baker Woods]

Now

a suddenly unscripted day
disappointment like a slap
the window yawns 
alive--also awake

summing up the end of day 
admitting only small things
the clasp of malaise
the wake of a stare

for my old, younger self 
the rest is baited prayer 
speaking forever
holding peace

Steal

Jasmine and bougainvillea are blooming in the tea garden. Also, gloriosa, geraniums, violets, and begonias which have wintered safely inside for years now. (Not in this shot, cyclamen and pansies from the grocery store earlier this year.)

I'd gotten into a pattern where most of the time I spent in the garden was maintenance time.

There really wasn't time or much sunshine today, but I found a spot (of time and sunshine) and sat there with a tall glass of lemonade quietly by myself (no work, companions, books, music, crafts, etc.). 

Would recommend. 

Trying for the Buddha's "attadīpā viharatha attasaraṇā anaññasaraṇā" (“Look inward; be a refuge unto yourself; seek no other refuge.” AM's translation.)

Hello, Sunshine

Sunshine and an all around golden day. 

At had headed home after his vaccination yesterday in case he needed cosseting (he didn't) but we had him until brunch today.

Nu got to spend time with At watching video clips and playing Goose and generally realizing that their older sibling needs clear requests and communication or else all their time together might be spent hearing the good news about socialism... or something.

The human kids did an Easter egg hunt in the backyard while the puppy kids followed me around for treats (pictured). It was fun making rhyming clues and hiding presents and generally babying my babies. 

Savory casserole and store-bought Easter cupcakes for brunch and biriyani leftovers from yesterday for dinner. I got to read a Mary Stewart AND fall asleep in the sunshine, so that's two things off my let's-get-happy list.

in time

a body rises like an ocean 
willing like magic
identity shifts and orbits
--another trick

a star/stare, what will it mean
to you, to me

if only it could move a prayer
to open actuality

time cheats, you know how
we try to scribble it
here we are; there we go--
still hurt, counterfeit

-------------------------------

At (in Michigan) and my sister (in Bangalore) both received their vaccination #1 today; yay!

Daffodils Etc.

It's spring in England, and my mother visits,

she is Seeing England for the First Time

and there is her readiness in colonial desire 

like urgent rain--where squandered things 

find great reception. Electronic billboards! 

Gargoyles in Oxford! Museums are free!

Hunger satisfies easy when you're eager.

Until one day at the grocery checkout she sees

daffodils--papery, plastic-wrapped, "solitary"

not a "never-ending line," "dancing," or "gay."

And Amma--at least a third-generation learner 

of Wordsworth's praise--is first silent in disdain,

her outstretched words rebound as if swindled:

"This? This is what he made such a fuss about?"

In her contempt, I hear comparisons--to the

languor of unkempt jasmine, lotus, plumeria... 

the warm, unlocked softnesses of oleanders, 

parijaths, ixoras... In her derision there hides 

history's list of pain, the sharp bite of the ruler 

when she didn't say English words correctly 

so just know that you are disappointing too

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I first wrote about Amma's reaction here--so many years ago.

Picture is from Daffodil Hill at the Radiology Gardens earlier this week; they seem to have been bigger this time last year?

Bigotry Farm

I haven't been able to find the name of this farm on 127N, but I've been calling it "Bigotry Farm" in my head for ages.

Seeing those signs on my way to work gives me anxiety every time. Seeing the progression of misogyny from L to R sometimes gives me a chuckle--sometimes. The flashing sign with bonkers messages makes me sad/angry/sob.

People know what I mean when I mention this place, but I wasn't able to find a good shot of the signs, so I pulled over and took this one.

I could use this in a rhetoric class?

Everywhere a rainbow

Today: 

Listened to an interview with Rachel Crandall Crocker who founded the International Transgender Day of Visibility; 

hmm-ed on the repeal on the ban on trans troops; 

made a note to call the adolescent gender clinic at the U of M.

[Pic Baker Woods with L.]

Of pens and pizza and other not so little things

Barely the beginning of the week, and I'm already so exhausted... I think we're all way more burnt out than we realize.

Before I left for home, however--a personal visit, a handwritten note of congratulations, and a luxe pen from the college. Somehow they even managed to engrave my very long, doubly hyphenated name on it. 

Somedays, it's the not-so-little things and immense kindness that do me in. 

And then Big A's pizza for dinner. It's impossible to not feel so loved when I see one of the pies on the table is the goat cheese, spinach, and slices of hard-boiled egg one. Probably sounds awful to most people--I'm the only one who eats it, so it was made just for me.

An Early Spring

L says the trees are wading into the water

and they are

the flood comes and goes without us seeing

how it does

we have few cues, shivering when we want 

when-ever

feeling a bit skinless, thinking that's not it

no, not it

we have watched our friends say goodbye

but saw

only their backs, so who it was that waved

we won't know. 

But a pattern of plummeting birds now coats 

our skin 

making us a festival of play and shining and

wildness--

jubilee and jamboree and carnival and revelry

every where

A festivity so full of possibilities, children

just listen

the communion now begins--a bit uncertain 

in origin

speaking to you from over there... not there

...there!

getting by

I was thinking a lot about neighbors after I saw those two nests side-by-side yesterday, and the weekend was quite neighborly...

This egg carton had gone to MR along with the rest of the stack I'd saved for them, and it came back to me with this absolutely beautiful set of eggs from their girls.

Then the alchemy of cooking turned some of those eggs into this garden frittata with the asparagus and cherry tomatoes LB gave me (if you squint, my frittata kind of looks like a patch of blooms?) and a portion of it went on to BS and CL for their dinner...

I didn't get to kick back and reread Enid Blyton/Mary Stewart or rewatch an episode of Felicity to self-soothe like I wanted... but OTOH, I don't have that sickly feeling of being behind on stuff. 

And I got lots of chatting in with the Bangalore bunch and the cousins and some quality couch time with Nu, Scout, Huck, and Big A and a nice dinner-time FaceTime with At.

So... a fair weekend even if not a freaking fantastic one.

Opening

cradled high like loneliness
two nests in a spring sky--
made it through a winter
by dreaming of breath

how will I deserve this love

these fingers on my face

budding, open, waiting

for a return caress

let me throw out this light

let me only love everyone

I can hold out my hand--

you could say: yes

In Prep

 

I love my huge blue-light glasses, I feel like I'm in disguise... well, not quite disguise... maybe it's more like a carnival mask that obscures me so I'm not displaying every emotion as obviously as an octopus.

SO MANY meetings. But I'm now DONE for the week. There'll be some grading and a student-housing fiasco to attend to over the weekend. But first, I'm going to read a Mary Stewart or Enid Blyton or something else soothing I've read a million times in every decade. 

And then, I'm going to fall asleep with Nu and Scout and Huck later. Friday 'sleepovers' with the kids have become a pandemic tradition.

Triptych

Three uplifting encounters with women artist-activists today:

A discussion with Lysne Beckwith Tait, the founder of Helping Women Period in my WGS classroom.

A hangout with April Sunami as her work was being installed in the Rotunda art gallery. [Her art on the left; will update with title when the installation is done.]

A (beautifully!) student-moderated webinar with Alice Wong, who gave our Women's History Month keynote.

We're on

We're on dueling sofas. I'm reading; Nu's doodling me. Clearly, I'm happy :).

It's a good evening at the end of a very busy day where both my computer camera and I stayed on all day.

thorn/bud/rose

I drove myself into a bit of a panic today, thinking about how I've spent this whole pandemic year just not writing. Colleagues on social media have been productive and publishing all through, but not me. 

There's one article (book chapter) in the pipeline, but I've already claimed it on my C.V. and it went on my tenure portfolio too. I guess sabbatical (next winter) will be the do-or-die period to work on monograph ideas at least.

Looking around for some good news, I remembered that last week, I had been invited to serve on the planning committee of this year's NWSA virtual conference. The NWSA. Ok, a bit better now.

Way

One way: I watch you ask 

each hunger for a name, 
then stay masked

and shy away
 

One more way to your woe
from the jinx of diaspora
its sudden tomorrows

and kind decay

They say the universe's

reasons are mysterious
but that's not reason--
so... anyway

---------------------

I made myself go outside for half-an-hour this afternoon because it looked so beautiful and temps were all the way up in the 60s. It was lovely. I watched cardinals and robins and finches drinking from the pond... The water looks so dank; I'm a bit worried for them. 

Mothering

Scout finds his water dish 

empty, he reminds me to 

fill it by batting it around.

Like every other toddler 

he eagerly loses himself

in all the glorious noise:

he's cocking his head

and bouncing his dish--

my little drummer pup.

Now I bring him 

a new bowl of water 

and he flings himself

into it, lapping, slurping, 

I'm stroking his head,

and my old body forgets 

it did not birth him--breasts 

spread like wings, tingling

like they did when I fed babies. 

An Equinox

 

I am everything today
I have broken the day
I have baptized plants
I have balanced time
on top of a tiny cloud

I have bled from anger
broken all our sorrows
O child--I have bitten
truth from my tongue
waiting for your love 

[My birthday plants--roses from LB, orchid from EM--are blooming!]

The Incredible Giant Effing Crybaby

I'm starting this post at 2 pm--there's a departmental meeting in < 30 mins, and I wanted to say I've already had two crying jags today + (merely) teared up a couple of times in a drafting meeting. Yay, me. 

I can't even attribute something expansive/altruistic/noble to the last jag. I've had an infected spot that remained even after a two-week course of antibiotics, and I'd made an appointment to see my doctor on April 20th, which seemed far enough in the future that I didn't have to worry about it for a while. Big A thought that was rubbish and said we needed to go to urgent care TODAY. That was terrifying. He promised his hand to squeeze if it hurt and to buy me Taco Bell if I went. So I went. (He wasn't able to be in the room--Covid rules--but I got lidocaine and it didn't hurt as much as I had feared it would.)

I've discovered Taco Bell late in my immigrant life. People were raving about the return of the fiesta potatoes on my social media and earlier this week, I finally understood their adulation. Fiesta (potatoes) forever!

[Pic is some rainbow flashes on the library walls from all the crystals in there.]

Mid-March Madness

One of those days where things seem wonderful one moment: electric class discussions; a chance encounter with a colleague where you both come up with so many new ideas; a guest lecture that is both enlightening and offers students self-care; a lovely thank-you note... And then in the next moment things are so awful and shaky that you can be driving up 127N, see the usual signs on Bigotry Farm, and instead of making you chuckle ruefully, it makes you start crying; or you're discussing Junot Diaz and choke up from thinking about all the 'allies' who are also oppressors.

I know the pandemic still has us in thrall, but having to deal with all the things that were right and wrong in the world on top of it seems a bit much.

Had to block off a two-hour slot tomorrow to draft a statement about the Atlanta shootings with the usual crew since no one else here has said or done anything... thus far.

Evening

I relive volumes about preserving all these hours
as though a summer's worth of sweetness swims

under the surface in the hopeful brine of memory. 

What if there are instructions to make the moment?

What if I practiced each moment before it came--

in the long, lonely present, folding in love, alone...

Open to my destiny as a nomad in this desired body,
understanding? O, I would say in wonder and dismay, 

returning over and over again like a peal of laughter.

Staying alive

At had kind of not been ok, and I thought a green comrade in his dorm space might be nice for him, so I gave him a potted dracena on his 'Boss Day.' At the last moment, I stuck a fake succulent stem in there too. 

Yesterday, he texted to ask about its watering schedule--and while he was watering it...

At: This succulent is fake. lol

Me: I promised you you could keep all this alive. I wanted you to feel good about yourself!

At: Love you lol

Me: Love you <3

At: How often should I water the real plants?

(The picture is a real succulent L gave me last year... I'm bad with succulents, actually--I overwater, and they have no restraint and drink everything and then individual leaves get too heavy and plop off...)

Days are Short

 I've been balancing my days using color codes for work (blue), family (green), home (orange), and personal notes (pink) for maybe over 10-12 years now? It's helped me focus on balance in specific areas when necessary while giving me a sense of accomplishment for things I manage to do. At a glance, as they say.

The last couple of weeks have looked 'off' calendar-wise--two weeks ago was birthday week, when I wasn't allowed to do anything and last week was the one where I basically developed a 48-hour episode of amnesia after the second Covid shot. I'm looking forward to a string of nondescript and colorfully ordinary weeks from here on out. 

DST Sunday

Time feels so strange anyway right now, that an hour's early start... on a Sunday... should make no difference, but even in the pandemic, DST still makes things disruptive. 

Being told why DST happens had some odd drama to it as a new immigrant: the implicit trust that this new world ritual had some higher-order rationale that I would eventually appreciate, but in the meantime--here's this "Fall back-Spring forward" mnemonic to keep track. Remembering Chelli's friend MH waiting up precisely for 2 am to turn the clocks still makes me smile, and we just talked about MH this weekend, and they're still best friends. 

But what a lovely sun-kissed weekend, nevertheless. No coats, so much outside play, the melt revealing the abrupt way things had suddenly ended with the one big snow. Family sushi, Puppy playdates (BS and JL), a sleepover with Nu, a movie via Zoom with EM (Bombay Rose, HIGHLY recommended!), a marathon phone call home, and now a ton of work waiting for me. (I feel 100% recovered from the second shot, BTW.)

Three Little Puppies (2)

HD, Scout, Huck (L to R)

 

Scout, CS, Huck (L to R)

Puppy playdates are the fun pandemic-approved hangout time I need.

Arrangement

I am buttoned tight inside a world

made mostly of sounds and words

for my name will soon get forgotten

you may add small tears to the sea,
to the wind, all the liminal seasons
don't wear out my name with wails

I started my own tribe of wanderers 
who'll need my name for new ways,

promises, festivals, and kindnesses

I'm Coming Up

Woke up not at 100%, but knowing I just couldn't take any more time off. My email box was terrifying, and it took hours and hours to take care of things that had piled up in 48 hours away and get back to a zero inbox. Did I use my "BinBox"™liberally? You bet I did.

Getting things done helped me keep my energy levels up and I'm glad I work with caring/forgiving colleagues. Tons of advising, opining, advocating, celebrating, and mediating on the student front. 

An invitation-only workshop that was postponed last July has been rescheduled for this July, and despite being vaccinated, I just didn't feel ready to commit. My response surprised me, because I thought I'd be excited about travel... I'm a mystery to myself.

Oh. And I made sure to enjoy the surprise hyacinths popping up all over the house from the bulbs I pressed into assorted planters at the beginning of winter. 

Wiped Out

Totally missed my 8 am meeting because I slept through it.

Did not expect to be wiped out for so long--I planned for Tuesday's set of classes, but what about Thursdayyyyyyy???

Rallied for bestie KB's talk, then back to bedddddddddd... (Full disclosure attended from bed.)

#Catchup Post

Out of it

 It was a fever haze. 

Hearing "FedEx broke your Little Free Library, Puppy" did not make sense.

Also did not make sense: "I'm going to ask your mom to use her video to make it right" "What will you do for food in the holocaust" (Think that was meant to be "apocalypse" not "holocaust.") "Step out of your comfort zone like a kite live daringly." (Did not know "daringly" was a word, but no squiggly line.)

Luckily, I guess, only the FedEx thing was true. 

So many neighbors offered to help fix the library though and that was lovely.

#CatchupPost

grateful + hopeful

 

anniversary

Twelve months in--hopeful 

and messy with tenderness

a windy, wingless sky and I

my mother and another ask

if I mean to be alone in snow
as time ripens, holding me in

a clamoring for brightness, yet 
as I add in days by the handful
they grow distant, dimming in  

history: years, people, places...
it has been such a long journey 
surely, it wasn't all just to die?

Run Run

I am taken in welcome, the other side beckons, 

but this side waits: like picnic, parachute, seed 

for the perfect moment of expectation and need.

Will you go with me and be my love, be a love?

--The blur of the future is just our pasts outrun

come, the world turns bright for many reasons,

the way is notable, though earth lies wrinkled--

Little beasts; running thundering and carefree,

When will you choose? Would you choose me?

____

C with Scout and Huck on a pandemic-style puppy playdate.

Very Sari

I wore a sari to work yesterday because I felt festive + I want to normalize saris and the difference they embody on my PWI campus. It was one of the intentions I had shared at the beginning of the term with my WGSS class, so when I showed up all floaty and colorful, they seemed quite happy and proud for me. 

I may have tied it too high ("where's the flood?"--the snarks at my high school might have asked), but for the most part, I was comfortable and didn't trip. The tripping thing has been one of my most frequent excuses, so I had to re-evaluate why I don't wear saris to work. 

Other Indian aunties are wearing saris to everything from construction jobs to yoga to designing spacecraft. Why don't I?  I really do think it's because all the ones I have are gifts and meant for festivities and too shiny or drippy with zari/fake pearls/pompoms/gems/stonework. I need a sari wardrobe for work--but I feel weird buying stuff for myself so soon after a day when I got so many presents.

This one, BTW, is a 'house sari' discard from one of my mom's visits. In fact, it was from her first visit when At was a newborn, so it's nearly 22 years old. Very nearly vintage. Wild. 

Happy Birthday to me!

My birthday usually falls right in the middle of Spring Break... Except we started a week later this year, so for the first time I was teaching on my birthday. I got all excited about this and stocked up on birthday treats like I was in elementary school. And my students, for whom the treats were meant, were so sweet and wrote happy birthday notes on notebook paper and asked if they could sing for me. 

I love my students. 

I was supposed to go home after that last class, but I was hoping to get a birthday hug from At before I left for home. I sent two texts--including one that read fairly desperately: "Birthday hug: yea or nay"--because it's At and he's completely capable of forgetting my birthday in his gentle, absent-minded way. He texted back that he was very busy, couldn't meet, but would explain later. I was pretty crushed, and remember thinking he could have at least said "Happy Birthday" before he brushed me off. 

Yes, he's in that picture--he'd driven home to have birthday dinner with us. 

I'd asked to be surprised for dinner and it seems like Nu, At, and Big A had each picked three things I like to eat so there was an incongruous all-you-can-eat buffet situation with sushi and green curry and poke* and pao* and a glorious olive oil cake* with raspberries, lemon zest, and pistachios (the last asterisked three by Big A and his kid helpers). AK and KB had dropped by at work, LB and EM dropped by at home, so I have more presents than I deserve.  More books to read, notebooks to write in, so much chocolate, and so many bath bombs.

At had parked at the end of the cul-de-sac because his presence-present was a surprise, so I got in a magic walk by starlight when I walked him to his car. And then some magic--albeit smelly--cuddles with Scout, Huck, Nu, and Big A to end the day.

Meantime

 

It turns out that ignoring symptoms for months on end doesn't make them go away and your doctor may freak out and send you for emergency tests when you finally show up after months of reminders. In between radiology and ultrasound there were about 45 minutes when no one needed to look at my body today. 

I was so exhausted from everything, I curled up on the examination table, and somehow had one of the best naps ever.

Untitled

Nu's artwork. Is it possible to be immensely proud and exceedingly terrified simultaneously? (More from Nu's teddy bear series.)

Mad at Mama

Big A locked them in their room because their paws were wet...  but I'm the one getting the glares!

 

Different Worlds

 We have this sign, so last week's U.S. drone bombings are particularly agonizing and embarrassing. (Not a revelation--but we could be so much better.)