Thursday, July 03, 2025

books and the best friends

Books are some of my best friends and my friends are the best. When I asked Jan Shoemaker if I could bring my people to book club, she told me to bring anyone I wanted--kids and puppies included. I didn't expect her to have a cake with my mom's and sister's names emblazoned on it. 

Nor did I expect L to flout all the rules of cake-cutting and delve straight into the center of the cake to pull out the piece with my mom's name for her to eat. 

I have the best friends.

Pic: Mom with "her" piece of cake. My name was on there too, and I made a lot of "who wants a piece of me" jokes. 

Wednesday, July 02, 2025

in honor of those who came before us

We're reading Angeline Boulley's Warrior Girl Unearthed for book club. Much of it takes place in northern Michigan--on Sugar Island where L had disappeared to last week, in fact. It is YA, but deftly deals with NAGPRA and the book is wonderfully infused with details about indigenous Ojibwe culture. 

So we took a road trip yesterday to visit the Ziibiwing Center where I was happy to introduce my fam and Mr. Ray to each other. On the way home, we stopped by my office for a picnic lunch.

Pic: Nu's photo of us by the college sign. (I cropped some of it out.)

Tuesday, July 01, 2025

in memoriam

I loved SLE very much. I loved who she was. I loved what she had made of herself. I loved how she talked to everyone. I loved how life had been unkind to her and somehow it didn't seem to hold this sometime foster kid back. I loved how she made At feel. I loved how she made me feel. I loved all the kisses and hugs she gave me. The kisses and hugs she told At to give me. The breakup was recent and I was going to wait a few weeks before I reached out. I should have reached out sooner. I want to keep these words here to remember how much she meant to me. I see it's Aaron Bushnell's birthday and it connects to something about how people are trying to do the best for themselves and others and get by however they can. Life is so heavy. I don't think I will ever get used to how final death is.

(At and I sat around on At's stoop talking through things and crying yesterday. Today, Big A reminded me that my mom and sis have come halfway across the world to spend time with me so I need to pull myself together. I'd made a detailed plan for every single day when I booked their tickets, so I may be able to pull this off.)

Monday, June 30, 2025

in the midst of life...

We heard that At's 28-year-old ex died. 

I expected that everything would have stopped when I opened the eyes I shut in disbelief. 

I kind of want things to stop.

Sunday, June 29, 2025

we're worth it

Already unthinkably wild things have been done and said (by my mom, natch) and wilder things have been said in support (by Big A who is her sidekick, sometimes.) 

Pic: Max and Huck aren't quite sure what to make of it all. I seem caught by surprise (and so, so much happiness) too.

Saturday, June 28, 2025

under pressure

My mom and sis are on their way!! They'll get here tomorrow!

I'm still finishing up some last-minute chores. I guess I could do them after they get here, but then they'd want to help... and they don't know how to do things as they have a lot of domestic help. I don't want to make them travel all this way to do housework!

Big A sweetly tried to reassure me that everything would get done, and I snapped at him that I was aware of that as I was doing it all myself. Poor Big A, trying to be helpful. And poor me, so irritable. 

Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky are voting with democrats to block Trump's horrible spending bill... keep up the pressure!!

Pic: Lansing Pride was lit this year, so many people!

Friday, June 27, 2025

Did I get this wrong?

The news seems so huge, I feel I must be understanding it wrong. Birthright citizenship ended in the United States today (or at least that's what it sounds like). So kids born here many not automatically be citizens of the state? And relatedly, each state can decide what it wants for itself, so we're more like a federation than a republic? We have no national laws?

Also SB1 (Senate Bill 1) prohibiting DEI in education was enacted into law in Ohio. So the Women's Center, where I worked before this (Wright State U in Dayton, Ohio), just closed and all the people I used to work with are out a job.

Pic: With Big A, Max, and Huck. In the grass, looking up.
 

never a dull moment

I had looked forward to today--on the family calendar as a college orientation day for Nu. But when we got to orientation, kids and families...