In these angry, bewildering, terrifying post-Roe days, a bit of related wisdom came to me: I now understand why I didn't find my elder siblings earlier in our lives, when I was much angrier. There is no telling what I might have told my sister, when I found her, and wouldn't it have been terrible …
Category: Social Issues
Pandemic Diaries: Waste Not, Want Not or, the Return of Cloth Napkins
He lifted it high over his head, as he would the Stanley Cup if he were one of his beloved Boston Bruins celebrating victory, it being a 6-pack of cheap paper towels. Clapping my hands in excitement, visions of all the many spills wiped and cleanings achieved with such treasure danced in my head. But …
Continue reading Pandemic Diaries: Waste Not, Want Not or, the Return of Cloth Napkins
Pandemic Diaries: I Need a Schedule
Last week we were meant to be on holiday, so our Social Distancing was more of a long, lazy West Wing binge, with intermittent movies thrown in. Staying in and watching movies, walks, working jigsaw puzzles, and reading is pretty much our jam but it is remarkable how readily we slide into abject sloth. Or …
Pandemic Diaries: Social Distancing Week One
We were supposed to be in Napa, then San Francisco. We would have been in the airport right now and then boarding a steel tube likely filled with COVID-19, having passed through two of the busiest airports in the country, also probably simmering in virus. Fortunately we paid attention to the first stories and followed …
Continue reading Pandemic Diaries: Social Distancing Week One
Juneteenth
One Sunday morning it was June 19th, or Juneteenth, and Mother Freda Marie, a brilliant African-American woman and the assisting priest at my parish, asked us if we knew why the day was special, other than it being Sunday? Mine was the lone hand raised. This particular bit of history was specific to Texas, and …
Pieces of Racism, Falling Into Place
So many years ago I don't like to admit, I was a Bank Teller. It was so long ago that I did not have a computer at my station, nor a bill counter; I counted the money by hand, and kept track of cash via two carbon pads called Debits and Credits. This was just …
A Wokish White Woman’s take on Green Book
Somewhere I heard that the stage is where an actor shines, while in film it's the director who tells the story. It's been a useful piece of information when I find favorite actors in crap projects - Michael Caine, I'm lookin' at you - but Green Book is not a crap project. It simply left …
#MeToo, Part II
Perhaps it's my age showing: at the outset of #MeToo I surely did have one large, life-defining #MeToo moment to share, but the other day another episode popped into my head completely unbidden, just Pop! there, in the middle of an only semi-related conversation. I wonder of my middle-aged sisters, those of us raised amid …
Graceful Resistance
"It's really important to have your crew," is one of many smart things S***** said last Tuesday, and she's right. It's why I was there, and she's becoming my crew, whether she likes it or not. I kid, I kid. Mostly. I didn't really set out to create a resistance movement - there is already …
So, I Never Thought I was Racist, but…
I never considered myself racist. Like, how could I be, raised in the wonderful melting pot of coastal, Southern California by liberal Democrats? When our family picture was a visual representation of the song, One of These is Not Like the Others? Surrounded by Hispanic, Vietnamese, Persian, and many other cultures, African-American people were not …
Southern Fried Californian 