From the Edge of Darkness: 15 Totally Wasted

Totally Wasted

It’s almost amusing to listen to our here-to-fore Commie-hatin’, flag-wavin’, jump-down-your-throat at the slightest sign of possible democratic weakness red-necked Republicans tripping all over themselves as they get behind Trump-the-Chump as he cuddles up to Putin. It’s pretty clear by now that not a one of them has the balls or the political decency – not to mention the human decency – to do the right thing when it comes to our standing – and the things we used to stand for - as a nation vs. Trump’s and his clinger-on’s personal wealth and hidden agendas. 

Living in Backwards-World can be confusing. Whatever the Trump and his Trump-Ninnys label “fake” is actually factual; whatever His Gitness states is a thing “everyone says,” or “everyone knows” is opposite; and no matter what standard of good taste, common decency, political reason, or common cause Lord Tosser stumbles over and totally balls up each day, his toadies are sure to cry wise and welcome, and the rest of us – that includes those Americans who still have functioning brain cells, and most of the rest of the world – are left with our mouths hanging open in disbelief so utterly profound we don’t know what to say or what to do.

We need a new dictionary. Hell, we need a new encyclopedia, a new compass, a new map – something extreme, including an old guy with a lamp, searching for an honest man, to guide us through this seemingly endless dark tunnel of lunacy. 

“Hell is empty, And all the devils are here.” That’s Shakespeare.  “And now it is now, and the dark thing is here.” That’s TS Eliot, Margaret Atwood, or Louise Penny, depending on how you look it up. Doesn’t matter who said it first, they mean the same thing, and they pretty accurately describe our current world. We put babies in cages, we turn people who are being murdered by their own countries away without hesitation or a second thought about how much we ourselves might be responsible for their plight – or what we owe our fellow human beings in the way of succor, compassion, care – you know, all that wimpy liberal stuff; we’ve filled our world with gun-toting maggots who no one in power – another phrase we need to redefine – dares counter; we’ve put a total wanker in the president’s chair and allowed him to surroun himself with dodgy and barmy nutters who have no control over him, and the legislative houses which could, and should, be putting the leash and shackles on have proven themselves unwilling to do the task – which makes them as culpable as our Presidential Prat, and may they all rot in a hell of their own making. The few who are willing to stand up and speak do it, then quit, and we’re left with a government that’s as mad as a bag of ferrets and equally as out of control.

And a bunch of civilians who are loud, obnoxiously loud, and totally gormless, who egg Our Biggest Mistake Ever on, ever more enthusiastic the more mind-wrackingly terrible the latest thing the Orange One says or does. It’s hard to comprehend, especially since he and his rich, evil, shameless buddies are breaking the backs of the very people who support him most avidly. I just don’t get it; it’s truly like they’re drugged. I’ve seen them reject absolutely the thing that the Chump and his minions are causing to be done, and then turn on a pinhead and deny that that thing is happening. It’s weird, and it’s far, far beyond difference of opinion, it requires a feat of self-hypnosis or continual infusions of the Koolaid. These people really do inhabit Backwards-World, and those of us who don’t need be wary and watchful if we put our toes inside the gate trying to gain understanding or find common cause – the laws of gravity don’t really exist there.

It’s easy to say, “Oh, it’s not as bad as it seems. It’ll all come right in the end. The Fopdoodle won’t really be able to destroy our world as we know it – the sensible people, all around the world, will understand that he’s just a giant national fart that we have to hold our noses during and wait ‘til he’s expelled, then all will be sane and normal again.”  Yah. Right. It’s hard to see how very awful it is, standing inside it – we tend to be an optimistic people, after all – but think: how long – and through what kinds of dangerous nonsense – are our friends and neighbors and allies going to put up with this merde? How long would we, as a nation, were the situation reversed? We may be optimistic, but we’re also a tetchy people. You can bet that if this insanity was being displayed elsewhere in the world, we’d likely already have sent out secret missions to Bust His Ass. 

The Husband and I haven’t been to Canada since just before the 2016 election; it was embarrassing enough trying to explain what was happening before the unbelievable actually happened. I long to escape our national madness for a day or two, but dread having to look our sane neighbors in the eye. I’m embarrassed to be a US citizen. We’ve had times of looking foolish in the past, but now we look – insane, dangerous, unpredictable. Rabid, in fact.

How I wish I was the type of fighter who felt invigorated by a crisis that needs constant, unending, vigorous response. But I’m not – and mostly I feel scared, infuriated, and very, very tired. 

Could everyone in Washington just shut up and give us a Summer Break?

For the blog, 23 July 2018: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com

Photo: Charley Freiberg: Trashcan

How Many Bricks Can I Move?

July birdbath and paths; Deb Marshall photo

Here’s the tally, mid-July: I’ve moved 232 cement pavers, 176 bricks, 22 bags of pebbles, and 52 bags of cedar mulch, and a couple of times I’ve picked up a significant number of those pavers I turned into walkways through the garden and then put them back again in a slightly different way, and I have to do that again before I’m done – half the weed-blocking fabric I used doesn’t actually block weeds, so I need to lift the long walks – why is it always the longest bits that need re-doing? – and line them with the good stuff, which I went on a search for and found in Lebanon when the local place ran out, then replace the pavers. It’s exhausting thinking about it.

But – wow, it looks good! I wasn’t sure I was going to like it, either for walking on or for looks. But it looks good, and will look even better next year when the pavers take on a little character (moss, lichen, dirt). And to my surprise, I don’t mind walking on it, sometimes even barefoot, and it keeps my feet a lot cleaner than the old straw paths did, and even than the cedar mulch does. And it has the advantage of retaining and releasing heat – the beds I’ve surrounded with paved paths have huge, happy tomato plants and runner bean vines. 

One of the wooden paths; Deb Marshall photo

I’ve done about half the garden, so there are still two paths lined with wood, which I also like, and two which I covered with cedar mulch on top of (unfortunately) the useless weed-not-blocking fabric, which I’ll need to redo before summer’s end, and the long path through the former wasteland, which is now cedar mulch on top of the good stuff. 

The long cedar path through the wasteland; Deb Marshall photo

Some of my naybahs are probably wondering what I’ve been doing parking behind the giant sand hill the town left when they moved the town shed to a new location, and along the road I live on and the road behind, which leads to Naybah Eddie’s place. I’m going to confess: I’m picking rocks. When I walk the old Barkie Boy, I keep my eyes open for rocks on the side of the road that have been kicked up by the winter snowplows, that are: 1. Small enough for me to lift into the back seat of the car; 2. Big enough to serve as a planting bed edger, so I don’t have to buy a zillion more bricks; and 3. Free, and probably in the road crew’s way, anyway. I’ve scored some good ones, but lost a few when the road crew beat me to it and tossed them out of the way of their verge-cutting machinery, smack into a bed of poison ivy. Which, by the way, is exceptionally vigorous this year, in case you haven’t noticed. 

A critter has moved into the working compost pile; it spent several days digging itself a lovely entrance and kicking almost-finished compost out of its new digs. I don’t know what it is – haven’t seen or heard it, and unlike last time we had a funky thing in the compost, I haven’t caught a scent that might identify it, yet. Catmandoo has strong feelings about whatever it is – he carefully sniffed all over the area soon after the critter moved in, then backed up to the compost bin and peed all over it. So there, critter! 

This year's critter hole; Deb Marshall photo

I just hope it’s a rodent-eating critter; even more than mousies, this year, there’s a chipmunk explosion. Cute as they are, the field is literally mushy with their tunnels, and there’s a tunnel opening in nearly every garden bed. So far they’ve eaten my pumpkin plant and chopped down two tomatoes, and one of the pesty buggers sits on the remains of last year’s woodpile, just outside my bedroom window, and scolds and scolds for an hour every morning, beginning at 6 am, which as far as I’m concerned is a hellish hour of the day to be woken up, even less to be scolded by a pipsqueak.

Today is day two of long rains, so badly needed this year. The ponds on either side of my little island are very low, and the garden dirt is very dry, and in spite of how hellishly humid it is, making the old Barkie Boy and me feel sluggish and godawful, I won’t complain if it continues all week. After our last single day of rain, the peas suddenly plumped out and everything grew mightily; a week of rain would be near heaven.

I haven’t seen Old Lady Snapper this year, nor any other turtle, either, and I’m not sure what that means. Much of the garden perennials are ahead of themselves – volunteer sunflowers blooming and going to seed a month early, carrots trying to flower before forming much of a root, bee balm in full flower for a couple of weeks now, fall raspberries  ripening along with the earlier ones, and blueberries ripening weeks before their time. This past weekend I spent a good part of a day cleaning the mousie poop out of my car – a mousie car invasion at this time of year is unusual, too. Well – the whole world seems turned upside-down, so I suppose my micro-world shouldn’t be very different.

There’s a doe with two fawns, still in their fading, baby dotsy coats, that I’ve seen around the edges of our field several times this summer, and her larger hoof-prints, and their smaller ones, criss-cross the sandy town shed lot, and their scat catches the Barkie Boy’s attention up and down our long driveway. Yesterday the two children spent some time playing just beyond our garden in the field, venturing as close as the apple tree, but so far not trying the garden itself. I’m hoping the fence plus the paved walks plus the massed tomato cages and wooden paths will discourage them. I’ve never had deer problems in the garden, probably because the scent of dogs has always been quite prevalent, but the old Barkie Boy does less verge patrolling and peeing this summer, and he spends less time outdoors, so all bets are off.

Clove pinks and bee balm; Deb Marshall photo

 

There’s also a nestfull of baby birds in the birdhouse on the garden arch. I still can’t see into that birdhouse, but I’ve seen the parents bringing goodies to the babies, and as I watched one of the babies hopped up and stuck its head out of the hole to cry mama in. If I stand under the arch behind the birdhouse I can hear the frantic, hungry peeping. I haven’t caught a close-up look at the parents, so I know only that they’re a small browny bird, but larger than the little ones that scolded me so who nested in the other birdhouse; and they’re much calmer about me being near their house. I was watching them from the blueberry patch the other day and then turned my head to look at a spot some rustling was coming from, only to find myself face to face with a triplet of cedar waxwings, which were incredibly beautiful, bronzy, mask-eyed beings. We stared at each other awhile, me trying to think what they could be (I had to look them up); then we both moved. Soon after I was pleased to hear birdybirdybirdy  calls from the near woods, so I know there are also cardinals nesting nearby. How great is it that the cardinal call is birdy?

Now it’s raining again. It’s time to bring the soaked Furry People in from their under the tent chairs on the wart, and take my summer cold and a cup of coffee to the couch for a nap. While it’s raining this hard, there’s no question about whether I’m going to be in the garden humping more pavers and bricks around – a welcome break in the air conditioning, out of the heat and humidity.

Bunny peas; Deb Marshall photo

Now, if only the hot-air blowhard in DC would only shut down long enough for us all to get a well-deserved break, we might face the world with refreshed minds and calmer emotions. And I wouldn’t feel it’s necessary to end a story about my garden with a political comment. 

If only.


For the blog alone.

On Civic Discourse: From the Edge of Darkness: 14

Creative

Incivility

Anger. Angry angry angry. 

I’ve been thinking about how angry I am; and how we angry people respond to what’s making us angry. I’ve been thinking about whether what’s being called “uncivil” words and actions are damaging to our national experience, our national identity. I’ve been thinking about whether it’s not nice; or not fair; or not socially correct, to be rude to the crude, racist bully who’s our current president, or to the elected officials who don’t stand up to him or who even actively pander to him, or support him or egg him on, or become his apologists; or to the people who are working for the administration, especially the ones who are often in the public eye.

I’ve been thinking. And I think it’s hard to say for sure. One thing I do know for sure is that we need to be clear – both those of us who are using adjectives in our descriptions of the president  and his policies, or talking to or about the people who pander, or who have chosen – and let’s be clear about that, certain people in this, or any, administration have made an active decision to willingly be a paid or unpaid mouthpiece for the president, and that choice to be in public, repeating what’s been said or done in a supportive and promotional way, removes them from the realm of people to whom we maybe owe the benefit of the doubt – we who use those adjectives, and those who hear them, need to be clear that there are adjectives that are simple descriptions of fact, and there are adjectives that really only express our frustration and anger.

So, to that end: to call the President a bully, a racist, crude, mocking, an egotist, a sexual predator, thoughtless, undisciplined, ill-educated on national and international matters, a liar, and so on, isn’t to insult the President – it’s to describe what has been publically demonstrated by the man, on film and in public, often enough to be provable fact. In a democracy, we need to clearly state the facts, especially the less pleasant facts that can affect our standing as a nation and our way of embodying and expressing our national tenets; and we need to do it often, and we need to do the same about public figures, be they elected or paid, who promote those qualities and actions, repeat them, defend them, or don’t publically reject the qualities and actions that can damage our nation and the peoples who compose it. We need to shout out the truth and we need to do it publically and individually or en masse – it’s one of our most important national responsibilities, and we need to take it seriously if we want to ensure that our country doesn’t devolve into something corrupted and base.

Folks who like the President’s policies, or enjoy or share his less democratic public servant and crude personal characteristics may not like hearing the factual descriptions of his words and actions, but they shouldn’t be heeded when they call this uncivil and damaging. The damage would happen if we don’t speak the truth about what’s being said and done. Our silence,  and the cleansing, unfactual words used by the faction that supports the administration to make the reality of what’s being done or said sound reasonable or appealing, can quickly cause us to become numb to how our national conscience, morals, and the execution and definition of our democracy are changing, are being changed daily. In the process of being clear, rather than making spin, some feelings are going to be hurt. I would suggest that those people who are offended by clear descriptions need to examine carefully what it is that actually bothers them. You can love Trump’s crudeness and support his policies, and still admit that he is crude, a bully, a racist, etc. and is actively working to change our national character. If you can’t, maybe you don’t like being associated with what the truthful words indicate.  

Public figures who don’t like being subjected to clear descriptions of what they’ve been saying or promoting, or hearing what citizens think about it, should rethink their jobs. Many true patriots who tried sticking with this administration hoping to sway it towards civility, classiness, kindness, calmness, thoughtfulness and truthfulness have since given up their jobs, recognizing that they were in danger of becoming sullied and unable to effect change from within. Jobs at that level of the national order are always a choice – no one takes the job of presidential advisor or mouthpiece because they need the job and the money – there’s always a choice, and there’s always an affinity for what they’re representing, what’s being said, and done, and how. I have no sympathy for the hurt feelings of public figures who are subjected to the opinions of the people of the nation, even if they’re just out taking a walk or out for a meal when those opinions are expressed. Hearing the opinions and suffering the legal consequences of those opinions is part of the job, and those jobs are 24-7 while they last. Ask any local town selectperson, if you need proof.

We need also be clear about what we say in anger. I know that expressing anger in the most fluid terms can relieve tension, letting anger release rather than blocking up and then exploding in some less appropriate way. But words – adjectives and verbs, especially – can be blunt and hammer-like, and they can be untruthful. It’s hard to think of an example of an unfactual adjective with negative connotations about our current President…but there surely are some, and we shouldn’t use them, even to express our anger. So let’s be more creative. The Brits have so many good words to describe people they’re mad at or disgusted with; and to our ears, they’re slightly amusing. Let’s let off steam and cause a smile at the same time, if we can.  Imagine: prat; git; twonk; maggot; mad as a bag of ferrets; tosser; dodgy; barmy; gormless; naft; daft; nutter; abydocomist; fopdoodle; plonker.  Abydocomist is, actually, a factual description of our current President.

How much I would have loved hearing that the young intern who recently made the news for shouting at Trump had instead shouted, “Mr. President, you’re a gormless maggot!”

Stand tall and speak truth to power, like a true patriot. But when you just need to let off steam, go for it. Make an art of it. Civil discourse be damned.

For the blog, 11 July 2018

Hot As Hell Week

First sunflower of the year: a volunteer. None of the seeds I planted germinated! Deb Marshall photo

The birds are flown, and I missed it. Nuts! I really wanted to watch the fledging. There was one day when the little angry birds were angrier than usual and chased me further around the garden, so that might have been the start of the fledging days, except I saw the parents still bringing food to the birdhouse, so I decided maybe not. But it’s definitely empty now, and I should probably be cleaning it out so another bird can use it this summer. However, I’ve decided to take the opportunity to do some garden work below and in front of the birdhouse, so I’m putting off the clean-out until I get the work finished.

Today was some stupid temperature and humid, besides; the old Barkie Boy isn’t doing well in the heat, so we’ve got the air conditioning running full-time and a box fan, besides, and he lies with his snoot aimed at the fan and then seems reasonably comfortable, enough to manage an evening stroll farther than I want to walk in this weather. 

The birdbath surrounded by CA poppy volunteers and a wildflower - wild chamomile, I think. Deb Marshall photo

In spite of the stupid temperatures, the warnings about staying out of the heat that played all morning on the radio, and me being sort of the humidity canary, I went out into the garden Saturday and continued humping cement pavers and bricks around, continuing the path I started that’s going in front of the back fence bed. I’ve moved more than 200 pavers so far this summer, and just ordered another 100; the Husband is beginning to wonder whether I’m totally out of my mind.  I won’t be able to be quite as stupid in the heat again until the next pallet gets delivered, because now I’m down to 3 bags of cedar mulch to move and spread and that’s it.

Beebalm just opening. Deb Marshall photo

 

I’ve thinned beets twice now, and finished thinning carrots Saturday, and also got some weeding done. Almost all the plants are finally germinated, and some are standing up nicely and looking like they might actually produce something worthwhile. The rain we just had wasn’t enough – the ground is still startlingly dry below the surface – but it encouraged most of the plants to have courage and put out a growth spurt. Watering takes forever in my raised-bed garden, but I manage to soak myself in the process, which makes it a little more bearable in this heat.

CA Poppies! Deb Marshall photo

Some of the tomatoes are in blossom, as well as the peas, fava beans and peppers; some of the beans are starting to make flower buds. I’ve had to chop down the marjoram before it could bloom and spread itself even further, and the catnip too – an operation Catman watched carefully to make sure I didn’t overdo it. I didn’t tell Catman this, but most of the trimmings were brought to Lou, the big white cat who reigns over his human subjects at the local vet’s office. Catman and Lou have an interesting – uh, relationship – and I don’t think the Big Furry would have been pleased to know that his catnip was going to entertain the other Big Boy. (Lou blogs and you can access his blogs from the Pleasant Lake Veterinary Clinic home page.)

Egyptian Onions doing their twisty thing. Deb Marshall photo

Sunday I intended to stay inside, do paperwork, and read the Sunday papers through in a leisurely way, first time in months. Then, on Monday, I started to be an idiot again and went back outside to tackle as much of the advancing cedar path in the wasteland part of my garden as 3 bags would take me, and at the same time pound edgers down along the fence and try to prepare a garden bed in that area. I gave up after an hour; it’s just too hot. If I’m lucky, the giant truck with the crane and my pallet stacked high with pavers, bricks, bags of pebbles and more bags of cedar will arrive on Thursday and it’ll be cooler this weekend.  If one or the other doesn’t happen, all bets are off.

Foxgloves, Lamb's Ears. Deb Marshall photo

I did make a valiant attempt on Sunday to sit out in the screen tent on the wart; I managed for a couple of hours before the heat and humidity gave me a headache, upset my tummy, and did nasty things to the elimination track. So much for relaxing on the weekend.

Calendula: also volunteers, this year. Deb Marshall photo

Whenever I shut my eyes, all I see is weeds or cement pavers. I’m looking forward to the day that no longer happens and I’m seeing, oh, maybe the lake, or something else soothing and cool – ice cream, anyone?

For the blog alone, 3 July 2018.

Bird's footprints on snow - just a few months ago; Deb Marshall photo