Category Archives: Personal

Remembering Rachi

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On this Memorial Day, I am thinking of my mother-in-law, Rachi, who died 6 years ago today, just shy of her 90th birthday.

I couldn’t have been luckier when it comes to mothers-in-law. She did a lot more than give birth to the baby boy I would later marry.

I met Rachi (and her equally wonderful husband Hugh) on a hike at Tennessee Valley, a couple of months after Jonathan and I started dating. Within fifteen minutes, she pulled him aside and declared, “She’s perfect.”

Rachi won my heart, too: during the usual get-to-know-you chit chat, she asked about my siblings and what they did. I mumbled that one of my brothers was kind of embarrassing, not wanting to admit that he was a Rajneeshee.

Rachi ventured a guess: “What? Is he a corporate attorney?” Nothing could be more horrifying to this Old Leftie. Rachi loved the unconventional, so my brother passed the test with flying colors.

So did I. Over lunch at the Pelican Inn, I basked in my future in-laws’ ready embrace, a warm, supportive love that was easily reciprocated and never diminished.

Hugh and Rachi met at Antioch College; their first encounter was an argument over his support for the socialist Norman Thomas for President (despite her own socialist leanings, she was always a pragmatic voter, viewing such idealistically cast ballots as a wasted vote). This sparked a life-long love cemented by politics, a dedication to civil rights, the peace movement, and all manner of intellectual debate. Hugh and Rachi began a tradition of political betting–whoever won got to donate a small sum to their chosen cause. Hugh died a month after Trump was elected president. When we were cleaning out his stuff, we found an index card Rachi had written in early 2016 betting that the Republican nominee would win.

When Jonathan and his sister were kids, Rachi spent a month in jail with fellow anti-Vietnam War protestors who had staged a sit-in to prevent young men from being drafted. The sentencing judge wanted to make an example of them. She spoke highly of the prison food (I suspect she relished the break from cooking) and of the women who were in custody on prostitution charges. In their later assisted-living years, Hugh and Rachi stood with Seniors for Peace every Friday afternoon at a busy intersection protesting the latest madness. Rachi rode an adult tricycle everywhere that sported an “I’m Already Against the Next War” bumper sticker.

Rachi always made people feel like they were the best, most interesting person she’d ever met. An accomplished writer and editor herself, she enthused over every thank you note, Christmas letter, and essay I wrote. Rachi loved her grandchildren, though she was never the sappy, sentimental type. When our oldest daughter, Emma, was a toddler, and insisted on pushing her own stroller, stopping every 10 seconds on Marina Green, Rachi fumed, “This isn’t a walk, this is torture!” She found it hilarious when Emma, politely said of the doll Rachi gave her when our youngest, Ally, was born, “I don’t like dolls berry much.” Not so much new sisters, either.

Years later, Rachi gave thousands of dollars to a scammer who convinced her that Emma was in trouble and needed the money to get bailed out of a drug charge. Although Rachi was embarrassed to have fallen for it, she said she’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant helping her granddaughter. This same granddaughter spoke at Rachi’s memorial service about how much her grandmother’s love of the unconventional had meant to her as a quirky artist whose straight-arrow parents never quite got her.

Rachi devoted herself to good causes her entire life. She tutored disadvantaged kids in East Palo Alto. True to her principles, she refused to buy wrapping paper from our kids’ schools’ endless fundraisers, saying, “Kids shouldn’t have to beg, we should raise taxes.” Once when her pearls were stolen after a robbery, she expressed gratitude that the burglar hadn’t made a mess, and thought he probably needed the money anyway. (Rachi cared not a whit about fashion and appearances, and was the least materialistic person I’ve ever known.) A fervent defender of Palestinian rights far ahead of her time, Rachi endured years of abuse from people who called her a self-hating Jew and much worse (almost all these people now share her views).

Despite her clear-sightedness and despair about the world’s injustices, Rachi was generous, funny, and joyful, with a wide circle of friends and family. She was an inveterate writer of Letters to the Editor–the New York Times alone published more than 150.

After Hugh died just shy of his 97th birthday, Rachi was heartbroken, and went downhill fast. Their’s was a life-long true partnership of love and respect. We still have their commingled ashes, and spread them bit by bit on beautiful hikes for commemoration.

That’s what comes to mind on this Memorial Day. Rest in peace, Rachi. You’re the best.

Pinnacles

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Of all the places we love to go, The Pinnacles is one of our favorite non-local destinations. We first went 35 years ago, and just returned from our latest visit last weekend. Here’s a golden-oldie about that first trip (with new pictures, which is why that gent’s hair is gray)—magical then, magical now.

It’s a steep haul up the High Peaks Trail, especially when you’re seven months pregnant with your first child. But back then, giddy with promise, my husband Jonathan and I floated past the massive boulders of Pinnacles National Park. Cresting the summit, baby bulk and all, I relished the double take of the buff, shirtless teenagers loitering atop the rocks. They paused mid-swagger to glance in horror at my swollen belly as I conquered the mountain in my smocked maternity top.

Our family has returned to the Pinnacles again and again, drawn by the massive cliffs, soaring spires, and lush spring wildflowers. Leaving behind the fragmented kaleidoscope of daily life, we are calmed by the reliable sameness of the timeless, indifferent peaks.

Yet even in this constant landscape, change is under way. The fantastic rock formations are the remains of an ancient volcano ravaged by erosion, creeping steadily up the Salinas Valley along the San Andreas Fault. I am grateful that only subtle clues dispel the illusion of permanence. A precariously balanced boulder has fallen from its perch. Spatters of chartreuse and rust lichen toil as alchemists, turning rock to soil. Their magic allows monkey flowers the color of apricots to bloom from dirt pockets hidden in solid stone.

Time has worked its alchemist’s magic on us as well. Two years after our initial trip, we camp at the Pinnacles, weighed down by the accoutrements of toddlerhood — diapers, goldfish crackers, juice boxes, a travel crib. Emma, whose in utero view had been obscured, now enjoys the scenery from the baby backpack that digs into our shoulders as we trudge along the dusty trail.

When we return again, the campground has been paved over for more parking. This time, we have two young daughters in tow, barely out of diapers. But Emma and Ally are definitely into sit-down strikes at the prospect of hiking more than a few hundred yards. Not wishing to fight an uphill battle, we content ourselves with the flat path at the base of the mountains so the girls can splash in the creek. Jonathan, impatient with the meandering pace of childhood, sprints to the summit while the girls and I delight in wild bouquets and rocky forts along the valley floor.

The next time the Pinnacles beckon, Emma and Ally gamely traverse the High Peaks Trail. They are enchanted by poppies sprouting out of boulders, the rock that looks like a camel. The girls nibble on miner’s lettuce and strategic bribes of chocolate, scampering around the summit while their tired parents lag behind. Rocks and children tame each other: whininess turns to exultation, forbidding stone becomes an infinite playground.

Although the incline invites vertigo, the girls clamber up and down, up and down the footholds chiseled into the rock, swinging from the metal banister as if nature and the Park Service had fashioned monkey bars just for them. Jonathan and I must squeeze through the narrow cliff passage in an awkward crouch. But it is just the right size for Emma and Ally, who march through boldly upright, giggling as their crooked parents bump their heads against the rocky overhang.

We are not the only ones who find the Pinnacles a good place for families. Condors, recently reintroduced to the park, build nests in the sheltered crevices. While they teach their young how to catch thermals, we show ours how to catch the shine of buttercups on their chins in the warm sunlight.

Now our daughters have taken flight too, soaring and wavering in their own grown-up landscapes. Alone again, Jonathan and I make our pilgrimage to drink in the riotous wildflowers and steadfast rocks whenever time allows. As always, we stop in Soledad at Pacheco’s Mexican Grocery for tortas — soft white rolls dripping with spicy carnitas.

Soledad, gateway to the Pinnacles, has sprung up even faster than Emma and Ally. Twenty-seven years ago, it consisted of Pacheco’s, a prison, a few dusty streets of dilapidated houses, and a fleabag hotel with a cracked, empty swimming pool. Now the highway billboard reads: “It’s happening in Soledad.”  Vineyards dot the hillsides, and a tony resort lies adjacent to the Pinnacles. Kids from tidy homes with manicured yards swarm the soccer field at the spanking new school. A vast shopping center dwarfs the original Main Street, but we still head to our old Mexican grocery. Pacheco’s, whose tortas remain a juicy, scrumptious bargain, is as timeless as the Pinnacles.

Fueled by the succulent tortas and memories, Jonathan and I start up the High Peaks Trail once more. Although stiffer and a little creaky, we ascend quickly past the boulders and apricot blooms of monkey flower.

Again and again, we come back to ourselves in the shelter of the enduring cliffs.

Mudshine

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April showers bring May flowers. Atmospheric rivers bring mud. Lots of mud. Still, those of us from California who have spent the last few years amid fire and drought have been eagerly scanning our weather apps for a break in the record-breaking rains. Time to try out our newly webbed feet on those blessedly water-logged trails!

At the first indication of a clear weekend my husband Jonathan and I headed out to Point Reyes National Seashore and Marsh Cottage in Inverness. We first visited Marsh Cottage 35 years ago, our last trip before we had kids–I was hugely pregnant with our first daughter, born less than a month later on Mother’s Day. Nowadays I believe that kind of outing is called a babymoon, but to us it was just plain glorious–a sweet, rustic very private cottage overlooking the southern marshes of Tomales Bay, and close to Point Reyes hikes filled with wild iris and purple lupine.

We’d been back to Marsh Cottage a few times since, but the pandemic and a housing crisis banning short-term rentals had made it available only as a long-term rental. Friends of ours from Santa Cruz, whom we’d introduced to Marsh Cottage years before, decided they needed a pied-a-terre farther north on the coast for six months, and said we were welcome to use it when they weren’t there.

It’s still glorious–timeless (though updated with wifi) and charming. Three sunny days of hiking awaited us. Also glorious, if a bit muddy, the wildflowers only just emerging after months of rain and chill.

The ranger had warned us that there was a bit of standing water near the crest of Laguna Trail. By which he meant a body of water somewhat smaller than the Pacific Ocean visible beyond the crest. We met hardy backpackers heading home from Coast Camp, describing their night there in a bog as a bit windy and cold. One truth-teller allowed as how it was awful. But knowing we had a cottage to return to, we were undaunted, and trampled through brush to avoid the standing water. We saw a father and daughter merrily wading through in bare feet, boots dangling from their hands. That struck me as a bit rash, until my own poison oak rash started itching like crazy three days later.

The Coast Trail was much drier, and so green, except for the fire-ravaged tree trunks on the distant ridge line. We had been on this same trail on an August morning in 2020. Later that day, the whole central area of Point Reyes National Seashore was a conflagration. But nature is resilient, even more so than barefoot dads and daughters traipsing barefoot through mud.

Since gale-force winds were predicted for the next day, we altered our route from the most exposed point on the coast and steered clear of mud by walking up through residential streets to Inverness Ridge, then on to Mt. Vision, site of a 1995 fire from an illegal campfire not quite doused by the local teenagers who’d spent the night there. In an early act of restorative justice, the community embraced the remorseful teens even though the fire devastated thousands of acres and destroyed 45 homes. Although I’m sure the Mount Vision fire left scars, there’s little sign of it today–just a lot of beautiful ceanothus on the slopes heading down to the estuary.

Then down, down, back to town on the Perth Fire Road, where the huckleberry was in full bloom amid the stars–man-made and those perfected by nature. A weekend of mud-shiny bliss!

#OscarsSo”Meh”

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Another night at the Oscars has come and gone, this time without possible criminal liability. Or memorable moments. Or even good movies. In fact, the decision to replace the red carpet with a beige one is an apt metaphor for the whole ho-hum event. As The Cut noted:

Meanwhile, many of the actual people on the carpet were rendered nearly invisible by its shade. The night’s guests, who didn’t find out about the color change until the carpet was unfurled last week, showed up in outfits that matched the floor, turning the carpet into a big, bizarre sea of camouflage.

Camouflage may have been the point this year. Academy bigwigs didn’t want to mention, let alone repeat, 2022’s Slap Heard Round the World. Host Jimmy Kimmel did not cooperate with this wish, quipping in response to the beige carpet that it showed “how confident we are that no blood will be shed.” In fact, Kimmel’s repeated references to The Slap throughout the awards ceremony provided about the only edgy (and funny) material all evening.

But star-on-star assaults are nothing compared to the wish to camouflage the overriding threat facing Hollywood: its imminent demise.  The Oscars are always self-aggrandizing, but this year the hyped-up glitz felt desperate.  So desperate that the Academy saw fit to run a commercial for this summer’s release of “The Little Mermaid” as part of the ceremony. Anything to get people back into theaters, I guess. But “Top Gun: Maverick” for Best Picture? Seriously? And I say this as someone who very much enjoyed the movie.

Which is more than I can say about a lot of the others. Usually I try to see all the top nominees, but after seeing plenty of them—in theaters and streaming—I didn’t see the point.

And yes, this means you, Everything Everywhere All at Once. I second the Guardian review, which referred to it as Nothing Nowhere Over a Long Period of Time. However, I concede that the exuberant cast and crew who kept traipsing up to collect their statues seemed like really nice and fun people. I also admire Michelle Yeoh for using her moment in the spotlight to run a piece in the New York Times the very next day to shine a light on the deplorable suffering of women and girls in humanitarian disasters.

It’s a far cry from suffering through another season of a so-so awards ceremony and films. Still, with Hollywood run aground on the pandemic and streaming shoals, and trying to break free through CGI, special effects, and lots of noise, I see little on offer to lure me back into theaters. Which is a shame, since I used to love going to the movies.

At least it’s a great achievement that this year possibly retired #OscarsSoWhite and #OscarsSoViolent. Now let’s hope for the retirement of #OscarsSo”Meh.”

Spring into Winter

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The weather’s been wild across the country, including here in California. Rain, floods, mudslides, and now snow have caused a lot of damage. But also much joy, since we’ve been living for years with constant worry about drought and fires.

February is our spring here in the Bay Area. After a rainy January, the sun came out and delivered our usual Valentine of flowering plum trees. I’m a Valentine’s baby, and during a birthday walk, I discovered a downed branch laden with blossoms, which another woman and I split to bring the ephemeral beauty into our homes. Such an unexpected gift along with the usual one:

Already the blossoms have mostly given way to unfurling red and green leaves (the poison oak is unfurling at a pretty good clip too). But the daffodils are resplendent:

We had a dry spell for a couple of weeks, but thankfully, the rain started up again. Temperatures plummeted, and it began to snow, bringing blizzard warnings to LA and anxious ski resorts a break, at least until the snow closed major interstates. People have been skiing and sledding in Napa County, heart of the nearby wine country that’s been ravaged by fire and drought the last several years. From our living room window, we are agape at Mt. Tam, dusted with snow (some of it still there days later):

We have been growing webs between our toes, but the rain kindly stopped this afternoon so I could take a walk.

Then it began to hail. Oh, well. I am euphoric about the stuff coming down from the heavens, and here’s some euphorbia to celebrate:

Christmas Passed

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I love decorating for Christmas, filling the house with greens, red berries, white flowers, and candles. I love hauling out our vast collection of ornaments, decorating the tree (though not stringing the lights), setting up the wooden trains we bought when the girls were little.

I also love dismantling Christmas after the New Year. This time, though, packing away the ornaments came with a dose of poignancy. I separated out all of Emma’s, fully expecting that they will no longer grace our tree, but hers and her partner’s in Christmases to come. After all, that has been the goal of our annual ornament ritual ever since our daughters were born. Just like our children, they are not ours to keep, but to send off into the world created and inhabited by our grown-up kids. (As long as said kids are capable of setting up more than a knee-high tree for their own Christmas traditions).

We’ve done without Ally’s ornaments since 2019, when she and her now-husband began hosting their own tree-trimming parties with a six-footer. Emma and her partner moved in together earlier this year, so I offered to gather her ornaments for the Big Transfer when we saw them at Thanksgiving. I confess to an inner sigh of relief when she declined, since they were going to spend the holidays away from home. But home is where the heart is, and their new home is full of heart. Even in this year of going elsewhere, Emma’s partner set up a miniature Christmas village and tiny tree. After all, he’s father to an 11-year-old and long accustomed to the habits of adulthood. I see a six-footer in their Christmas Future together.

So Emma’s ornaments are now in their own shoe box. As I went through our lists of how each of our ornaments came into the household, I was glad to see that some of the more hideous ones were from Emma’s era of gaudy poor taste (i.e., not mine)—gold-painted reindeer, a plastic peace sign, a plastic speed boat. I will miss, naturally, those selected by my superior taste, before she was too young to have a vote, especially this one, which we got for her first Christmas:

I will miss that little one in a cradle, just as I miss my little girls in their cribs and their belief in Santa and infallible parents. But I am thrilled to see them blossom into their own selves, and to pass on the bounty of Christmases past. I have the comfort of my memories, and knowing that these ornaments will forever be where they belong.

Plus, still with us is the ornament I will never relinquish—this inch-long striped stocking for the in-utero and mysterious Tadpole, more than a gleam in our eyes, but not yet known as the wonderful person to come who brought us into the magical world of parenthood:

Endings

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It’s the last day of 2022, and time is pretty much running out if I hope to meet my goal of writing at least one blog post a month. I’ve never liked New Year’s Eve, although I enjoyed the Top 40 countdowns when I was young enough to stay at home without FOMO. Come to think of it, maybe the fear of missing out never weighed that heavily on me. During my 20s, I volunteered to take a shift on the crisis line every New Year’s Eve, and felt relieved to have purpose and a place to be without false cheer and a lot of drinking. One of the big reliefs of aging is how pleasant it is to fall into bed before 10:30, maybe having a nice dinner with friends, maybe not.

This year, I decided to finish my very last episode of “This is Us” on the very last day of the year. Fans of the show probably watched the final episode of the sixth season in May this year, when the family-centered, heartstring-pulling drama came to an end. Fans of the show with husbands who don’t like “This is Us,” however, kept forgetting to watch it during the day all by their lonesomes.

I’d pretty much forgotten about “This is Us” until this May, when I was laid up with Covid. I was three seasons behind and not particularly flattened with fatigue, so spent my quarantine catching up. I can see why my husband doesn’t like the show–it’s a bit heavy-handed and sappy, with such idealized family members who are always making great speeches that it can lead to lots of eye-rolling. But I loved it–all the characters (especially Uncle Nicky, the most acerbic and least sappy character), the tough issues tackled, the sense of depth and authenticity and struggle along with the idealization. Besides, Mandy Moore, who plays the main matriarch Rebecca very convincingly through several decades, really reminds me of a charismatic, positive-without-being-cloying, absolutely lovable mom I used to know. And since Ken Olin of “thirtysomething” was a mainstay of our 30s, how could I resist a series where he directed so many of the episodes?

As I made my way through the last season, I didn’t want it to end, so I’d go for weeks without watching. The last season deals with Rebecca’s rapidly advancing Alzheimer’s and death, and the fact that her end was approaching seemed fitting for this year’s end. The journey from life into death was depicted as a lovely Orient Express style train ride (without the murder mystery), in which significant loved ones are there in real life and in memory. Plus, Rebecca on the train looks like she’s dressed for New Year’s Eve!

Lots of heartfelt messages about family bonds and the beauty of life along with the sorrows abound throughout the show, particularly the last couple of episodes. Very corny, very moving. 2022 has been it’s own wild ride–so much sorrow in the world, so much love and laughter personally, especially this past Christmas, with both daughters here along with our new son-in-law and his whole family as well.

Tonight my best friend from graduate school and her husband will arrive, since we’ve all tested negative for Covid. We’ll eat good food and hopefully be in bed before 10:30. It will be the end of a long, trying, and rich year. As “This is Us” unsubtly reminds us, life goes on. 2023, here we come.

Happy New Year!

Missing My Mother

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It’s true that my stay-at-home mother was known for her disinterest in cooking and housekeeping. It’s also true that in 1973, I, her youngest child, was a senior in high school who required little hands-on care. Still, I don’t know how my mother managed, well before streaming or even VCRs, to stay glued to the television for all 51 days–sometimes up to 6 hours per session for a total of 237 hours–of the Senate Watergate Hearings.

My mother’s on my mind because today would have been her 99th birthday, but also because last week I watched the last hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack of the U.S. Capitol. There have been 9 live hearings, most lasting 2-3 hours each. You can stream them for free at any time on many different platforms. I am no match for my mother: Even though I am recently retired with a lot of time on my hands and few obligations, I managed to catch only about four hours in real time. (I eventually watched most of them after the fact.)

Apart from streaming, times are different. Up to 80 million people—three out of four households–watched at least some of the Senate Watergate hearings. As the New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik wrote on the eve of Trump’s first impeachment trial, the Watergate hearings were appointment TV, a collective experience that no longer exists.

In contrast, twenty million watched the first of the January 6 hearings, 18 million the last. Lots of people, especially Republicans, tuned them out altogether, and the hearings are not expected to make much difference in next month’s midterm elections. Almost all congressional Republicans have consistently denigrated them.

In 1973, the vote in the Senate was 77-0 to establish the Senate Committee. For our latest constitutional scandal, following Trump’s second impeachment acquittal, an independent commission in the mold of the 9/11 investigation was recommended. The House approved such a measure 252-175, with 35 Republicans joining all Democrats. Senate Republicans blocked the commission’s formation by filibuster. This left only the House to pursue an investigation through the formation of the January 6 Select Committee. Only two Republicans—Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger–joined all Democrats in voting to proceed, and have thus been driven out of today’s GOP. As I said, times are different.

What’s not different is how much I miss my mother in times of political turmoil and great national consequence. Even though I am glad for her sake that being dead for a long time means she’s missed a lot of truly horrendous stuff that probably would have killed her, how I wish we could have watched the January 6 hearings together, or at least texted back and forth across the country!

I imagine starting January 6, 2021, by sharing our joy that both Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff had won their run-off races in Georgia, flipping the U.S. Senate blue. My mother would have loved that. But at least she was spared witnessing Trump’s “wild” rally as it descended into violence.

I, too, was spared live coverage of the unfolding insurrection. My work day of eight back-to-back sessions with psychotherapy clients began just as Mitt Romney shouted, “This is what you’ve gotten!” to his Republican colleagues as the Capitol was breached. I was professionally obligated to be glued to my Zoom screen for the day, not CNN’s live coverage. My information came in snatches from one client after another giving me shocked updates and scrolling through headlines in between sessions.

I followed the news (including Trump’s second impeachment trial for fomenting the insurrection) for days, weeks, months. But the January 6 Committee’s presentation—with lots of live video footage, some of it never before seen–brought it to horrifying life in a way I had missed.

I would have loved to compare notes with my mother. I suspect she would have shared my deep admiration for the January 6 Select Committee members–even and especially Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger (plus, of course, heartthrob Jamie Raskin). To a person they have been dignified, somber, collaborative, and without an iota of grandstanding. They’ve made a compelling, ironclad case for the American people, the Department of Justice, and for history. The Committee’s done so by presenting damning testimony almost entirely from Trump’s own allies–from the hapless January 6 rioter Stephen Ayres to Bill Barr, whose obvious relish in trashing Trump would be funny if it weren’t so maddening. To borrow from Barr’s own twisted interpretation of the Mueller report to protect Trump, the former Attorney General’s turn before the committee “does not exonerate him” from the harm he previously caused.

And hat’s off to the women, especially election workers Shaye Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman. Cassidy Hutchinson and Liz Cheney proved that decency still resides within some Republicans. In fact, feeling sustained admiration for Liz Cheney has been one of the most surprise silver linings of the last year. Who knew?

Here’s what I really would have loved to discuss with my mother: In the closing statements of the final hearing, the low-level foot soldiers of the insurrection were depicted charitably (to put it mildly). Cheney spoke of how Trump had manipulated his followers’ patriotism and love of country. Mike Pence was treated as heroic for refusing to be Trump’s devoted lapdog this one time. Many of Trump’s enablers were similarly and generously let off the hook when January 6 proved a bridge too far for them. This is probably smart strategy. Still, I can’t help but envision my mother and I gagging together over it.

Chairman Bennie Thompson said of Trump, “He is the one person at the center of the storm.” True in one sense, but is he really? Per usual, he is both cause and symptom of the dark forces that have been gathering for some time. As the traitors keep reminding us, “The storm is coming.

I miss my mother, but I’m glad she will miss the storm.

Don’t Be Fooled

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My heart sank when I first heard about Lindsey Graham’s proposal for a nationwide abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That’s because I thought he might just succeed in tricking people into thinking it was a reasonable idea. After all, before the Dobbs decision eliminated constitutional protection altogether, abortion rights had been slowly eroded for decades by just such “compromises.” Chief Justice Roberts was hoping to preserve a fig leaf of SCOTUS legitimacy by allowing just such a ban to stand in Mississippi without overturning Roe. Plus, a 15-week limit polls well.

I also had to read the fine print to understand that Graham’s proposal did not ensure abortion rights nationwide for the first 15 weeks. Quite the contrary: States would remain perfectly free to restrict abortion at any earlier point, while states with more liberal access would be forced to ban the procedure after 15 weeks. As the saying goes, “Heads we win, tails you lose.”

Still, it’s not unusual for people to react with outrage to egregious proposals before acquiescing to something more in the middle. Graham is trying to quell the intense backlash to overturning Roe by offering something that sounds more reasonable than the draconian restrictions GOP state legislatures are passing right and left.

I myself—staunchly pro-choice my entire life—almost fell for something similar when “partial-birth abortion” entered the anti-choice lexicon in the mid-90s. The descriptions of the procedure were pretty grisly: puncturing the skulls and removing the brains of partially delivered fetuses. It sounded as bad as abandoning newborn infants on Chinese mountaintops simply because they were girls. A steady diet of such horror stories made me wonder who could possibly oppose banning such a practice.

Or so I reacted for a nano-second, until I thought and learned some more. The scary coinage came from the National Right to Life Committee in 1995. The correct term for the medical procedure is “intact dilation and extraction,” a safer method than the prior standard for ending pregnancies after the first trimester. About 95% of abortions occur before 15 weeks, but it’s not exactly like care-free women are casually clamoring to end their pregnancies later on. Some may not have known they were pregnant. Others have been forced to jump through so many hoops already that a safer, simpler abortion option is no longer possible. Most likely, something has gone wrong with a wanted pregnancy, as Pete Buttigieg explained in 2020 at a Fox News Town Hall. Here’s his exchange as reported by Upworthy with moderator Chris Wallace about whether there should be any limits on abortion rights:

“I think the dialogue has gotten so caught up on where you draw the line that we’ve gotten away from the fundamental question of who gets to draw the line,” Buttigieg replied, “and I trust women to draw the line when it’s their own health.”

Wallace wanted to clarify that Buttigieg would be okay with late-term abortion and pointed out that there are more than 6000 women who get third trimester abortions each year.

“That’s right,” responded Buttiegieg, “representing one percent of cases. So let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a woman in that situation. If it’s that late in your pregnancy, than almost by definition, you’ve been expecting to carry it to term. We’re talking about women who have perhaps chosen a name. Women who have purchased a crib, families that then get the most devastating medical news of their lifetime, something about the health or the life of the mother or viability of the pregnancy that forces them to make an impossible, unthinkable choice. And the bottom line is as horrible as that choice is, that woman, that family may seek spiritual guidance, they may seek medical guidance, but that decision is not going to be made any better, medically or morally, because the government is dictating how that decision should be made.”

Reporter Annie Renau then observes:

And that’s really the gist of the pro-choice stance. Why would we want the government to be involved in our most difficult medical and moral dilemmas and decisions?

Exactly. Especially the likes of Lindsey Graham and all the other Forced Birth proponents in government. No matter what the reason or stage of pregnancy.

Luckily, Graham’s proposal has backfired. His intentions are clear, and his own party is mad at him for saying the quiet parts out loud as they busily scrub their websites of draconian anti-choice pronouncements.

Don’t be fooled. Come November 8, Roe, Roe, Roe your vote.

Cupcake!

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I’ve never understood the whole cupcake craze. Overpriced, prone to dryness, and small to boot–what’s the point? I expected them to soon disappear from bakery shelves and cafes. Nevertheless, they persist.

So in the spirit of if you can’t lick them, join them, I’m now doing both. In fact, much to my surprise, I find myself diving head first into all things cupcake.

That’s because my daughter and her fiancé have commissioned me to supply cupcakes for their wedding next July. I’m known for the deliciousness of my baking, but presentation is not my strong suit. Charmingly homespun is a generous description. Hence, research and trial runs have begun early.

My friend’s husband, in tackling some major home renovations despite his inexperience, once remarked, “You can do anything with YouTube and poor impulse control.” The same is true for cupcakes. I have watched endless YouTube videos about the perfect buttercream, the best decorating tips, how to get a domed cupcake, how to use a coupler. In my case, the poor impulse control usually expresses itself on my hips, after eating the experiments. This is probably safer than accidentally knocking down a load-bearing wall.

The best part, though, is how the rabbit hole of cupcake tutorials transports me to a different world when our current world is so dispiriting. All the videos feature cheerful people in sparkling kitchens, testifying what a cinch it is to churn out beautiful rainbow-swirled cupcakes. They seem completely and happily removed from reality, which is quite compelling in a world of so much ugliness and hardship..

Delta variant (and now, OMG–omicron!) got you down? No sweat, just keep those pastry bags equipped with star tips coming! Messy withdrawal from Afghanistan? Nothing restores a sense of calm order like clear glass bowls of pastel frosting lined up on the counter.

Cupcakes as antidote to despair. Maybe that’s why the craze has lasted so long.

My preliminary research soon led to the first human trials, aka taste tests. I prepared two kinds of lemon cupcakes, carrot with and without nuts, almond poppy seed, and black bottom cupcakes.

My kitchen and my cupcakes did not look like the ones on YouTube. In fact, my runny buttercream looked like it had been applied by slap-dash, drunken kindergarteners.

It was all delicious, though. Black bottom and nut-less carrot cupcakes were the hands-down favorite for the final cut. My second attempt yielded buttercream actually stiff enough to hold its shape. Besides, the happy couple is fine with charmingly homespun.

So successful were the cupcake trials that I was soon commissioned to make a small wedding cake. My only prior experience was 40 years ago, when my trial wedding cake for a friend luckily happened early enough that there was plenty of time to throw it in the trash and order a real cake from a bakery. I guess that will be our fallback position this time, too.

High stakes, high anxiety–a perfect project to distract me from my 2022 mid-term anxiety!

My first attempt debuted this Thanksgiving. Not exactly ready for prime time, but not bad, either:

And totally delicious!