The Red Giant Phase of Gardens

[mallorys_camera]

And we’re into that season of giganto veggies as the garden enters its Red Giant phase. Baseball-bat-sized zucchini; baseball-sized tomatoes. I really should have included a cat in this photograph for scale.

###

Everyone I know is talking about Bob Woodward’s new book, Fear: Trump in the White House.

I think Woodward’s new book sounds boring.

The White House is Crazytown!

Trump is stoooopid.

Is any of this information new to you?

No?

Then why are you so excited about it?

I mean, story after story. News cycle after news cycle. Book after book.

Nobody is in danger of misunderstanding the magnitude of the situation.

I'm sick of the ongoing Ain't It Awful? game.

Stop describing the problem. DEAL with it.

###

Diana mailed me a bunch of scribbles that Robin drew when he was four years old.

Am I a terrible mother?

I looked at those scribbles and thought, Exactly what am I supposed to do with these?

I mean, I love Robin! And he really was a most magical four-year-old.

But one of the few benefits to losing (literally!) every single thing you own is that you are no longer encumbered with all that documentation. Those birthday cards. Those report cards. Those school projects. Those drawings. All those exhibits in the Museum of Lost Childhood.

You can’t throw them out, of course.

Because if you throw them out, it’s no longer even a question. You really are a terrible mother.

I texted Robin: Just wanted to tell you that I’m thinking about you, that I miss you, that I love you, that I hope everything is going well.

Robin texted back: Hey mother dearest. Love you very much as well and miss you too!



Though I gotta say: This is not a photo of a young man who misses his mother! (Insert smiley face.)

Comments

[thisnewday]

Perhaps one takeaway from Woodward's book, especially if today's anonymous op-ed piece in the NY Times is viewed as corroboration, would be that there are indeed people working within the Trump administration to DEAL with it.

Both of us, all of us, know that whatever they're doing cannot possibly be enough. BUT, if the combined effect of this book by a respected journalist and its corroboration by a source within the administration creates some movement where it's needed--within the Republican party--then it may in fact be something more and different from what we've been seeing and hearing over the months of this presidency.

And IF we consider this, as at least a possibility, the question becomes can whatever movement it generates possibly be enough--and can it happen in time--to save what is left of this American democracy...

[mallorys_camera]

I think that NYT op ed was complete bullshit.

You don't save American democracy by working silently behind the scenes to consolidate power. In banana republics, that's called staging a coup. If the actual interests that Trump represents have a problem with Trump, then they need to invoke the mechanisms that are in place to publicly remove him rather than to "deal" with him through mysterious back channels.

[thisnewday]

Years ago, I worked for a design/build firm that specialized in high-quality commercial projects. Where, despite the aspiration to impecable design and quality builds, there was always the pressure, on everyone involved, for the rapid turnaround.

I was, at that time, friends with the owner as well as an employee of his company--not always a comfortable situation for either party. That being a totally unnecessary aside, to which I'd always been prone in whatever career I was currently pursuing, I often heard him say, in exasperation, "Won't somebody PLEASE do SOMETHING, even if it's WRONG?"

I think we're at that point, as a country...