Go. ... Be a kid ...

I made him leave the house.

It wasn't easy.

He had been happy where he was these past three days: planted in the living room, on his own imaginary island, ensconced in a chair and surrounded by all manner of creature comforts.

He'd feathered his nest with pillows, blanket, snacks ... even the cordless phone all within arm's reach.

If it were any other week at any other time in the history of the world, one might expect to find a thermometer bobbing around in his mouth, barely under his tongue, as he pitched soggy, wadded up tissues into a paper bag rolled at the top with a neat little cuff.

He might have asked me for soup, but he can make his own ramen.

Of course, he's not sick. His temperature is normal, and the skies are clear. It's vacation week, and his friends are gathered – nearly everyone he knows is already here – even though I can't see or hear them. 

The meeting space is cyber. I can only see his friends' animated doppelgangers running across our television screen. I can only hear my son shouting out warnings.

“Look behind you. Look behind you!”

I just can't bring myself to bring him anywhere. I can organize his day, but I can't make him follow that list without standing over him, tapping my foot.

“Go anywhere,” I said, assuming familiarity and reason would lead him one block to the park, or two blocks to the library, or more immediately somewhere in our narrow back yard, which opens up into the wilds of the neighboring farmland.

I'm not sure what I thought he'd do. Meet a friend? Climb a suburban jungle gym? Help an elderly lady cross a street? Borrow a book from the library? Discover a secret portal into a parallel (but inverted) universe and save all of humanity? 

Almost any reality other than the virtual kind - which involved the taking up of armchairs and the wearing of headphones to play war games on the large screen in the living room, where he'd meet other kids who were attached to their own pixilated worlds by micro-phoned headsets while their parents were working - was fine by me.

Just go outside. Stretch your legs. Move your body. Get it to make wide sweeping gestures instead of barely perceivable motions. Eye twitches don't count. Let the sun touch your skin. Let the wind rush at your face. Find-something-else-to-do-I-don't-care-what.”

I was desperate.

He didn't put up much of a protest.

I didn't tell him to make himself useful. It's not like I asked him to go shopping with me, or out for a run. I didn't ask him to pave the driveway or rake the leaves out from under the juniper. I didn't ask him to empty the dishwasher or mow the lawn. 

I asked him to be a kid … from my generation.

He put on a bike helmet, grabbed his scooter and scooted, but not without some huffing and puffing and a few heavy foot-fall stamping. He will go, but he'll be back in no time.

Blistering

"Oh good lord, Mom!" Cover those things up. No one needs to see that."

She smiles as she tosses a blanket in my direction, trying to hide the state of my post-half-marathon feet, which at that moment were propped up on a pillow and slathered in anti-bacterial unguent. The sight is appalling, granted, but even the feather-weight of the thin covering, which hasn't entirely hit her intended target, caused my poor, blistering dogs to howl.

Aiiiiiii!"

"Sorry."

I'm not angry.

I've waited two long years for just this kind of pain. 

The good kind.

The kind that lets you know you pushed something past its comfort zone, but not anywhere near its breaking point. And even taking it slow - running two minutes at a time - I can tell by the soreness - this pain will go away and in the process might also make me stronger.

If only we could transfer this kind of feeling to all the psychic pain we experience: The exhaustive, nagging agony of mistrust and futility that come from the incessant nipping of sound bites.

Bad news spirals into worse news and finally spreads with the speed of a Cloud that is so unnatural it has a trademark. Whenever it rains the interwebs overflow with toxins. 

Everything seems personal. 

Our kids feel it, too. Though I wonder if they aren't going to manage to find a balance that has seemingly eluded us?

A 2018 Pew Research Center survey of teens indicated that while most young people share a wide range of personal information online, from selfies to self-congratulation, they tend to shy away from posting their religious or political viewpoints. 

But while a vast majority say they've been bullied in real life as well as in cyberspace, the teens surveyed overwhelmingly viewed their overall online experience as positive.

In total, most viewed their face-to-face time with peers to be adequate.

Which, makes sense when an old person like myself, with graying hair and a coffee addiction, eases down the creaky stairs during any sleepover weekend to find two teens on the opposite side of a couch staring at their own phones.

To be sure, the silence is deafening at first. Not that I ever got used to the ear-piercing squeals of preadolescence.

But it becomes clear that these friends aren't ignoring each other. They are engaging in communication by wireless telephone-y instead of telepathy. In fact, it's highly likely that there are more of them in the room than I can see, by sheer virtue of some chat app. Unlike my teenage hangouts, the "mall" where our kids loiter doesn't require me to transport them.

They meet people from other schools, other counties, other countries, different cultures just as effortlessly as they watch some Youtube celebrity apply mascara to a cat blindfolded or make over a street lamp just in time for prom.

Of course, I don't understand the fascination. Maybe I'm not supposed to.

I can't really see much difference between this obsession and the most popular show about nothing during my salad days: Seinfeld. 

"There's really nothing intrinsically funny about 20 minutes of wisecracks about muffin stems," my daughter assures me, adding that she has the rest of her life to worry about politics. No minds will be changed in the meantime.

She's probably right. Though I can't help but try and engage her in all the thoughts she sensibly refuses to share online.

Sometimes she obliges, but she only lets me run with it for two minutes. Anything more will just cause blisters.

Outside interest

Her face is so familiar. I've seen her somewhere before ... more than once.

Grocery store? Maybe.

Coffee shop? Perhaps. But definitely not behind the counter.

My mind searches its archives for the possibility of a uniform she's not wearing now.

It draws a blank.

I must know her from school? Certainly. She has kids my daughter's age and older. It's there that I can place her.

But I've never seen her here, at a "watering hole," two towns' length from home.

What. Is. Her. Name?

I rake the alphabet in my mind as she starts walking toward me. I can't for the life of me remember a name or any of its parts,  either first or last. I am hoping one of the letters will stick. I gulp the air hoping to remember as our gazes connect, and the distance between us disappears.

When she reaches me ... now having taken my first sip from the dark, frothy foam atop the pint glass ... she fills in all the blanks so quickly that the blanks will remain hollow for a few heartbeats until my brain wraps around each detail.

Slap-my-own-forehead: She's one of my son's school teachers. And as luck would have it, she loves my kid and feels compelled to tell me.

Why is this so weird?

For a moment, I feel as if I'm looking at the school photograph, an official record of sixth grade, complete with this year's favorite shirt and a smile that has been cultivated for strangers.

"He's always happy," she tells me, "always enthusiastic," noting that she looks forward to his arrival during the last class of the day.

I smile, not really knowing what my face looks like for this exchange. I focus on my relief, but it doesn't keep my compulsion for honesty at bay.

"Well, that's a relief," and I paint a picture of a kid who barely speaks to me when he gets home from school; bushing in the colors of envy and worry as I try and convey the abstract quality of someone else's experience of what I brazenly consider my artwork.

I can see from her expression, she now wishes she hadn't approached me. How could she have known I couldn't accept a simple compliment for what it was?

She changes the subject, for which I am infinitely grateful. However, I will still prattle on about something I will only stop to analyze later on that evening when the not-so-instant replay will keep me awake long into the night.

I can't help myself, I will fill any and all silences with the surfeit of somewhat-embarrassing lore. It's a discomfort of the nervous sort.

It's something my son, evidently, hasn't inherited.

I wish I were more like him.

So I thanked her. It's an unexpected joy to be told something nice. I am grateful to know someone thinks enough of my boy to relay a message so charming and sincere. And that he can be just as funny and sweet, as I hoped he would be.

Impulse

Of all people, Joe Biden should understand that the recent criticism of his overly friendly ways with female colleagues, isn't entirely about him.

It's about the women themselves and the women watching. It's about an evolving understanding of consent and the conversation that drives that evolution.

If Biden had nuzzled the hair of Andrew Cuomo in front of his staff as the cameras were rolling, the story we're hearing, I believe, would be much different.

As people come out in force to cast doubt on the reasons why some are coming forward with these concerns -- that unwanted touching, even when innocently intended -- can be dispiriting and demoralizing to women, I find my own anger about to boil over.

The stance suggesting this is yet another subject that should remain taboo as we try to restore sanity in our government, makes me marvel at how little we seem to have learned from the events of the past few years.

From Hollywood to Washington, the message about women has been crystal clear: The old ways are over. 

Not everyone likes being touched, or crowded, or kissed, or having their personal space invaded unnecessarily or without permission. Not even in a genuinely paternal or grandfatherly way. Best not to assume.

Historically, women haven't had much choice in the matter. They've been treated like children who bristle as Great Aunt Gwynneth demands a hug and a kiss.

Women have tight-lipped-smiled their way through all manner of nonchalant physical liberty-taking, too. People rub our pregnant bellies, they massage our stiffened shoulders, they even pick us up and swing us around as if we were toys. 

We've also had to be silent when the touch is sinister. Those not afraid to make waves or overstep lines drawn in the sand, rarely find their lives improved. Just ask Anita Hill or Christine Blasey Ford.

The criticism against such criticism, however, sends an achingly clear message: Women are the lesser except in their reactions, which are out of proportion.

Yet, all presidential candidates - regardless of gender -- will have to deal with evolving issues of equality and fairness, especially in the age of Me Too. The one who is ultimately chosen to speak for all of us should have the best answer.

"I do not recall the incident," to quote my middle schooler: Well, that ain't it, chief.

I appreciate that Biden has acknowledged he is willing to listen and change his ways.

I hope he understands that a personal touch in politics means that others' personal space is just as custom fit.

He doesn't know the stories of the women who are talking, but it's not unlikely that their experiences as women will include some frightening moments beyond their control.

How many will have been victims of sexual harassment or assault? How many will have been reassigned or fired altogether while their alleged abusers continued on in their positions?

Of course the timing, you wonder. Why now?

Because it matters. The Big Tent demands we listen and learn. 

Electability, after all, doesn't have written-in-stone rules. Think about the "YEAH!" on a loop that sunk Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's hopes for the White House. And not even Donald Trump himself could have predicted the presidency would ever be his.

Clinton was eminently electable. Indeed, she won the popular vote. And yet we somehow ended up with a game show host leading the Free World instead.

Integrity is something that most if not all of the 2020 Democratic hopefuls possess. I would count Joe Biden among them should he choose to run. But we need to understand the past that will haunt him may have nothing at all to do with his overly-friendly ways.

If he can truly see where his hands have done harm, he may be able to keep his fingers on the pulse.

The Teenagers Constitution

It’s only a matter of time.

We know this.

Our teenagers are going to sneak out of the house. If they don’t sneak out, they will utilize some other form of deception to not be in the place we assume them to be.

As parents, we take this truth to be self-evident.

My teenager has already told me such plans are afoot.

But since she only pretends to be the hardcore tough of her peer group, she figures that letting me know select details of upcoming tomfoolery will allow her to both save face and protect herself from the ultimate consequence every kid wants to avoid:

Our disappointment.

A part of me wants to feel snug and safe in my cocoon of parental philosophy, namely that a certain level of permissiveness leads to more open communications.

Of course, I can't control her. I can explain my expectations: “of course you can go out with your friends; of course you can stay out later than usual; of course, I trust you.”

But – and there’s always a but – “I don't know if I can trust these NEW friends, but I don't want you getting in cars with boys, but I don't want you going to unfamiliar places, but I don't want you to drink or do drugs.

None of these regulations will come as a surprise to her. Just as I understand my teenager may not be persuaded by any verbal restriction to forgo any newfound power of freedom.

I know she's going to make choices that I would prefer she didn’t make.

I know the possibility exists that by asking for the freedom to rebel, she’s actually free to rebel.

It’s a forthright way to tell me just enough of what I had hoped to hear.

I can’t think that way. I have to remember that she’ll carry my face with her… and my thin-lipped expressions of unhappiness … as well as a fully-charged wireless tether that is her cell phone in her pocket that seems to have become a different kind of umbilical cord.

Maybe she'll even check in from time to time with a note or a line like: “I'm having fun. Be home at 10.”

I know she’s not me. She’s not even “the me” I was at her age.

The truth is I don't know precisely to what I'm agreeing. I don’t know what schemes are under the surface.

But I have to worry all the same.

I'm her mother.

I have to add this to the list of choices I have to make as a parent.

Not to hover … or helicopter … or snowplow … or become a doormat.

Have I set enough boundaries? Or too many?

We the parents, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish curfews, ensure consequences, provide for some educational trips, promote the general upkeep, and secure the blessing of not breathing down your neck for ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Untied State of Adolescents.

Wrestle mania

As we sat on the bleachers watching our son race through his warm-up routine we didn't know what to expect. 

Not a clue. 

The boy had been going to an intramural wrestling program at school (for 10 weeks every spring) since the second grade, but we hadn't been allowed to watch.

This day and age such a rule usually sets off alarm bells. 

All the other sports had wide open fields and plenty of parents. 

We cheered and loud as we laughed during the penguin days of soccer. We tried to be silent in solidarity for baseball. We huddled along the sidelines for flag football. And we held our breath as if we were possessed each second of basketball when our kid had possession. 

It's what we're supposed to do. And we do it dutifully, the same way we tried not to cringe and show any disappointment during the times our son made a point to catch butterflies instead of pop flies. 

"Sports doesn't have to be his thing," we'd say within earshot of our kid who didn't let something as small as flatline stats keep him from being a team player.

Some things you just don't want to watch. 

I mean, who wouldn't want to see their little darlings tossing each other around on three-inch foam mats that have been collecting the perspiration of at least two generations of grapplers?

"You'd be surprised," said the wrestling coach, who explained that the sport can be hard to watch ... especially in a room that barely fits the enthusiastic swell of its co-ed participants. 

I could relate. The last thing I want to do is watch some other pocket-sized humanoid mop the mats with my kid.

So we dropped and skedaddled, leaving the boy with him, and about 100 other kids, and a handful of varsity helpers. 

An hour and a half later he'd emerge from the doors with his sweat-soaked hair plastered to his bright red face, which was beaming.

The coach even handled the fight every parent has had to engage with their prepubescent boys after any significant exertion:

"Coach said we have to shower, so we don't get 'bursa or fungus.'"

Which, of course, elevated the man to miracle worker of sorts. Though no one in their right mind - even at the still unripened age of 11 - would ever risk wrestling mat cooties for the price of a 10-minute shower.

Still, it seemed like ages ago. 

We couldn't even imagine what watching our kid get planted face first into a mat would look like. Or how it would feel to watch.

But in our own corner of the bleachers, holding our hands over our mouths, we stared off unblinking into this new form of wild.

And that tree we never saw pinned down in the forest following a half-Nelson reversal -- or whatever the preferred nomenclature of grappling embodies -- was still out of sight, out of mind, even as a teenaged ref tossed himself on the floor, slapped his hand on the mat and declared our son the winner.

And time and time again, our wriggly boy snaked his way out from under and kept racking up points. Not that anyone was keeping score.

Every few minutes each pair shook hands and went back to their corners.

Half crazy

I'll admit I was smitten.

A new road race had been added to the local roster in January.

It had a pretty little emblem: Mountains in the distance; pine trees on either side of a river: and the illustrated likeness of Henry Hudson's sloop, Clearwater, sailing along the waterway.

Truth be told, I loved the logo as much as I loved the trail it represented.

It probably didn't help me much that the web link to the Helderberg to Hudson Half Marathon -- an inaugural road race on the Albany Rail trail April 13th -- wasn't working.

It made me crazy. Like keep-pushing-that-button-hoping-to-get-a-different-result kind of nuts.

This was obviously a sign that I should not try to learn more, or entertain any notion that might lead to signing myself up.

This perplexity may explain how it happened a month or so later - once a live registration site made its way to that excruciating link, which I had quietly obsessed over along with the possibility of actually being able to meet the 15-minute-per-mile pace cutoff - that I signed up without ever considering the downside.

You know: the simple little fact that I have not run (or run/walked) more than four miles at any one time in almost a year. And for a year before that, I hadn't been able to run at all.

You see, the injury that heals itself in its own sluggish time - an injury that had loudly and repeatedly kept me from participating in these pace parades - had been oddly quiet.

It didn't even grouse when I had to search for my credit card midway through the transaction.

Of course, it did raise its stupid eyebrows the minute I started to train in earnest. It required stretching this way and strength training that way. And there were piffling reminders that it was always waiting in the background for its chance to charge up and take over. Slow moving pain can be insidious that way.

A part of me wishes the race officials had kept the event to the confines of the nine-mile trail maybe adding three-tenths at the end for a 15K.

Like ... you know like Schenectady's Stockade-athon or Utica's Boilermaker. Two races I've depressingly watched from the finish for the past two years.

I can almost grasp that distance now. Adding six miles to the place I can barely reach at this point seems akin to trying to go to the ends of the earth.

Which I definitely won't be able to navigate with a pack of 2,000 like-minded and able-bodied folks ambling along in front of me. (I'd have said "alongside," but even I can't spin that yarn.)

But worried though I am, I am also excited about that day in April, just four weeks away. The race has sparked excitement. A running club in my home town is sending a bus with a few dozen people to cut down on congestion and condense camaraderie. And I will be on it.

Even if I have to walk half the way, I'll be there.

I'm only half crazy.

News from the Gross-ery

"You will not believe what your mom did at the store," laughed my husband as he hauled four bags of groceries -- looped over one arm -- into the kitchen from the car.

And thus begins another episode of "Mommy-Gagging: The Curious and Mostly Believable Things People See Their Mothers Do From Behind Laced Fingers Positioned Over Their Eyes, As They Hide Two Aisles Away Pretending They've Never Seen Her Before.

He dumps the bags on the counter and backs away. His job is officially over.

The kids, brimming with curiosity and sensing the possibility of a fresh box of breakfast cereal, slither out from their individual lairs and rummage through the overpacked reusable totes.

The mission they choose to accept required they put the loot in its rightful place.

They half listen as their dad recounts the colorful tale of the rare, date-night style grocery trip with his so-called "better half."

Who, as he and his progeny tell it, is the person ordinarily tasked with trudging to the supermarket daily and yet NEVER manages to buy anything to eat.

They snicker and roll their eyes as he starts in the parking lot, describing the scene: He has had to wait

while this Magoo character he married returns to the car -- twice --looking for aforementioned reusable tote bags she had in ANOTHER tote bag dangling from her shoulder the whole time.

Then there was the argument over the big cart; a supermarket choice she refuses, even at Thanksgiving, for no other reason than vanity and the erroneous belief that "we don't need much stuff." The fact that she piles the little cart with a clown car's worth of provisions every single trip, notwithstanding.

The there's the disappearing act. Anyone in my family will tell you this is an inherited trait in which the less ambitious shopper (me) stops walking or disappears altogether for the unintended purpose of looking at something they have no intention of buying.

Lobster!!!

No, wait ... I'm gonna let your mom tell it. I'm not sure how IT really happened.

So it is near the tank of blood red crustaceans that I find myself browsing when I look down, and some man is kind of half-crawling, half-reaching for my shoe.

Now, I'll admit, this is unusual, and my first thought is that he may be trying to free me from some detritus

I have trailed in from the parking lot. Instead, the man apologizes and asks about the construction of my boot. Are the uppers really leather or a polyethylene weave?

It's hard to tell from a website, the only other place he's seen this very style he's interested in purchasing for himself.

"Are they waterproof?"

Now ... I love these boots. I practically live in them. So having a chance to talk them up seems preferable to deciding which flavor Goldfish snack crackers is the current favorite.

"The only water that gets in comes from the top because I leave them unlaced, even when I snowshoe."

"Are they light?"

And this is where my husband, having noticed I was no longer behind him at the bulk granola bins, came to find me ...

"They have a little weight to them."

... balancing on one leg, and holding out my boot to a stranger near the seafood counter.

My kids' eyes go wide.

"I can't believe how lucky we are," my daughter exclaimed as she hugs a giant box of tiny snack crackers.

"We almost went with you to the store!"

Alien comforts

We'd never been on a vacation quite like this one.

Summer in winter. White sand beaches. Tropical flowers that perfume the air. Pink drinks that flowed like water for days.

No worries.

Except for maybe the deeply reddened skin of our predecessors, who were checking out as we were checking in to this oasis of opulence carefully carved from hardscape near the sea. 

We called it Resort Land, and made like all the other manufactured natives, who -- donning color-coded wrist bands -- would belly-flop up to their corresponding swim-up bars by day, and wind their way through the all-you-can-eat restaurants by night. 

It doesn't take long to get the hang of things. 

This is what paradise looks like when photographed with a wide angle lens. 

Though, I had to admit the magazine layouts did this place justice.

The pools were blue and clear, the palm trees were tall and graceful, the clouds were white and fluffy. And it seemed like we had the whole place to ourselves as the sun came up on the day.

I had acres of lush landscape, a half-mile of beachfront, and a mile-and-a-half of running route ... all to myself between sun-up and 9 a.m. when the crowds started to meander to breakfast.

Even though it's difficult to leave the comfort of my feather-soft bed, I took full advantage of the hotel's offerings. I overindulge in the decadence of an in-room espresso machine and 24-hour room service, one of the many benefits of an all-inclusive vacation package.

The kids are also got their fill of this novelty that is "bedtime cheesecake" while supplies last.

I want to love it here. How could I not?

There is beauty everywhere I look, and not just in the fan-shaped traveler palms and the impossible jewel-toned tides. It's in the sweeping curves of the sweeping hotel edifices rising up from manicured lawns and glittering ornamental pools.

The only bodies that ever wade into these waters carry leaf nets and scrub brushes. 

I marvel most at this team of caretakers who look after this place and its guests with simple tools and complex talents.

Gardeners pruning palms, edging flowerbeds and weeding with the aid of only a machete.

A plumber comes by bicycle to fix a leak. He takes out a wrench and a roll of tape from a small tool kit. A few minutes later the drip-drip-drip is silent.

These caretakers smile greetings, and call us their "family," a construct as flimsy as ours, as we pretend to own a piece of this luxury ... referring to our hotel room as "home" for six days and seven nights. 

They belong. 

They have built this place and continue to shore it up, while visitors sip sweet drinks and crisp in the sun. 

The last day finally arrives, and we wait at a desk with our bags to check out. The changeover apparent as paler versions of ourselves line up to check in.

We make conversation the computers take their sweet time to process us. 

Did we like our stay?

I found it a hard question to answer. 

How is it possible to feel so comfortably out of place? 

Bury the saint

We have new neighbors. 

A young couple. Two kids. The most adorable dog you can imagine.

He doesn’t even bark.

They seem perfect. 

Or at least as perfect as we were when we moved in a decade ago. Our kids were as itty bitty as theirs.

Of course we were nervous. Then and now. 

New is scary.  

Will they like us? 

Our dog barks.

The mower sits idle sometimes, in the middle of its job, waiting on batteries that take forever to charge.

I don’t always remember to retrieve the recycling bin from the curb in a timely fashion. Occasionally it sits out there for days.

A part of me worries our new neighbors will be too perfect. 

The house they bought had been for sale for a while. In a buyers’ market this lag time might worry a person that a sluggish sale could have something to do with the state of our volunteer garden or the patchwork motif on the front lawn.

Still, it is a big house. On a main street. Needing a little updating. 

Houses, after all, are a major purchase, and moving a huge undertaking.

Our old neighbor, bless her heart, had already done everything in her power to move the homestead along. For a generation she and her family had kept the place in tip top shape.

The only thing left was to leave it to God. 

Which, according to ancient Catholic lore, meant she had to bury a statue of Saint Joseph in her front yard. 

Which, she did, paying careful attention to all the rules you may never have heard of, but I can attest exist thanks to occasional insomnia and the fortune of watching comedian Stephen Colbert and actress Patricia Heaton one late night engage in a who’s more Catholic throw-down.  

You obtain a statue of Joseph, patron saint of families, carpenters working men and evidently realtors — a small one from Catholic Supply will cost about $10, though shipping and handling may be extra) — and you dig a hole next to the For Sale sign. Next you invert the statue and place it in the hole, feet toward the heavens and facing the house you hope to sell.  It could be yours, or could your neighbor’s. The import part after that is for you to pray. 

You keep praying to the saint until your house sells, at which point you dig up the statue and give it a prime spot in your new house.

You may laugh ... but just like Comedy Central predicted ... and in fewer than two weeks’ time ... God delivered.

A sold sign came down from above.

And for a month of Sundays, our new

neighbors came to work on spiffing up the place before moving in.

Mostly at night and in their spare time. Gently revising. Removing carpets, painting walls, and other stuff we couldn’t quite see with the subtlety of our awking eyes.

They waved through the window when they saw us. We waved back.

Move-in day came and we waited another week before we traipsed across their lawn bearing a heart-shaped plant and a local highlights guide.

Our new neighbor was all smiles

as she let us in and apologized for the mess. 

“Truth is it probably going to be a

mess for a long while.”

And then we proceeded to talk about life and moving and kids and running and Christmas and dogs and school teachers for the better part of an hour.

When I checked my watch I knew for sure they were perfect. But time was up. Maybe next time I see her I’ll tell her about the saint. 

Blockhead

So ...

James Tedisco The State senator from Glenville -- blocked me on Twitter last week.

That was a surprise.

I thought politicians were in the business of listening to those who disagree with them before using the charm of practiced smiles and burnished talking points to discount such dissent as they go along on their merry way.

Apparently, the medium of Twitter, especially in the Trump era, cuts past all that for modern public servants.

Not that I expected to change the mind of a man whose anti-choice stance caused a local newspaper to rescind its endorsement of him.

See ... I had disagreed with the senator's take on abortion, as well as the musings of a local columnist he was extolling from that same newspaper. The issue at hand is the recent passage of the Reproductive Health Act and its apparent result in the inability of law enforcement to add a charge of abortion to any attack on a pregnant woman should the offense result in fetal demise.

Thus the argument that women with wanted pregnancies and more pointedly, wanted fetuses had no way to get legal justice for such a tragic loss.

The Republican State senator agrees with the columnist's assertion that the change took away any human value fetuses had once had under previous criminal law.

Which is a gut-wrenching thought, but one that is ultimately wrong.

Thing is ... any charge concerning the loss of a pregnancy is essentially a charge pertaining to an attack on a woman.

No separate murder or manslaughter charges had existed for fetal demise.

The pro-birth advocates who push for laws that give personhood to fetuses know that legal definitions matter. They know that having the ability to level a charge on behalf of a fetus has the potential to prevent a woman from making critical life choices for herself, as well as threatens doctors who provide women with the standard care they need and deserve.

But they also know that we all feel the pain of such loss. We can all put ourselves in that position.

Having a child is a blessing, no doubt. Losing a child ... losing a pregnancy ... losing hope for the future is nothing short of traumatic.

But we should beware of what enacting a punitive fix really does.

Because the tragedy that we're not talking about in this is the fact that that the laws we put in place to protect women from their partners could just as easily be used against them by their partners. A single court case could decide.

And this anti-choice law masquerading a legal protection would have been slipped into place by the same lawmakers who will just as quickly tell you gun laws don't work. 

People like Mr. Tedisco, who have consistently voted against proactive legislation aimed at reducing gun violence. He voted against a 30-day waiting period for potential gun buyers who fail to pass the initial survey conducted through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System; he voted against the prohibition of bump stocks; he voted against Extreme Risk protection orders requested by individuals, which would temporarily prohibit a person from purchasing or possessing firearms; he voted against legislation that would prohibit individuals convicted of domestic abuse from purchasing guns; he's voted against laws that would enforce safe storage of firearms and laws that would require micro-stamping technology. 

Perhaps it's time we look at ways to make families healthier. Work toward securing access to all types of healthcare easier, while at the same time seek to make access to guns more difficult.

Perhaps it's time we, as voters, start blocking rhetoric and face facts. 

Wild thing, I think I don't love you

Wild thing ... I think I love to hate you

I do not like our youngest cat.

Condemn me all you wish for this unkind thought said aloud, but I know it is this grey tabby, who truly runs our house, and she is a tyrant. Entirely inhuman.

For starters, she waits for me at the top of the stairs, quietly tucked in the shadows, and chooses the moment I start my decent to cut across my path.

Once, such an occurrence could be filed away in the mind and forgotten. However, as a regular as my morning coffee, this darting between legs at the place of least likelihood for stability seems like the underpinnings of an evil plan.

She must want to kill me.

I can see it in her eyes.

The kids see it, too.

She is the only cat who has remained uncharmed by their cat-whispering ways.

She has let them know with the sharp white teeth glinting out from her wide open mouth whenever they pass within arms' length of her.

And in her ears, always rotating toward ordinary household sounds, and yet, also ready to flatten against her head whenever her gaze settles on one of the others in the household.

She is a wild thing. Brought inside as a wee kitten, rescued from an encroaching winter and feral life, which began under a summer cottage porch.

Instantly, there was torment. The other animals were put 

She never seemed to settle in, but she never seemed unsettled. She owned us immediately.

Though she didn’t seem to love us much at all.

Well ... I used to think she loved me just a little. Owing mostly to the food and provisions I’d inevitably provide when the children who promised to be “the best caretakers a cat could ever have” reneged sometime around week three.

Those were the days she’d find her way to my side of the bed, settling in around my shoulder, purring.

But any sudden move — tossing or turning included — she would perceive as a threat and react accordingly.

By cutting me to ribbons in my sleep.

Four years later — after being rudely awakened in the middle of the night for the unknown number of times
by a gash across my knuckles that started at my chin — it seems her love for me continues to be something sinister.

Maybe I shouldn’t have chased her out of the room by flailing my left slipper in the air. And maybe it’s fitting that my right slipper tripped me on my way back to bed.

I don’t feel bad.

She is not the victim.

In two hours her caterwauling will wake me up again as she seeks entrance and maybe a snack to tide her over until breakfast.


Not wanting to sleep with one eye open, I will fill a bowl with kibble before I let her into the room, putting it down and backing away slowing ... hoping she doesn’t bite the hand that feeds her.