The Many are more Powerful than The Money

Nov4
I can’t get enough of the precious apricot tree in her fall raiment. And with that beautiful BIG blue sky behind her!

I don’t know who said it first, but I heard it from Jess Craven in this 2.5 minute video thanking us, the grassroots activists and all the voters who chose democracy over oligarchy: “The many are more powerful than the money.” Tears and tingles have been rising all day as I celebrate with friends around the country, listen to my heroes who have been on the front lines as their joy and gratitude overflows, and release wave after wave of tension and anxiety from my body.

The little birds got a new feeder today: all metal cage and perches, with a tricky system for opening. This should stump jays, squirrels, and maybe even bears.

Robert Hubbell sums up the many small victories that amount to a huge win for regular Americans in this eight minute read or listen. Former DOJ attorney Joyce Vance celebrates in this post named after the book she released last spring, Giving Up Is Unforgivable. We won because we didn’t give up!

Now, the hard work begins, as everyone is saying. But first, we get to breathe, and celebrate, and rest on Cloud Nine for a little while… Then come January, those moderates, those firebrands we elected, we hold their feet to the fire and make them enact meaningful legislation that starts improving lives immediately. Next week is not too soon to start letting your elected representatives know what you expect from them when they’re sworn in.

The forest floor is insanely green these days, more so than I hav ever seen it, ever. We took a ramble this morning before more rain moved in this afternoon, with snow possible at this elevation overnight.

Starting on Day 1, here are some top priorities: *) Release unredacted Epstein Files! Like housecleaning, this might necessitate accomplishing a few things before you can get to the one thing, like tidying up clutter before you can dust. Those things might be a) Impeach AG Todd Blanche, and b) enlarge the Supreme Court by a significant number (and then strike down rulings like Citizens United and Dobbs and a few others).

I’m grateful for every meal, every day, knowing so many don’t have enough to eat. May our blue tsunami turn the tide on hunger in America. I’ve almost got the fish sandwich down. This time, I didn’t use bread flour for the rolls and they didn’t turn out so well. But I’ve got the coating right, with flour, cornstarch, and Penzeys Cajun seasoning, and zero cornmeal. (40% off almost everything at Penzeys right now in celebration!

I’m not ranking priorities because there are just too many that need to happen all at once. We’re looking at a triage scenario to save the casualties in this train wreck of a government. *) Break the Big Awful Bill so that SNAP, Medicaid, and Medicare are all resurrected to their full health and even bolstered: Healthcare for All, whatever forms that takes. *) Immediately reunite all detained and deported immigrants who have been separated from their children, and rescue as many as possible from prisons overseas; then formulate a realistic and compassionate Immigration policy and defund ICE. *) Restore the Department of Defense: Impeach Hegseth and fire his toadies, stop the war with Iran, stop murdering boatfuls of people in the Caribbean, restore military honor to those officers besmirched by this regime. *) Fire RFK: reclaim federal public health agencies including CDC and HHS, and start nurturing these sickened, broken organizations back to full strength; restore funding for cancer research and other crucial studies. *) Stop BIG OIL: Save the Arctic! Save the PLANET! *) Save the children, Stop the guns! *) Save Science! Save public education! Save Reality! Save the Gulf of Mexico! Save the Kennedy Center!

You have probably thought of three or four urgent priorities of your own as you’ve read this tragically incomplete list of mine. I could go on but you get the picture. And not one of us has to be responsible for all of these. My suggestion is that you pick one or two pet priorities for the next six months, and be clear and constant in your communication with your representatives about its importance; spice up your daily calls or missives with an extra one now and then. Make democracy fun again!

Today’s lunch, simple and delicious: another bad bun, toasted, with havarti, the last purple tomato, and a side of small tomatoes, with chips, and the last of a fun read about Anne Boleyn, The Beheading Game. In this version, she comes back for revenge!

Like any abuser, and I’ve known more than my fair share, the Abuser in Chief now pays lip service to reform, claiming he will work with Democrats because he doesn’t want to veto everything. I’ll believe it only when I see it and meanwhile I’ll be anticipating many more about faces, temper tantrums, scapegoats and vitriol. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see him take his Qatari jet and flee the country for Vanuatu, Morocco, the UAE, or some other country that has no extradition treaty with the US.

Whew!

Nov4

Thank you, America!

Though not everything went the way I’d hoped, at least by bedtime, election results so far are a huge relief! Let’s savor the wins and celebrate the opportunity for a sea change. And then let’s get back to the hard work of keeping our government on track to work for the wellbeing of all Americans.

Changes, Endings, and Letting Go

Oct30

As Jess Craven says, sorry for all the links: well, she says interviews, as she’s introducing this one with congressional candidate Justin Pearson in Tennessee, but the principle applies. After this election I’ll back off on sharing so many links, but it feels important to me to amplify the messages of the frontline activists and candidates.

So I’ll also share this from my friend Jean, who has channeled her rage and anxiety into a clear and compassionate essay, “A Crisis of Humanity—the U.S. as Victim and Perpetrator.” She’s been a tireless grassroots activist for years, and will be working the polls on Tuesday. I sure hope she lets herself rest after that.

Unrelated to the election but relevant to the season, these images from past celebrations of Día de los Muertos offer a healthy approach to our inevitable end. I was fortunate to participate last night in a lovely online All Hallow’s Eve ‘meditation on change, endings and letting go’ led by another friend, honoring departed beloveds, and releasing what baggage we can now.

Welcome Respite

Oct29
Over the past few days the ‘bonsai’ rose has finally sprung its first flower of the year, only after I brought it inside to the sunroom. Oh the fragrance!

Your Local Epidemiologist does a great job of laying out how important it is to vote like your health depends on it in her article Politics is medicine on a large scale. She first tells the story of a doctor investigating Typhus in 1848, the offers a graphic showing which 29 states have some aspect of healthcare on the ballot. In between she writes:

“In his final report, he said treating individual sick people with medicine wasn’t necessarily the long-term solution; what was needed was education, jobs, better housing, fairer taxes, and “full and unlimited democracy.” He wrote: “Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing but medicine at a large scale.” (The government thanked him with sanctions, including pay cuts and the loss of his hospital-provided housing.) ….Nearly 180 years later, his point still holds…. health is on the ballot or in campaign slogans in at least 29 states. Governors, state legislators, and attorneys general are the officials who pick personnel, run Medicaid, fund public health departments, and set state rules on everything from vaccines to abortion.”

What follows is a lucid description of how health is still on the ballot in between the lines, and concludes “Health is on almost every midterm ballot this year, whether you notice it or not. Go vote like your health depends on it. Because it does.”

It’s not just your health, our health, public health that depends on this election. This regime’s cuts to climate and weather science “have exposed US to ‘cascade’ of El Niño dangers,” reports The Guardian. And let’s not forget the horrors of ICE and the murders of American citizens like Alex Pretti. This video of his parents updates us on where the investigation into his unlawful killing stands now.

Wren made friends yesterday with a new yarden helper.

Some more encouraging things to listen to or watch for respite or inspiration over the next few tense days until the election include this long interview with Rep. Ilhan Omar calmly deconstructing the conspiracy theories that fueled a raid on her DC home; Joyce Vance talking with Pulitzer Prize winner Ami Fields-Meyer on how youth mobilization swung Brazil and Serbia; and Jess Craven talking with Oklahoma Senate candidate Jasmine Thomas.

The apricot tree is turning.

My friend Ted sums up the stakes in his post Beyond Tribalism: “The spiritual task underneath the political challenge is to move beyond loving one’s self, family, race, tribe or party. The real test is whether we can live with a spirit of universal love…. In the 21st Century, whether we can move beyond tribalism will determine the long-term existence of life on Planet Earth.”

Coffee at the library garden was a welcome respite for the three of us this morning. We sat together on a beautiful, warm sunny day on the south side overlooking the two-lane highway that runs through town. Conversation was so rich we hardly noticed traffic noise. Wren came too, of course, and moved from lap to lap, sun to shade, as her soft animal body dictated. I hadn’t been in the library for awhile, and stepped in for a quick tour and to get some photos to show it off. There was a bead-making class about to set up, a patron at one of the several computers in the tech room, comfortable furnishings, happy houseplants in every corner, a charming children’s room, and lots of books. I may not want to handle them, but I sure don’t want to see any of them banned or burned. You bettah vote.

Gut Check Revised

Oct27

A friend whose opinion I respect responded to my post last night in an email offering more perspective on Proposition 137, the allocation of sales tax on sporting goods for conservation and wildfire prevention. She works in the field of wildfire governance, and was concerned about the confusing messaging the public is exposed to on this ballot measure. Here are some resources she shared showing the extent of support for the measure from conservation groups and “organizations who are doing place-based, on the ground work in [affected] communities.” Wish I’d known this before I voted. Grateful, though, to know my ballot has been received.

In case you haven’t voted yet, these might be helpful in making your decision. Here is some myth-busting from Vote Yes on Prop 137, and here’s a press release announcing the support of more than 170 women leaders in Colorado. Western Resource Advocates also supports the measure. These groups represent “the scientific consensus … on the efficacy of thinning and prescribed burning for reducing the risk of impacts from extreme wildfire.”

A beautiful sight! Laundry hanging on the line again!

She said that this website opposing the proposition “erroneously applies science conducted in one geographic region to another (i.e. applies findings in the Pacific Northwest to Colorado forests), and intentionally misleads the public.” Her experience, having been personally affected by an extreme wildfire some years ago and doing extensive research on the phenomenon since then, leads her to question the person behind this website, as well as the choices of certain groups opposing it. Groups she’d like to trust, as I trusted the Center for Biological Diversity. She opined that “There may be reasons not to vote for prop 137, but expanded commercial logging and road building shouldn’t be one of them….”

I was so grateful to be able to do laundry this afternoon, and water the cherry tree, and take a long hot shower. The water situation is 90% resolved: the pump cuts on by itself now and the pressure tank appears to be fully functional. The plumber was sorry to leave without full resolution, but one of two caps on the pump “disintegrated” when he tried to remove it so he was unable to replace the brush on that side. A replacement cap has been ordered. I’m not recklessly running water, but I feel a lot more ease with what I am using. Lunch was a basic cheese sandwich, with a heaping side of gratitude.

An hour ago I received a Watch Duty alert that the air quality at my nearest station was above 100. When I opened the app I saw that everywhere else it looked fine, so I double checked on Paku, a dedicated air quality app, and was staggered to see it at 884. What could possibly cause such a spike? Now, at bedtime, it’s back down to 20. A fluke in the technology, perhaps. I’m grateful to head to bed tonight a little bit wiser and a lot more at ease.

A Fulfilling Day

Oct26

It’s been a good Monday. The sun was out all day and the moon just past full shone in a clear sky tonight. After using a new inhaler for two days I’ve had great energy all day. It’s amazing what sufficient oxygen will do. I made a delicious sandwich for lunch, a riff on a kale reuben using what I had on hand (see below). I enjoyed some meaningful conversations. And I exercised my right to vote.

There was a spectacular rainbow yesterday afternoon, and I happened to step outside at just the right time. It lasted a good fifteen minutes or so as the clouds shifted around and through it. There was nothing else that felt more important than simply watching it.

Something only one person knows about me is that I don’t like library books. I love libraries, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve come to the realization recently that I don’t like their books. I think there’s been a subconscious aversion for a long time, which first began to manifest after I got a kindle paperwhite eight years ago. I began to enjoy not having a heavy book clunk me in the face when I fell asleep reading. Then Covid struck, and I surrendered to my peculiar brand of germ-phobia.

I’m fine with garden dirt, earthworms, forest detritus, decaying animal carcasses, etc., but I don’t like touching library books that dozens of people have handled with their potentially dirty hands. Imagine all the places your fingers have been when you read a book, and you probably never think to wash hands before you pick it up. I’m a compulsive hand-washer anyway, to a degree which I recognized immediately when I went onto water rations last month. Still rationing, by the way! and very hopeful for a final resolution tomorrow.

Fresh sourdough yesterday

When Covid came along (I know it’s airborne but it heightened my awareness of germ transmission in general) I found myself taking an alcohol wipe to the cover of any library book, and I still couldn’t shake the gut-level discomfort of picking it up and turning its pages. So except in book club emergencies, I’ll avoid a library book. It’s a visceral reaction that affects only me, so I indulge it without much questioning.

I didn’t have sauerkraut for the reuben so I made coleslaw with cabbage and carrot I grew specifically to make coleslaw: garden wisdom says “grow what you love to eat.”

In a similar way, I had a visceral reaction to one of the statutory measures on the Colorado ballot that I filled out this morning, Proposition 133, proposing a mandatory life sentence for human trafficking of a minor. The crime turns my stomach and my gut reaction was to vote yes. But because my gut reaction on this issue could affect many others and not me, discernment was required so I delved deeper. It was the only measure I had any uncertainty about when I read through them on the Blue Voter Guide the first time and saw that most organizations whose endorsements I respect recommended a NO vote. None recommended Yes, and only two had no opinion, the Bell Policy Center and Western Colorado Alliance.

The official drop box at Crawford town hall. I filmed my deposit out of an abundance of caution, and will be checking emails frequently until I receive notice it’s been received. I never used to think twice about the security of my ballot.

Both said essentially the same thing, which instantly solidified my NO vote: There’s no exception for victims of sex trafficking who are sometimes forced to participate in recruiting or managing other victims; legal experts concur that it would not “meaningfully reduce the prevalence of child sex trafficking”; and “Judges, not lawmakers or voters, should determine an offender’s sentence. This measure takes away discretion from legal professionals who are intimately acquainted with cases and are better able to thoughtfully assess facts and culpability.”

I sautéed the last handful of kale along with garlic and red onion, all from the garden…

Another measure that forced some extra discernment is Proposition 137, which on its surface looks like a good revenue reallocation for conservation. But the organizations were split in their recommendations, with more endorsing NO than Yes. On this one I went with the Center for Biological Diversity‘s reasoning, and voted NO. Hidden in the conservation claims is the result that “it would actually allow for expanded logging and road building throughout Colorado’s forests.” Nope. We just don’t need more roads through the woods. Not good for wildlife. So another gut reaction, after some discernment.

…sliced some havarti…

Bottom line, I found the Blue Voter Guide extremely helpful in filling out my ballot, because it offers links to the reasoning behind the endorsements of so many organizations. For the record, Colorado Indivisible and the League of Women Voters both recommend voting YES on Proposition NN and Amendment 87, and NO on everything else. So if you have not voted yet, YOU BETTAH VOTE this week, and check out the guide to inform yourself and maybe switch up some gut reactions. If you haven’t already mailed your ballot and you’re voting early, you probably want to use an official drop box or deliver it in person.

…lightly spread the insides of the bread with mayonnaise and toasted them in the pan, before laying on the cheese, and the mixed kale and coleslaw, then grilling the sandwich til the cheese was perfectly melted.

Back to libraries: I still love and support my local public library! I keep my card current and use it on the eLibrary Libby, donate to Friends of the Library with an annual membership, and donate good quality books to their Cabin Fever Book Sale. I’m meeting some friends for coffee there this week, to enjoy the community-tended garden and as one of them said, “our being there and having fun would be good enticement for patrons.” Our rural county library has struggled through the decades I’ve lived here, due to county cuts and intermittent low patronage. But it’s always enjoyed remarkable community support and a committed and caring staff, and it’s an indispensable technology resource for many people in our neck of the woods.

Wren napping between my knees during a brief rest in a fulfilling day.

Can a Zebra Change Its Stripes?

Oct23

I’ve discovered my new favorite shortbread. I saved this zebra-striped shortbread recipe from Bon Appétit years ago but had never made it, and was looking for a special cookie for my personal shopper and his boss, who loves shortbread most of all. It wasn’t exactly simple, but it was pretty easy, and so delicious.

You mix the dry ingredients in two bowls, just flour and salt in one, and swap out a third cup flour for cocoa powder in the other. Once you’ve beaten the butter, sugars, egg yolk, and vanilla you split that into two equal parts and then mix the vanilla batch first, then the chocolate batch. Then you layer them, roll them, and chill them.

Once chilled, you brush each log all over with egg (I just used the white from the yolk in the dough), roll them in sanding sugar, and slice (as evenly as possible). Then pop them in the oven. Even if I opt not to go through the zebra striping process again, leaving out the cocoa, I’m going to make the dough otherwise the same. It came out so tender but not crumbly, and so tasty.

Just one more word about corruption, from Ta-Nehisi Coates; and then, an antidote if you’ve got 17 more minutes. Check out this inspiring short film about the Ground Game, featuring key candidates in battleground states and their massive grassroots support from volunteers. I am enthusiastically but also cautiously hopeful about democrats taking back the House and Senate this midterm after watching it. Mainstream/legacy media simply have not covered the millions of Americans who’ve been fighting for democracy since the last election, since the scale of the Republican president’s moral turpitude and staggering corruption have smeared themselves through our lives, leaving us all with some degree of moral injury. There really is a ground game, and we are certainly winning that. We’ve got the numbers to flip some seats, if only enough people bother to vote!

Balancing

Oct22

There used to be a nice bird feeder hanging in this tree. I glanced at it from the patio this morning as I always do, and saw that it needed filling, but when I came down with a scoop of seeds the feeder was nowhere to be found! Obviously it hadn’t been there two minutes before: whatever I’d seen was an optical illusion or my imagination filling in a habitual expectation. Ironically, I had just gotten frustrated with it a few days ago because the handle had bent, making the lid hard to open. I thought maybe a squirrel had been worrying it. But to find the stout twig it hung from broken off and the feeder disappeared, my best guess is a bear ran off with it. Several thoughts clambered through my head. I hope he didn’t get a paw stuck in the handle, or worse a head… but no, it was too small an opening for a head… I’m sorry it was probably empty at the time so it wasn’t even worth her effort… do I buy a new one? …bears are having a rough season…

Climate chaos is affecting bears severely this year, report several sources including The Colorado Sun, and this one in The Guardian. “In Colorado, there have been more than 8,600 reports of bear sightings and incidents this year, more than twice as many as last year, according to the state parks and wildlife department. The agency has euthanized 294 bears, three times the 2025 amount.” This isn’t news to most of us living in the rural west, even in towns. A killing freeze in the spring plus extreme drought depleted their natural food supplies throughout the west, and they’ve been coming out of the woods desperate. My neighbor lost her gas grill to a bear last month. But I have not seen a bear yet this year, and I’ve never seen one in my yard. The article goes on to say that “there have been 10 confirmed bear attacks in Colorado, the highest number on record…. In August in New Mexico, which also has had more bear encounters this year, one killed a 67-year-old wildland firefighter inside his home.”

This much larger broken limb likely came down in a recent storm. The woods are so green right now. Another neighbor reported nearly an inch of rain since yesterday, starting shortly after the little ones and I took a nice long ramble. I knew we were in for a few wet days.

Verdure everywhere, mosses, grasses, weeds…

I’m grateful for the respite of the woods, and I’m keeping my eyes open for bears. I’m trying to keep up with the horrors happening and also keep things in perspective. It takes all my mindfulness skills to get through every day, and using them I’m cultivating resilience. Horrors have happened as long as there have been humans, near as anyone can tell. While I pray that they will one day cease when enough people wake up, I have no expectations. This week I read of this new film about the genocide in Gaza asking the question: How do human beings explain taking part in genocide? It was chilling and enlightening.

Then since my loins were already girded for horrors, I read this interview with Mirjana Spoljaric, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross – not your local disaster relief Red Cross. It’s a long read, but well worth spending the time with her compassion, wisdom, and insights. “Today you get the feeling that war becomes the means to an end itself, and wars continue because people want to stay in power. They have created an environment where war becomes the condition under which they can continue ruling, and that’s very dangerous. You ask me whether we are approaching a third world war. Honestly, history will judge that. History books will tell us whether today we were already in the beginning, or maybe already in the middle of such a situation. The I.C.R.C. didn’t know that we were in the Second World War when it was happening.”

On a potentially more comfortable note, I enjoyed this article exploring the four foundations of mindfulness in the garden, especially resonating with the first foundation, mindfulness of body in being aware of one’s movements and postures while gardening, as well as the sensory experience of working in soil, and the various facets of beauty in the garden, like these Sunfired Flare tomatoes which came on very late in summer, and came off the vine with a lot of skin damage I suspect was inflicted by insects. They sat on the counter a long time ripening after I picked them while I pondered the best way to use them. Finally I just cut and roasted them the other day, and squeezed them out of the skins easily. I used some in a batch of beans for burritos, which I like to make in bulk and freeze for a quick meal. I was glad to have some homegrown onions, too, and used up the last white and yellow onions along with a red one in the beans. The rest of the reds I’ll probably pickle.

An interview I listened to while cooking was with Dr. Jeremy Faust explaining what ER doctors are actually looking for when you show up there, and why he thinks the 1-10 pain scale is pretty much useless. I know I’ll now have a better sense of how to answer questions if I ever end up in an Emergency Room again, and also the next time I see my nice new primary care provider.

Walking in the woods, puttering or working in the garden, cooking and cleaning the kitchen, these activities ground me in what is real and true, help me see reality clearly. And even with the rich reality of my grounded life, I can feel my attention being subtly sucked by the insidious tendrils of algorithms. I’m sorry to admit that I spend more time playing NYT word games and scrolling Instagram now than I did a year ago. It’s a way to escape the horrors of the distillation of power and money to the oligarchs, but the escape itself is a delusion. Christopher Armitage explains the whys and hows in his article ‘Fracking Attention and Strip-Mining Mental Health’. It’s uncomfortable but it offers some small sense of agency going forward in how I spend my attention budget. And it’s been a mindfulness tenet for millennia that where we place our attention forms our world view.

In my house growing up, the only time sour cream ever showed up was when mom made beef stroganoff. I picked up a childish aversion to sour cream because my parents seemed to avoid it, and besides it just sounded all wrong. It’s one of many foods I developed a taste for years later. It’s been many years since I’ve had any kind of stroganoff, and when I saw this recipe for mushroom stroganoff I replenished my sour cream supply and whipped up a quick batch. So simple, so delicious!

And on a differently uncomfortable note speaking of food, this article ranging through the Dark Nutrition movement offers plenty of food for a flite of thoughts. Alexandra Petri once again skewers our times with her satire on ‘humanitarian’ and other words that have lost their meaning in the Trumpscape. And in other doublespeak news, Texas senate candidate Ken Paxton appears to be guilty of voter fraud.

Prickly pear pads plump and round with recent rains…

My practice is all about balancing external influences and internal knowing in an everchanging landscape of uncertainty day by day, minute by minute, breath by breath.

Blue for Green

Oct19
If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.
ROBIN WALL KIMMERER

One way we can do that, maybe, is to counter the six cults described by Chris Murphy in his book Crisis of the Common Good, shared by my friend Ted Leach in his blog today. The cults are Profit, Consumption, Globalism, Technology, Credentialism, and Corruption. Not quite the Seven Deadly Sins, but getting there.

I’m grateful that one of my slothful habits turns out to be “an accessible and low-cost protective factor across the lifespan” for my brain! “A growing body of research” indicates that reading for pleasure by children can improve attention and executive function, and by adults lower stress and increase cognitive function; in both, it improves mental health. I could have told you that last bit! In more good medical news, it looks like coffee, even decaf, supports gut health and potentially cognitive health.

I did something different with this week’s sourdough, shaping in a banneton, rising overnight in the cool mudroom, and baking on a sheetpan instead of in a Dutch oven. This resulted in a much thicker crust, and could have used a few fewer minutes in the oven. Or maybe a lower temperature.

What else improves my mental health is the Great British Baking Show. It’s back on for its 17th season, the last twelve of which are available on Netflix. Four episodes down, and even though it was disastrous for most of the bakers this week it’s still the most feel-good show on TV. Yes, it’s a competition, yes there is nail-biting anxiety during some of the challenges -ok, most of them- but it’s a show that cultivates the kind of connections mentioned as an antidote to the destructive cults above. And there is Alison Hammond, an ebullient host whose chemistry with quirky comedian Noel Fielding keeps contestants in good spirits no matter what. And now there’s Nigella Lawson, too.

And, there is Paul Hollywood’s eyes.

On the home front, I’m grateful for snow in the mountains, and another small harvest from the garden. And I mean small! I planted four cabbages in the spring, which were supposed to mature in sixty days or so, and it took them all summer and into fall to be ready to pick. They were supposed to be small, but not this small. I picked all the green tomatoes, too, the evening before we had a hard freeze. Every year the garden is one experiment after another. I’m grateful for all the professional growers in our valley.

I’m grateful for a kindred spirit in my friend who came for a walk and tea on a sunny day after the freeze and the rain. While we bundled for the walk, by the time we turned for home we’d shed our jackets, and then we enjoyed a leisurely pot of tea by the pond. She’s been working hard to save democracy after founding our Indivisible chapter a decade ago, and is still going strong. She led the local “Vote Early” action for No Kings Day last Saturday, which nationwide was a historic success.

If you want to vote to protect our environment, our democracy, and an America for all the people instead of a select few, check out the Blue Voter Guide. Type in your address, which isn’t saved and is used only to locate your ballot choices, and you can see all your candidates and ballot initiatives, along with all the organizations endorsing each side of the issue. I found it helpful for most of the issues, but am still left scratching my head over a couple of them. More research needed before I cast my ballot later this week.

Wren and Elena both very fashionable in their pink neckwear.
Cleaning up the patio today after having brought in all the houseplants, I noticed something in the adobe wall and had to wonder, Did I do this? It’s possible, but I don’t think I did… Who carefully placed this flat stone in the hole in the wall? And by who, I mean what kind of creature, bird or rodent or…?

I do know that I did this, however. I’m so glad and relieved to have finally completed the insulated window coverings for the sunroom! I hung the final panel on Saturday. Stay tuned for the whole Warm Windows story, a remarkable quarter century in the making.