Dr. Strangemom (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the blog)

No Dryer, No Peace!

Finally. I have a sign for the march this week.

"No Dryer, No Peace!"

Yes, it will confuse people. But the message will go to the heart of the true enemy: Sears Appliance Repair. They're gonna feel me. 

Two weeks. Two weeks without a working dryer. Five cancellations. Two actual visits where the dryer died, literally, hours after the technician left. Monies paid. Fourteen phone calls, eleven without my saying "fuck", and you know how much that had to take out of me. 

The phone conversations were very problematic. I had to ask everyone to repeat their names, sometimes twice and three times. Now, if you are a progressive liberal like I am who believes strongly in the words on the Statue of Liberty, it is very uncomfortable to have to ask a person with a heavy accent to repeat what they are saying. I really wish Emma Lazarus had added a clarification in The New Colossus:

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses who clearly enunciate consonants yearning to breathe free

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore; send these - the homeless, tempest-tossed to me and please ask them to speak slowly. I raise my lamp and the volume of my phone beside the golden door.

I felt compelled to justify my liberal cred each time I asked someone to repeat their name.

"Um, I swear to God, you are welcome in this country and I will fight for immigration rights for you and your people. I went door-to-door with my mom in 1964 for California's Fair Housing Act and I can recite the words on the Statue of Liberty by heart; in fact, I can sing you the song with the lyrics that I learned in the Jewish Secular Progressive school my parents sent me to - yeah, I'm Jewish - so, really, you and I are the same because my grandparents were immigrants, just like you. And, believe me, talk about not being able to understand their English! Oh my God, my fucking God, my grandfather was all, "vait a meenoot, chust a secont, it's only tree-tirty in deh o'cloock". 

"But could you please spell out what you just told me because - and I am really sorry - I don't understand anything you are saying. Go Hillary!"

God. It is really hard to be a sensitive liberal.

And I still do not have a working dryer.

It is really hard to be a sensitive, globally-aware, entitlement-aware, Jewish-guiltridden, liberal who knows that much of the world doesn't even have a dryer and that people with accents are working harder than anyone to be understood and they are probably subjected to hearing all sorts of insults, and that all efforts truly need to be focussed on Trump and his flying monkeys and the asshole Republican Congresspeople who are dismantling democracy.

But.

We are out of towels.

And all I have left to wear after two weeks of snow and dogs and ice and no power and BBQing outside in the snow and soot are button-fly jeans. And if there is anything to make me feel like life is not worth living, it's wearing button-fly jeans when I am housebound. God. I am too fat to wear these. Right now, they are unbuttoned and held up by an old guitar strap because fuck me.

So, yeah.

Come Saturday, I am going to pull up my unbuttoned guitar-strap jeans and I will go to the march and I will hold up my "No Dryer, No Peace!" sign. And the world will rise to the level of kindness and justice for all, and we will have single payer health insurance and women's reproductive rights and PoC will never fear for their lives again and we will have equality for every single person in the universe.

Saturday!

Oh, shit. Wait.

Saturday. That's the day Sears said they can send a repairperson. I'm not leaving my house.

 

The Very Angry American

Once upon a time, there was A Very Angry American.

In September, she donated one hundred dollars to ActBlue

but she was Still Angry.

In October, she made two hundred phone calls for Hillary

but she was Sill Angry.

In November, she convinced three undecided voters to vote Democratic, but treason won over reason and Trump won, and she was Still Angry.

In December, she signed four bajillion Facebook petitions and blocked five FB friends who told her to chill out,

but she was Still Angry.

In January, she gained six pounds from stress eating, made approximately seven phone calls a day to various people in government, never slept eight hours a night anymore because she was too worked up, and made plans with nine friends to go to the March Against Trump, but she was Still Angry.

She did some Yoga, bought a larger size of elastic-waisted leggings, made a pot of lentil soup and climbed into bed for a power nap.

She dreamed metamorphosisal dreams of equality and peace and kindness and when she woke up, she was no longer A Very Angry American.

Well, yeah, of course she still was angry because Trump and the motherfucker Republicans in Congress. But her anger gave her hope. And energy. And an idea for a really good sign to hold in the march.

And she got out of bed.

And there were cookies baking in the oven. 

And she ate one cookie.

And she was ready to face the next four years.

 

In Search of Morning Wood. But It's Not What You Think.

5:30 am. Thursday.

I wake up in pitch darkness, teeth chattering. 

The fireplace is empty, save for a few glowing embers. We ran out of firewood around 2AM. It's snowing outside and we have no heat. The power has been out for, like, a million days. Or two days. I have no idea anymore. I feel weak and confused. I reach for the wineglass I drained at midnight. There are a few crumbs of chocolate cake in it. But not for long.

It's very dark down here in the lower floor of my split-level house. The only light - dim and flickering -   comes from the yarzheit memorial candle I have from my mom's funeral last April, and which I lit last night when I was trying to discern the difference between Robin's nighttime meds and the bottle of Imodium I spilled on the bathroom counter. I can make out Imodium by feel (ancestral knowledge) but Robin was nervous and insisted on lighting the candle because his meds need to, I don't know, keep him alive since his cancer. God, Robin totally sweats the small stuff. After he comes back with coffee that he made me outside in the snow on the BBQ, and finds the creamer he buried in the snow last night because the refrigerator isn't working, I am totally going to talk to him about being a more chill person.

No heat. No light. No way to cook. No hot water. Almost a foot of snow under a layer of ice. No snowplows available. The PGE truck caught on fire and they don't know when another one will be found to restore our power. We are unshowered. We are cold. We are a little bit buzzed from the wine we're drinking for strength. The dogs are covered in snow and they're snuggling up to us for warmth, so now we're soaking and everything stinks like wet dog. The dryer broke a week ago but the repairperson can't get here to fix it on account of the snow, and even if he could get here, we have no electricity so it's all moot and dismal and bullshit, anyway. The world is mean and dank and hopeless, and nobody cares about you.

This is exactly how I've imagined life under Trump is going to be. Except without the coffee. Because I won't want to be awake.

Brothers and sisters: I have seen the future. The next years are going to be dark and cold; you're gonna be constipated, everything is going to smell like wet dog and your dryer will be broken.

Oh, and you'll be out of firewood. Which we are right now.

Word is, there is still some to be found at Wal-Mart. 

Wal-Mart?  Lord, why do you test me?

I have never been to a Wal-Mart. Just as I have never been to a public execution or eaten at a KFC or donated to the Salvation Army, or visited a vomitorium. And just as my parents refused to go to Knott's Berry Farm, or buy any Welch's products or bitch slap a kitten. I hold all these things to be equal. I do not traffic with union-busting, homophobic, women-shaming reactionaries. I have no truck with the devil.

But firewood. But heat.

But Wal-Mart.

Sophie's choice.

If this were my novel and I wrote, "just as we approached the turn for Wal-Mart, I got a text saying that the power was back on", you would slam the novel shut and spit on it. Just at that moment, indeed. You would call Deus ex machina bullshit on me and write a bad review of me on amazon. And you would be justified.

But that is what happened. Hand to Deus.

Robin turned the car around and we went home, blasted the central heating, charged up the computers and resumed our Facebook Scrabble game from four days ago. Life was back to normal.

But I had seen the future; the post-inauguralyptic world. And brothers and sisters, just like my two beloved wet Poodles now sleeping soundly and farting silently on my bed as I write this, it stinks.

Power to the people.

 

 

 

  

No Blisters For The Resistors!

    Time to get out my marching boots.

    Gonna be doing a lot of protesting in the next four years. I'm dusting off my "End The War In Viet Nam" sign and filling my fanny pack with snacks and Advil. I'm ready. Just give me a little Wite-Out so I can change "Viet Nam" to "Trump Is a Lying Sack Of Deranged Hubris". Maybe a nice flower sticker for the "i" in "Hubris". Because love.

     Oh,and maybe I'll sneak a link to my blog on my sign. Boomer resisters have expendable cash (for now) and I wouldn't hate being monitized. Sturdy Easy Spirit boots are not cheap. And God knows what's going to happen with Social Security now. I need a Plan B.

    The problem with my marching boots, however, is that they aren't super comfortable for long marches. I mostly bought them to walk around Costco because that's at least a quarter mile, all told. Especially if you double back to the bakery to replace the demi baguette you ate while you were sampling the cheese dip. On chicken skewer sample days, when I have to walk around for a while in-between pretending to be a different person to get another skewer, my feet are killing me by the time I get in line. 

    Dr. Scholls should market a new product line for us Boomer Resistors. Pads and support gels for the protest marcher of a certain age. Knee braces in rainbow colors. Wrist supports for raising picket signs. Splints that hold up your middle finger as you march by Trump Tower. I believe there is going to be a serious market for this. Especially the middle finger splint. Since the election, I've had, like, four middle finger cramps just reading FB posts from people who want me to give Trump a chance. I am developing Fuck You Finger Arthritis. And with healthcare at the guillotine, I'm guessing that's not gonna be covered by insurance.

     I really need to get my shit together before January 20.

    For one thing, I expect to be at the front line so there will be photos taken and posted to FB and the FBI. And I just don't think I am going to convince FBI operatives to photograph me from above so as to disguise my double chin, but not from so high above that my bald spot shows. It has taken me, like, three years to show Robin how to do this successfully. This worries me no end. The last time I was a protestor being photographed by the FBI I had the beauty of youth on my side. And ponchos. And there was no fucking High Def to feature my uneven skin tone. I looked fabulous. You should go onto the FBI site and check me out.

    This time, all I have is my personality. God help the movement. 

    I am going to need:

    1. A better bra. Running from tear gas is painful enough without my boobs lagging behind.

    2. Reading glasses. I want to make sure they are not forgetting any of my Mirandas.

    3. Hand sanitizer. I am all for locking arms in solidarity but some of my radical brethren and sisters do not believe in vaccines, which, you know, Goddess bless and all, but until we get Single Payer, I'm not taking any chances.

    So. Here we go. Strap on your Fitbit. It's on.