They really are too good for the Royals, especially that creepy Uncle Andrew--and how could Elizabeth have loved this dilettantish pedophile more than thoughtful Charles?
Naturally Meghan and Harry announced their new role without asking Grandma first. Grannie's a queen, and queens tend to like to do things their own way. The queen's probably not evil, but if there's a grain of truth in The Crown, and I suspect there's at least a grain, then family feeling--all feeling--tends to be hardened into duty. Her idea of duty. During the Aberfan coal mine disaster of 1966, in which over a hundred children and many adults died, the queen delayed her visit to the village for eight days, and then, at least according to version of events depicted on The Crown, felt unable to feel any emotion-- or to do more than squeeze out a single fake tear. Her emotional life appears limited; she's apparently shut it down in order to do her duty. Meghan Markle, letting go of the Royals, remarked, "I really tried to adopt this British sensibility of a stiff upper lip. I
tried, I really tried. But I think that what that does internally is
probably really damaging.” Exactly. Elizabeth seems to have been willing to pay that price because she believed she had no alternative. What would have happened if Harry and Meghan had followed protocol and allowed her to make all arrangements? Letting her take the lead might have been like letting Tony Soprano sing. All her mechanisms for taking control, and I'm imagining the worst, like making it impossible to fly baby Archie to Canada, could have come into play. All in the service of the gigantically expensive institution that divides Britons the way Trump divides Americans. Harry and Meghan have imagination and talent. My money's on them as global ambassadors. Madame Tussaud's just dumped their wax figures. Petty, yeah--but underscores the point that these two are neither wax figures nor stuffed shirts--they're doers. I bet they'll do something wonderful.
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Monday, January 6, 2020
The German Dryer and How We Fixed it
The German dryer (a Miele, long-suffering, going on at least its eighteenth year) stopped drying things. My daughter and I gazed into its slightly malodorous innards, removed the still-wet towels, and tried to diagnose. Could she have forgotten to put in that weird triangular water-holder peculiar to the German dryer?
Like German forms, German taxes, German, dare I say, personalities, the German dryer is complicated. Could it, I asked softly, be suffering from the pillow that disgorged its feathers? My fault for washing the thing. And trying to dry it instead of hanging it out in the only occasionally sunny back yard.
But I'd vacuumed the dryer's innards. Or so I thought.
Between the instruction booklet, which we perused, and the faintly-remembered directions of a German friend who'd once fixed the thing, we figured out that you have to take a ruler or a screwdriver or some piece of plastic and pop open a rectangular door at the base of the dryer--a door, I hasten to add, that doesn't look like one, has no handle, and cannot be opened by pressing on one corner. We used a screwdriver. Behind that door was--guess what?--another door, modeled like the kind of wall you'd expect to see from the Soviet side of Berlin back in the day. Once we'd unlatched this second inner portcullis, we found a contraption the size of a toaster--in fact, it looked as though it wanted to be a toaster--filled with damp dust bunnies and feathers.
The manual said one was supposed to empty and clean this thingamajig around every six months. Today was the second time in its very long career, one filled with sand and chewing gum, that it had been cleaned.
We were calculating dryer prices before I cleaned the thing. I didn't expect our poor mistreated dryer to work, ever again, clean or not. I also thought I'd probably broken the vacuum cleaner by forcing it to inhale damp stuff. But German machines are tough enough to endure American incompetence and forge ahead. And this one has.
Yay! I wonder how many more years our poor dryer will put up with us? My German friends have calculated a total life span of approximately twenty-five years. That is one tough machine. A Miele, folks. The kind that beats Maytag any day.
Like German forms, German taxes, German, dare I say, personalities, the German dryer is complicated. Could it, I asked softly, be suffering from the pillow that disgorged its feathers? My fault for washing the thing. And trying to dry it instead of hanging it out in the only occasionally sunny back yard.
But I'd vacuumed the dryer's innards. Or so I thought.
Between the instruction booklet, which we perused, and the faintly-remembered directions of a German friend who'd once fixed the thing, we figured out that you have to take a ruler or a screwdriver or some piece of plastic and pop open a rectangular door at the base of the dryer--a door, I hasten to add, that doesn't look like one, has no handle, and cannot be opened by pressing on one corner. We used a screwdriver. Behind that door was--guess what?--another door, modeled like the kind of wall you'd expect to see from the Soviet side of Berlin back in the day. Once we'd unlatched this second inner portcullis, we found a contraption the size of a toaster--in fact, it looked as though it wanted to be a toaster--filled with damp dust bunnies and feathers.
The manual said one was supposed to empty and clean this thingamajig around every six months. Today was the second time in its very long career, one filled with sand and chewing gum, that it had been cleaned.
We were calculating dryer prices before I cleaned the thing. I didn't expect our poor mistreated dryer to work, ever again, clean or not. I also thought I'd probably broken the vacuum cleaner by forcing it to inhale damp stuff. But German machines are tough enough to endure American incompetence and forge ahead. And this one has.
Yay! I wonder how many more years our poor dryer will put up with us? My German friends have calculated a total life span of approximately twenty-five years. That is one tough machine. A Miele, folks. The kind that beats Maytag any day.
Thursday, January 2, 2020
Dinner for One: a New Twist
This year I thought about Miss Sophie outliving all her boyfriends. But she does just what any bereaved woman naturally does--I've been doing a great deal of this myself--she talks to the dear departed (even gets her butler to talk to them!) I talk to photos of my husband, I talk to him when I feel the urge as I'm cooking or when I wake up or when I'm taking a walk. I still feel mildly surprised that he doesn't answer, but my one-sided conversation reminds me of how nice it felt when he was listening, smiling, answering, asking questions of his own. To have outlived four serious boyfriends and still get a bang, so to speak, out of the butler bespeaks a certain fortitude, a heroism, a feminist triumph even. Miss Sophie was never crushed by grief--one feels that in her quiet comments on the soup and her decisiveness about the wine. She's a woman who has learned to live with sadness and make the most of what she has. My Southern father used to say, "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear," but what else has Miss Sophie done with James?
And finally Netflix has its own version of this gem. I with I'd bought myself one of those "Dinner for One" coffee mugs I saw on the way home today . . . I can just see pouring myself a little red wine in one of those while watching this:
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
When Advertising and Billing Don't Connect
We're rolling through a lovely landscape on our way to see lovely relatives, but the latest Christmas mail was the last thing I expected. The company that rented my recently-deceased husband his oxygen tanks, which we informed of his death in November, and which sent three servicemen, all of whom offered condolences, to pick up leftover tanks and a breathing apparatus, just sent a ten-percent-off special with the last bill we have to pay. You would think some office worker or administrator might have registered the fact that we no longer need oxygen products--especially not those featuring a cheerful elderly gent holding red Christmas tree ornaments, apparently thrilled to be offered a whole ten percent off his next set of tanks. His grin radiates the kind of excitement I associate with men and football games. Speaking of which, my husband loved football. I hated it, but loved to watch him watching it. Tossing the ten-percent special into the trash, I think how he'd have found the incident amusing, and I smile instead of crying. He would have raised a glass of red wine with me and laughed. I hope that wherever he is, he can still laugh.
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Impeachment Notes
Impeachment was once tried on Trumpster
He burped and transferred to a dumpster
The U.S. of A
Which I'm happy to say
I left when I still was a youngster.
I'm going to bed now, hoping that some miracle will occur, that Republicans will side with Democrats and dump President Unmentionable.
Sweet dreams to all.
He burped and transferred to a dumpster
The U.S. of A
Which I'm happy to say
I left when I still was a youngster.
I'm going to bed now, hoping that some miracle will occur, that Republicans will side with Democrats and dump President Unmentionable.
Sweet dreams to all.
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
The Mouse in My House
A tail glimpsed in the living room.
"Are you sure that's what you saw?"
Yes, my teenager was sure. I remember my husband setting traps ten years ago when we'd seen a little brown mouse charge in from the garden. We'd left our glass door open. And the traps snapped on the necks of the little gullibles who'd gone for the sliver of cheese. My husband swung the furry things at me and got a kick out of my scream.
But this time is different. I can't set traps. Doing laundry down in the cellar, I turned to see a sudden brown beady eye. I gasped, grabbed a plastic bucket, and escorted the very tiny critter out to the garden, where I sincerely hoped some predator would consume it in one gulp.
Today the exterminator came with his orange labels, his plastic boxes, his bait that looks tasty and "contains anti-coagulants."
"They'll dry out," he explains, "but they won't stink." The only thing, he adds cautiously, is that you might, say, find one in a corner. Or pull out a book from the shelf only to discover a desiccated critter.
"But, ewwww," I say.
He smiles. Mr. Experience. I remembered a song of my youth:
"Are you sure that's what you saw?"
Yes, my teenager was sure. I remember my husband setting traps ten years ago when we'd seen a little brown mouse charge in from the garden. We'd left our glass door open. And the traps snapped on the necks of the little gullibles who'd gone for the sliver of cheese. My husband swung the furry things at me and got a kick out of my scream.
But this time is different. I can't set traps. Doing laundry down in the cellar, I turned to see a sudden brown beady eye. I gasped, grabbed a plastic bucket, and escorted the very tiny critter out to the garden, where I sincerely hoped some predator would consume it in one gulp.
Today the exterminator came with his orange labels, his plastic boxes, his bait that looks tasty and "contains anti-coagulants."
"They'll dry out," he explains, "but they won't stink." The only thing, he adds cautiously, is that you might, say, find one in a corner. Or pull out a book from the shelf only to discover a desiccated critter.
"But, ewwww," I say.
He smiles. Mr. Experience. I remembered a song of my youth:
Friday, November 29, 2019
Comfort Food: The Critical Mom's Recommendation
 |
| Comfort Food |
For this dinner, I made pesto for the vegetarians and, for the vegan, stir-fried Shiitake mushrooms, snow peas, and tomatoes, in olive oil with a liberal smattering of crushed garlic. Whole wheat pasta and red wine make the whole thing prettier and taste great, too. An economic and soul-soothing meal.
Sunday, November 24, 2019
The Critical Mom's Eulogy: Thinking about the Loss of a Good Man
I met Josef at the MLA convention—a gathering of
academics seeking jobs and showing off—in Chicago, in 1990. I wasn’t expecting
much. My good friend, like me a graduate student hoping to score at least one job
offer, had met Josef at a layover on the way to the MLA. She told me he’d
flirted with her.
“I’m married,” Susan told him, “But you should meet my friend Melissa.”
As we entered our overpriced hotel room, our feet freezing in the sub-zero
Great Lakes climate, Susan confided, “I’ve met the perfect guy for you!”
Oh, no, I thought, but did not say. Susan, very ambitious on my behalf, had
already introduced me to several “perfect guys,” all of whom did not seem
anywhere near as perfect to me as they did to her.
On one occasion at a dinner party specifically arranged for me to meet yet
another absolutely husband-material-great-character-smart, kind, just for you
type, Susan’s husband took a photo of me and the guy.
“They look like an advertisement for marital counseling,” he said. Side by
side, the guy and I were looking in opposite directions, our legs crossed in
opposite directions.
So I was anything but enthusiastic when Susan announced yet another perfect
catch, adding that she’d already arranged for us to meet the following morning.
“What?” I said. I was hoping she’d just hand me his phone number, which I could
discreetly lose.
Instead, she’d planned a day with him and his friends (oh, good, his friends
will be there, I thought, diluting any romance) at the Chicago Art Museum.
Susan and I went off to meet them on the lower level of the Chicago Hyatt.
She spotted Josef at the bottom of the escalators and gestured for him to stay
there, but as we descended, he ascended. We passed each other on those
escalators moving in opposite directions, and a thrill went through me. He was
definitely the handsomest man I’d ever laid eyes on—the blue eyes, the light
brown curls, the gentle grin, the beret rakishly tilted to one side, the
leather jacket. The voice. I fell in love on the spot. Everyone I knew asked me
how this relationship could possibly work. He was a devout Bavarian Catholic
and I was a New Yorker without a Catholic background. But we believed in the
same things. We just labeled our beliefs differently.
Unfortunately, we continued to move in opposite directions for the next few
years—he was in California and I was in New York. The course of true love never
does run smooth, but I’m so glad we finally did get together.
We had a
wonderful Bavarian wedding, in which Josef, dressed as Arnold Schwarzenegger,
rescued me, his bride, abducted to another building, where I sat around singing
American folk songs with his cousin Anton until Josef arrived with a water pump
gun, spraying Anton. I remember drinking quite a lot of champagne, dancing
until a friend advised me to watch out for a being whom she referred to as
“little Siegfried,” who turned out to be my oldest son, who was five months
along and did just fine. As did his brother and sister.
I’m losing my husband, my best friend, my heart. I can’t imagine a better man.
Here are some of my favorite lines from Shakespeare about the loss of a loved
one:
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
If Josef had to die, then his last fully lived day,
November ninth, was appropriate as his exit. For Josef, November 9 was the day
the Berlin wall fell—and he was a man devoted to breaking down barriers and
boundaries, and fostering conversations between different kinds of people. He
will be sorely missed. In the midst of mourning, I can celebrate having enjoyed
twenty-one years with a guy who was madly in love with me and I with him.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
This is the Way We Say Goodbye: Living Until the Last Minute
It's a luxury, being able to say goodbye at all. I tell myself that it's better to have loved and lost but the losing goes on, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. We hold hands and talk of mortgages, taxes, the damp spot in the guest bedroom wall that needs repair.
The young doctor comes in, yanks at his stethoscope, asks, "What was your profession?" My husband and I look at each other. The past tense hangs around a man still living, still breathing, still practicing his profession--a dissertation lies on his hospital table. We read the fine print on the pharmacy description of the chemo we've been told has "no side effects," and find listed among numerous "unintentional results" the word "death." We laugh because we're crying.
"It's just death," we say, "just death!"
We talk of the suddenly vegan child, who last week demanded I buy him chicken ("I had to buy a Döner I was so hungry!") but who now does not wish to consume said chicken. We smile. We wish we could go on having our little talks and jokes about things the children are doing, what kind of wine we're having with dinner, and what we'll watch when we've gotten to the end of The Crown. We gloat over the kids again, toting up their successes, reminiscing about them, about the beginning of the romance, about love. We go back to small talk and holding hands, each of us afraid he's going to die tomorrow.
And then he does, when I'm not there, but at least I'd read him the 23rd psalm in English and in German. I'm told his departure was fast and painless.
The young doctor comes in, yanks at his stethoscope, asks, "What was your profession?" My husband and I look at each other. The past tense hangs around a man still living, still breathing, still practicing his profession--a dissertation lies on his hospital table. We read the fine print on the pharmacy description of the chemo we've been told has "no side effects," and find listed among numerous "unintentional results" the word "death." We laugh because we're crying.
"It's just death," we say, "just death!"
We talk of the suddenly vegan child, who last week demanded I buy him chicken ("I had to buy a Döner I was so hungry!") but who now does not wish to consume said chicken. We smile. We wish we could go on having our little talks and jokes about things the children are doing, what kind of wine we're having with dinner, and what we'll watch when we've gotten to the end of The Crown. We gloat over the kids again, toting up their successes, reminiscing about them, about the beginning of the romance, about love. We go back to small talk and holding hands, each of us afraid he's going to die tomorrow.
And then he does, when I'm not there, but at least I'd read him the 23rd psalm in English and in German. I'm told his departure was fast and painless.
Sunday, October 27, 2019
Make Chicken Great Again--a Recipe Fit for a Functioning Adult
Serve it with Veuve Cliquot Yellow Label if Nancy Pelosi wins:
Buy a corn-fed chicken or a bunch of chicken breasts or chicken thighs. Salt and pepper them--or add the rub of your choice (I recommend one with sea salt, garlic, paprika, parsley, caraway seeds, Fenugreek, marjoram, nutmeg, chili powder). But anything you like. Salt and pepper are the only essentials.
Put chicken in a baking dish in the fridge overnight, or at least a couple of hours. The skin will be crispier when you bake it.
About half an hour before you want to bake the bird, remove it from the fridge and put it on a plate. Pour a few tablespoons of olive oil into the baking dish and add the following:
coarsely chopped red onion
coarsely chopped white onion
at least half a cup of cherry tomatoes
two small sliced zucchini (or bell peppers, any shade. Or both)
slices of lemon--use a whole, large lemon
drained, pitted black or green olives
drained artichoke hearts
Stir the ingredients so that they're covered with the olive oil, put the chicken on top and bake at about 430ºF or 220ºC for about an hour. Enjoy with rice or potatoes. And the hope of a newer, nicer POTUS.
Buy a corn-fed chicken or a bunch of chicken breasts or chicken thighs. Salt and pepper them--or add the rub of your choice (I recommend one with sea salt, garlic, paprika, parsley, caraway seeds, Fenugreek, marjoram, nutmeg, chili powder). But anything you like. Salt and pepper are the only essentials.
Put chicken in a baking dish in the fridge overnight, or at least a couple of hours. The skin will be crispier when you bake it.
About half an hour before you want to bake the bird, remove it from the fridge and put it on a plate. Pour a few tablespoons of olive oil into the baking dish and add the following:
coarsely chopped red onion
coarsely chopped white onion
at least half a cup of cherry tomatoes
two small sliced zucchini (or bell peppers, any shade. Or both)
slices of lemon--use a whole, large lemon
drained, pitted black or green olives
drained artichoke hearts
Stir the ingredients so that they're covered with the olive oil, put the chicken on top and bake at about 430ºF or 220ºC for about an hour. Enjoy with rice or potatoes. And the hope of a newer, nicer POTUS.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Adventures of the 98-Year-Old Narcissistic Mom, Part One Thousand
So bad it's good: She sent (I give her credit for her handwriting--spidery, but legible) a Get-Well card to my husband. He's Catholic, and it's a Happy Hanukkah card featuring a menorah assembled from dreidels--one she's sent before on numerous occasions.
She must have bought a gross of those Happy Hanukkah cards. Seems to me she sent one as a first communion card to my firstborn.
In this card, she advises my husband that she thinks I must be "stuffing" him with "vitamins" and hopes he's feeling better, but remarks that she thinks "what you need" is a trip to the city in which she resides, because "we have vitamins too!" I did mention to her that he's in the hospital, but I give her credit for probably not remembering because of her age.
But to tell the truth, when she was forty or fifty years younger, she also didn't remember stuff like this.
She would love a visit from us. In each and every one of our phone conversations of the past few months I have apologized for not being able to visit her right now because my husband's lungs are seriously compromised and I need to take care of him. What I haven't told her is that he has lung cancer on top of two other lung diseases.
She sends "lotsa love," encloses photos of my children as toddlers (they're teens and young adults now) and demands photos from us.
"I hope you'll be feeling better and better," she tells my husband.
Then there's another card. He's had a birthday, and she's commemorating that occasion. Brownie points for remembering at all. This card says, "Long may you thrive!" and is decorated with hearts and exclamation points. If you didn't know, you might think she was his girlfriend. A position she tended to assume with any boyfriend of mine she liked before I was married. And now, since she likes my husband . . . well, thank goodness she's 98 and lives very far away indeed.
I think I'll pour myself another glass of red wine right about now.
P.S. Finished that one. Reaching for the bottle. I'd forgotten the punchline. I phoned the 98-year-old because lately she's been bragging about a gift she made to Ivy League University X, which she attended in her glory days. "They even gave me an annuity!" she crowed--a remark leading me to believe the gift is large, and indeed it is, she confirms: "They'll get a whole lot more when I die!"
Here was our recent conversation:
Me: "Mom, since my son B. is applying to Ivy League University X, it would be good to know how much you gave them. Do you remember?"
Mom: "Let me look it up." (absent for five minutes. Rustling, crashing sounds. She returns).
"So, you'd like to know how much money you'll get when I die?"
Me: "No, Mom. That's not what I asked. Since B is applying. . . . " (I repeat myself).
Mom: "Can I call you back?"
Me: "Sure!" (I assume she won't call)
Ten minutes go by. The phone rings.
Me: "Hello?"
Mom: "I just found my will. You're getting ________."
She gave me the figures, what she's doling out to me, my husband, and each of our three children. It's not enough to cover a year's tuition for Ivy League University X.
Mom. "Of course, I'm leaving something to my nieces and nephews, too!"
She must have bought a gross of those Happy Hanukkah cards. Seems to me she sent one as a first communion card to my firstborn.
In this card, she advises my husband that she thinks I must be "stuffing" him with "vitamins" and hopes he's feeling better, but remarks that she thinks "what you need" is a trip to the city in which she resides, because "we have vitamins too!" I did mention to her that he's in the hospital, but I give her credit for probably not remembering because of her age.
But to tell the truth, when she was forty or fifty years younger, she also didn't remember stuff like this.
She would love a visit from us. In each and every one of our phone conversations of the past few months I have apologized for not being able to visit her right now because my husband's lungs are seriously compromised and I need to take care of him. What I haven't told her is that he has lung cancer on top of two other lung diseases.
She sends "lotsa love," encloses photos of my children as toddlers (they're teens and young adults now) and demands photos from us.
"I hope you'll be feeling better and better," she tells my husband.
Then there's another card. He's had a birthday, and she's commemorating that occasion. Brownie points for remembering at all. This card says, "Long may you thrive!" and is decorated with hearts and exclamation points. If you didn't know, you might think she was his girlfriend. A position she tended to assume with any boyfriend of mine she liked before I was married. And now, since she likes my husband . . . well, thank goodness she's 98 and lives very far away indeed.
I think I'll pour myself another glass of red wine right about now.
P.S. Finished that one. Reaching for the bottle. I'd forgotten the punchline. I phoned the 98-year-old because lately she's been bragging about a gift she made to Ivy League University X, which she attended in her glory days. "They even gave me an annuity!" she crowed--a remark leading me to believe the gift is large, and indeed it is, she confirms: "They'll get a whole lot more when I die!"
Here was our recent conversation:
Me: "Mom, since my son B. is applying to Ivy League University X, it would be good to know how much you gave them. Do you remember?"
Mom: "Let me look it up." (absent for five minutes. Rustling, crashing sounds. She returns).
"So, you'd like to know how much money you'll get when I die?"
Me: "No, Mom. That's not what I asked. Since B is applying. . . . " (I repeat myself).
Mom: "Can I call you back?"
Me: "Sure!" (I assume she won't call)
Ten minutes go by. The phone rings.
Me: "Hello?"
Mom: "I just found my will. You're getting ________."
She gave me the figures, what she's doling out to me, my husband, and each of our three children. It's not enough to cover a year's tuition for Ivy League University X.
Mom. "Of course, I'm leaving something to my nieces and nephews, too!"
Friday, October 11, 2019
In the Wake of the Halle Murders
Many in my Western German city are probably, like me, relieved to be at some distance from the young man who tried to gun down a synagogue. The East has long been known for poverty and trauma. Before the wall fell, the repressive regime did all it could to substitute itself for the family, and largely succeeded. The children and grandchildren of the former East Germany seem to fall prey to racist ideologies at a higher rate than they do where I live.
Which is not to say that such problems don't exist where I live. I had thought of my city as freer of the tribal divisions afflicting the former East Germany, until a visiting pastor mentioned the regular weekly prowl of neo-Nazis through a working class neighborhood. He told us that when his parish was preparing for a march on tolerance and acceptance, the neo-Nazis succeeded in blocking it, legally, as a "disturbance of the peace." Neo-Nazis are getting louder in a neighboring city. Another neighboring city is divided into Italian mafia, anti-Western Arab groups, and neo-Nazis. Each of these tribes offers something that feels like family. A neo-Nazi group is nothing if not a substitute for a real family--and therein lies its unfortunate source of power. Try persuading a young man who likes to wear a uniform and carry a stick that better, more satisfying things exist in life than a selfie portraying his boot on the neck of a refugee.
My children came home from Gymnasium with a few stories. A girl who'd decided to wear a hijab was told it "didn't go" with the uniform required for choir, and she couldn't wear it to performances. The instructor in question got told off by other students, was pressured into apologizing, but the girl apparently quit choir, not wanting to belong to a group led by someone with that teacher's attitude toward her religious identity. Another student from an African nation was asked--by a different instructor-- if she could since a song "in African." This teacher--who has a Ph.D.--referred to Africa as "a country," even when students remonstrated, and when the student whom she'd asked to sing pointed out that she did not speak the language in the song.
These students did not complain. The teacher is the teacher. Or maybe the students feel they have to put up with these incidents, that they should not make trouble. I think we should all talk more. I know the teachers, know they probably have no idea how much their words hurt. I doubt they remember offending.
Speaking as a teacher, I would advise any young student who has experienced a moment of mindless racism--which is about how I'd classify these incidents--from a teacher to write up the incident with their own interpretation of it and with pointed, but friendly, suggestions to remedy the problem.
Which is not to say that such problems don't exist where I live. I had thought of my city as freer of the tribal divisions afflicting the former East Germany, until a visiting pastor mentioned the regular weekly prowl of neo-Nazis through a working class neighborhood. He told us that when his parish was preparing for a march on tolerance and acceptance, the neo-Nazis succeeded in blocking it, legally, as a "disturbance of the peace." Neo-Nazis are getting louder in a neighboring city. Another neighboring city is divided into Italian mafia, anti-Western Arab groups, and neo-Nazis. Each of these tribes offers something that feels like family. A neo-Nazi group is nothing if not a substitute for a real family--and therein lies its unfortunate source of power. Try persuading a young man who likes to wear a uniform and carry a stick that better, more satisfying things exist in life than a selfie portraying his boot on the neck of a refugee.
My children came home from Gymnasium with a few stories. A girl who'd decided to wear a hijab was told it "didn't go" with the uniform required for choir, and she couldn't wear it to performances. The instructor in question got told off by other students, was pressured into apologizing, but the girl apparently quit choir, not wanting to belong to a group led by someone with that teacher's attitude toward her religious identity. Another student from an African nation was asked--by a different instructor-- if she could since a song "in African." This teacher--who has a Ph.D.--referred to Africa as "a country," even when students remonstrated, and when the student whom she'd asked to sing pointed out that she did not speak the language in the song.
These students did not complain. The teacher is the teacher. Or maybe the students feel they have to put up with these incidents, that they should not make trouble. I think we should all talk more. I know the teachers, know they probably have no idea how much their words hurt. I doubt they remember offending.
Speaking as a teacher, I would advise any young student who has experienced a moment of mindless racism--which is about how I'd classify these incidents--from a teacher to write up the incident with their own interpretation of it and with pointed, but friendly, suggestions to remedy the problem.
Thursday, October 3, 2019
Whistleblower in the Dark: Linda Tripp Versus Our Current Hero
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Monday, September 30, 2019
The Gangster as a Trumpesque Hero
Robert Warshow's line, "The gangster is a man of the city," chills me when I think of the oval office's occupant. Warshow's seminal essay, "The Gangster as a Tragic Hero," appeared in 1948, and has been read as a founding document of cultural studies. In Warshow's recognition of the need for critics to keep a finger on the pulse of popular culture, in his implicit rejection of a Victorian notion that only texts exuding what was deemed high moral or literary value were worth studying, lay genius: he saw how much of life and politics goes tragically unread. Warshow's idea of the gangster as a product of the city, "with the city's language and knowledge, with its queer and dishonest skills and its terrible daring, carrying his life in his hands like a placard, like a club," uncannily describes the gangster in the White House. Warshow describes the gangster as a man who makes his way independently, makes his life, imposing it on others. It's as if Warshow had heard America's top gangster brag that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters, or grab women "by the pussy" or ignore all requests to hand over his tax forms. The gangster (usually a "he") embodies a perverse form of American individualism. The flip side of America's innovations in medicine, technology, art, is this nihilist--examples might include Julian Assange and certainly Roy Cohn.
Warshow's essay offers real answers to the question of how this shady thug rose to political power and remains at the height of it. One of the traits America traditionally honors is individualism--we love our inventors, our Edisons, our Singers, our Bessie Blounts, our Mary Andersons. The gangster, instead of inventing the sewing machine or the cotton gin or gadgets to help amputees feed themselves or the light bulb or the windshield wiper, invents an evil self. He becomes an asocial criminal personality, usually a murderer, who allows us to identify ourselves with him until the moment he is shot or, in the case of Tony Soprano, the screen goes black. We enjoy a guilt-free vicarious experience of his larcenous, scandalous, and cruel life but not of his ignominious death. For that part, we tell ourselves, "He got what he deserved--thank goodness it wasn't me." The lights go up, the popcorn container's empty, we go home with a clear head. Again, Warshow's spot-on: "the experience of the gangster as an experience of art is universal to Americans."
Try reading Warshow's amazing essay here:
http://crmintler.com/AGH/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Warshow-GTH.pdf
and thinking about the monster in the White House.
Friday, September 27, 2019
The Mock Impeachment Song (with apologies to Lewis Carroll)
Did Zelensky leak the provocation
POTUS put him through?
Did the trusted staff just have
enough of “fake news” ballyhoo?
Could tiny fears be trawling through
the Donald’s temp’ral lobe?
Since impeachment’s now the talk of
everyone around the globe?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t
you, will you join the probe?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t
you, will you join the probe?
Will Giuliani make things even worse
for Donald Trump?
Will Barr, Maguire, and other dudes
exonerate his rump?
If there’s a chance Pelosi’s moxie
proves the cover-up
And rids democracy of all that’s
Trumpesque and corrupt
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t
you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t
you, will you join the dance?
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Clueless and Keyless in Germany
Today I felt nostalgic for the hardware store around the corner from my New York apartment, where I can bring in a set of keys, get 'em copied less than ten, chat with the nice owner about house supplies, and zip home with that new set of keys. No muss, no fuss.
It's different here in the land of the careful, the correct, and the completely regulated. The guy down at the key place took the keys in his hand and wondered what Schloss (the word can mean either "castle" or "lock") they were for? I said those were our housekeys and he cast a bemused, suspicious eye in my direction. I could almost see the thoughts running through his head. Judging by his expression, I was possibly:
(1) A deranged stalker trying to get into my ex-boyfriend's home and murder his child's rabbit
(2) A thief or a spy
(3) A lunatic--because who ever needs keys copied?
Tentatively, I asked--since I hadn't completely understood his tirade--whether this was "wegen Gesetz," that is, something to do with law, or just not possible. He shook his head at me, this guy who looks like a miracle of efficiency in the shoe-repair and key business, who has actually repaired my shoes, but who now thinks I'm a vampire because I want some keys copied. But I persisted. Did he know anywhere where I might get these keys copied? Smoke puffed from his ears. His look: I had made an off-color remark.
I called my husband, who left a long message involving certificates needed and other bureaucratic matters, disquisitions on the shape of the key and how that affects the situation. Interpretations, anyone? Me, I think it has something to do with German notions of privacy, which must not be violated, if you want to stay alive, that is. Keys open doors, after all, and the German home is a fortress, with windows that roll down securely (none of these flappy windowshades, that flip up with the merest breeze!)
Someday, I will have another set of keys to my house--I did emphasize to the locksmith that I was talking about my very own house--but I will need German negotiations, probably through my husband, before I get them.
It's different here in the land of the careful, the correct, and the completely regulated. The guy down at the key place took the keys in his hand and wondered what Schloss (the word can mean either "castle" or "lock") they were for? I said those were our housekeys and he cast a bemused, suspicious eye in my direction. I could almost see the thoughts running through his head. Judging by his expression, I was possibly:
(1) A deranged stalker trying to get into my ex-boyfriend's home and murder his child's rabbit
(2) A thief or a spy
(3) A lunatic--because who ever needs keys copied?
Tentatively, I asked--since I hadn't completely understood his tirade--whether this was "wegen Gesetz," that is, something to do with law, or just not possible. He shook his head at me, this guy who looks like a miracle of efficiency in the shoe-repair and key business, who has actually repaired my shoes, but who now thinks I'm a vampire because I want some keys copied. But I persisted. Did he know anywhere where I might get these keys copied? Smoke puffed from his ears. His look: I had made an off-color remark.
I called my husband, who left a long message involving certificates needed and other bureaucratic matters, disquisitions on the shape of the key and how that affects the situation. Interpretations, anyone? Me, I think it has something to do with German notions of privacy, which must not be violated, if you want to stay alive, that is. Keys open doors, after all, and the German home is a fortress, with windows that roll down securely (none of these flappy windowshades, that flip up with the merest breeze!)
Someday, I will have another set of keys to my house--I did emphasize to the locksmith that I was talking about my very own house--but I will need German negotiations, probably through my husband, before I get them.
Thursday, September 5, 2019
Why Don't Europeans Just Speak European?
Ladies and Gentlemen, and other honored genders: I kid you not. That was a real question. My husband's graduate student, a German of Turkish ethnicity, was traveling in the USA and found, as he worked his way through California, that the further from the coast he got, the more he was asked questions like that.
He was also asked why Germans had such a low opinion of the NSDAP (the Nazi Party).
I can imagine the poor guy sweating, fingering his collar, gearing up for the question so many young Germans are still asked by Americans: "What was it like to live under Hitler?"
Once upon a time in Jersey City, I taught students who had been educated in the local public school system and never strayed beyond the borders of their hometown. They could see the proud towers of the World Trade Center--which were still there--but despite the PATH train to lower Manhattan which they knew I, their teacher, took every single day, they were afraid to go there.
"But my mom," they would say, or "my aunt," or "my dad" or even "my teachers" say it's really dangerous there, "especially the subway!"
"I'm still standing," I would say. "I take the PATH train every teaching day, and on the subway I read or grade papers."
Their eyes bugged. Awe.
I didn't inform them that occasionally I'd seen trouble: a subway car opened, a loud sound boomed, the car filled with dark smoke, and we all ran out. Only to run back in for our briefcases a minute later when smoke dissipated. Or the time, in a car so packed my knees hurt from the weigh of bodies leaning against them, when a voice yelled, "I got a blade!" But the police resolved that one too, almost before I had time to feel scared.
The point is, the kids in Jersey City dealt with worse most of the time. The car that hit a large, ugly student and then sued her for damages. The student health care center that offered no contraceptives or information about AIDS, when Jersey City had a rate of infection second only to New York. The priests who seduced their charges or fellow teachers, or children, but who stopped a student standing at the bus shelter to warn her of hellfire: she was "living in sin" with her boyfriend, the priest had discovered. The college president who was said to have fallen down the stairs dead drunk, breaking his neck. These kids told me that all those people in the Austro-Hungarian Empire spoke the same language.
"Yeah, they did!" my brightest student informed me. "They're all European."
"The Germans spoke so many dialects they could barely understand each other. The Czechs. The Hungarians. The Poles, the Ukrainians, the Slavs . . . "
"But," insisted my student, "I thought . . . I mean, they're all white people."
Europeans. They're all Europeans, right?
He was also asked why Germans had such a low opinion of the NSDAP (the Nazi Party).
I can imagine the poor guy sweating, fingering his collar, gearing up for the question so many young Germans are still asked by Americans: "What was it like to live under Hitler?"
Once upon a time in Jersey City, I taught students who had been educated in the local public school system and never strayed beyond the borders of their hometown. They could see the proud towers of the World Trade Center--which were still there--but despite the PATH train to lower Manhattan which they knew I, their teacher, took every single day, they were afraid to go there.
"But my mom," they would say, or "my aunt," or "my dad" or even "my teachers" say it's really dangerous there, "especially the subway!"
"I'm still standing," I would say. "I take the PATH train every teaching day, and on the subway I read or grade papers."
Their eyes bugged. Awe.
I didn't inform them that occasionally I'd seen trouble: a subway car opened, a loud sound boomed, the car filled with dark smoke, and we all ran out. Only to run back in for our briefcases a minute later when smoke dissipated. Or the time, in a car so packed my knees hurt from the weigh of bodies leaning against them, when a voice yelled, "I got a blade!" But the police resolved that one too, almost before I had time to feel scared.
The point is, the kids in Jersey City dealt with worse most of the time. The car that hit a large, ugly student and then sued her for damages. The student health care center that offered no contraceptives or information about AIDS, when Jersey City had a rate of infection second only to New York. The priests who seduced their charges or fellow teachers, or children, but who stopped a student standing at the bus shelter to warn her of hellfire: she was "living in sin" with her boyfriend, the priest had discovered. The college president who was said to have fallen down the stairs dead drunk, breaking his neck. These kids told me that all those people in the Austro-Hungarian Empire spoke the same language.
"Yeah, they did!" my brightest student informed me. "They're all European."
"The Germans spoke so many dialects they could barely understand each other. The Czechs. The Hungarians. The Poles, the Ukrainians, the Slavs . . . "
"But," insisted my student, "I thought . . . I mean, they're all white people."
Europeans. They're all Europeans, right?
Thursday, August 29, 2019
The Ballistic 98-Year-Old and the Adoring Acolyte: In Search of Solutions
The 98-year-old wanted to go on vacation.
A few months ago, she broke her ribs, lost her memory and abandoned her hearing aid, which probably ended up in a restaurant napkin, all $4000 of it.
She says her phone is defective--that's why she can't hear conversations. She forgets to use her walker and cane and "I don't really need them anymore!" Hence the broken ribs. Four of them, causing intense pain. Opioid level pain.
She's got a pal, thirty years younger, who loves to travel with her, and considers Mom the greatest thing since sliced bread. You would think that's wonderful. Except:
(1) The 98-year-old is paying her companion's expenses. Room, board, transportation.
(2) The adoring acolyte wants to be the only one in her life. What do we need a nurse for? I can take care of her! I sleep 6.5 hours per night! I have Red Cross training!
(3) Everybody else in the old gal's life, including the director of her assisted living residency, thinks a nurse should be on hand.
(4) The B&B owner says the nurse can't sit anywhere but the 98-year-old's bedroom, or the bedroom of her companion. Can't use any toilet but theirs.
(5) When you offer to Yelp the place, the companion says, "Oh, dear God, no." These "wonderful people" shouldn't have their business ruined. She asks me to pay them to tolerate the nurse as a "day guest."
(6) When the nurse appears, discreetly, and the elderly mother tantrums, the companion says, "But your daughter hired the nurse! She paid for the nurse. You and me, we're friends. I'll protect you from your daughter."
(7) Three murderous letters later, the ancient mom's spidery handwriting indicates her displeasure: "I am already being taken care of by my friend!"
Why am I surprised when my mother's best friend thinks the way my mother thinks? Because the adoring acolyte is reasonably well-educated, Phi Beta Kappa, a professional? But education is no match for delusion. The adoring acolyte wants to proceed "without deception" when the 98-year-old doesn't want a nurse, never wanted a nurse, never agreed to a nurse--although she did, and has already paid for said nurse. The acolyte declines to introduce the nurse as "my good friend!" But it's okay to say, "your daughter hired her." When I didn't.
I can suggest finessing. First, there's calling Mom's sane friends and apprising them of the situation.
Then there's the conversation with Mom herself:
"You are every bit as sane as you ever were, every bit as lucid, and as you say, Mom, you are just as compos mentis as you always were. It's just that there's been some memory loss."
Astoundingly, she agrees. She is indeed every bit as sane as she ever was, every bit as lucid, every bit as compos mentis as she ever was. Compounding the problem are the frailties of age, the memory loss, and the companion who's every bit as compos mentis as Mom. But who is currently her health care proxy.
Suggestions, gentle reader, suggestions?
A few months ago, she broke her ribs, lost her memory and abandoned her hearing aid, which probably ended up in a restaurant napkin, all $4000 of it.
She says her phone is defective--that's why she can't hear conversations. She forgets to use her walker and cane and "I don't really need them anymore!" Hence the broken ribs. Four of them, causing intense pain. Opioid level pain.
She's got a pal, thirty years younger, who loves to travel with her, and considers Mom the greatest thing since sliced bread. You would think that's wonderful. Except:
(1) The 98-year-old is paying her companion's expenses. Room, board, transportation.
(2) The adoring acolyte wants to be the only one in her life. What do we need a nurse for? I can take care of her! I sleep 6.5 hours per night! I have Red Cross training!
(3) Everybody else in the old gal's life, including the director of her assisted living residency, thinks a nurse should be on hand.
(4) The B&B owner says the nurse can't sit anywhere but the 98-year-old's bedroom, or the bedroom of her companion. Can't use any toilet but theirs.
(5) When you offer to Yelp the place, the companion says, "Oh, dear God, no." These "wonderful people" shouldn't have their business ruined. She asks me to pay them to tolerate the nurse as a "day guest."
(6) When the nurse appears, discreetly, and the elderly mother tantrums, the companion says, "But your daughter hired the nurse! She paid for the nurse. You and me, we're friends. I'll protect you from your daughter."
(7) Three murderous letters later, the ancient mom's spidery handwriting indicates her displeasure: "I am already being taken care of by my friend!"
Why am I surprised when my mother's best friend thinks the way my mother thinks? Because the adoring acolyte is reasonably well-educated, Phi Beta Kappa, a professional? But education is no match for delusion. The adoring acolyte wants to proceed "without deception" when the 98-year-old doesn't want a nurse, never wanted a nurse, never agreed to a nurse--although she did, and has already paid for said nurse. The acolyte declines to introduce the nurse as "my good friend!" But it's okay to say, "your daughter hired her." When I didn't.
I can suggest finessing. First, there's calling Mom's sane friends and apprising them of the situation.
Then there's the conversation with Mom herself:
"You are every bit as sane as you ever were, every bit as lucid, and as you say, Mom, you are just as compos mentis as you always were. It's just that there's been some memory loss."
Astoundingly, she agrees. She is indeed every bit as sane as she ever was, every bit as lucid, every bit as compos mentis as she ever was. Compounding the problem are the frailties of age, the memory loss, and the companion who's every bit as compos mentis as Mom. But who is currently her health care proxy.
Suggestions, gentle reader, suggestions?
Saturday, August 17, 2019
The Vacationing 98-year-old, the CNA, and the Well-Meaning Friend
The Certified Nursing Assistant arrived punctually at the comfy bed-and breakfast where the 98-year old mother has been taken--against the advice of her assisted living home, her other friends, and her daughter, me, that is--for a vacation. Of course we're just the Greek chorus here: if I were 98, I'd ignore the chorus too, and insist on doing any fool thing I wanted to do. The four broken ribs of last winter, the broken hip, the tendency to insist she can walk on her own without a cane or walker . . . those are the things that get to the Greek chorus. Hence the need for the CNA. Who has been hired to be near her at all times.
The comfy bed-and-breakfast has been patronized by the 98-year-old since long before she was a 98-year-old. Long before the island was a place where Main street shops had no price tags--if you need to know the price of anything, you don't belong there. Once upon a time in the 1960s, real estate was cheap, beaches were uncrowded, Portuguese bread was inexpensive and delicious, the island movie screen was too small to show The Sound of Music, and people had laundry spinners in their back yards. There was a homemade donuts place and you could buy hot dogs, postcards. Even a "Dexter's Shell Shoppe" selling tinted tropical shells out of somebody's garage.
That was then. Tommy Hilfiger bought and decorated a mansion there, which, last I heard, his ex-wife was trying to sell for 27 million. Then 19.5 million. He wasn't the only Richie Rich. The billionaires crawl around everywhere. The A&P disappeared. Lyme disease got worse.
People changed. Would it have been possible, in the sixties, for the owner of a bed-and-breakfast patronized for years by an elderly person to tell the elderly person's friend she was "not comfortable with the CNA out in the reception area or patio, or using the hall bathroom, since the CNA was not a guest here?"
The owner of the B&B is very comfortable telling the CNA to sit in the airless bedroom of the mom's companion, and only use her personal bathroom. The mom's companion thinks she should put up with the owner telling her this. She says she has "smoothed things over." The owner is a nice lady, she thinks, who has been nice in other summers, so that complaining about the treatment of the CNA would be mean. She thinks I should pay the owner something to tolerate the nurse.
I think the owner should act like a decent human being.
My attempts, via email, to get the 98-year-old mother's pal to tell the owner of the B&B to let the CNA use the reception area, the patio, the hall bathroom--by Yelping the place if necessary--have been rebuffed.
The hired help come to the back. They look different. They talk different. Maybe they are people of color. Maybe they weigh more. Maybe they have another accent. Maybe they have a uniform? Maybe the wrong brand of jeans? Maybe anything that gives away they're not Tommy's crowd.
Don't places like this charming little vacationing spot have chambers of commerce that set policy for oldsters and their entourage? You'd think they would.
The comfy bed-and-breakfast has been patronized by the 98-year-old since long before she was a 98-year-old. Long before the island was a place where Main street shops had no price tags--if you need to know the price of anything, you don't belong there. Once upon a time in the 1960s, real estate was cheap, beaches were uncrowded, Portuguese bread was inexpensive and delicious, the island movie screen was too small to show The Sound of Music, and people had laundry spinners in their back yards. There was a homemade donuts place and you could buy hot dogs, postcards. Even a "Dexter's Shell Shoppe" selling tinted tropical shells out of somebody's garage.
That was then. Tommy Hilfiger bought and decorated a mansion there, which, last I heard, his ex-wife was trying to sell for 27 million. Then 19.5 million. He wasn't the only Richie Rich. The billionaires crawl around everywhere. The A&P disappeared. Lyme disease got worse.
People changed. Would it have been possible, in the sixties, for the owner of a bed-and-breakfast patronized for years by an elderly person to tell the elderly person's friend she was "not comfortable with the CNA out in the reception area or patio, or using the hall bathroom, since the CNA was not a guest here?"
The owner of the B&B is very comfortable telling the CNA to sit in the airless bedroom of the mom's companion, and only use her personal bathroom. The mom's companion thinks she should put up with the owner telling her this. She says she has "smoothed things over." The owner is a nice lady, she thinks, who has been nice in other summers, so that complaining about the treatment of the CNA would be mean. She thinks I should pay the owner something to tolerate the nurse.
I think the owner should act like a decent human being.
My attempts, via email, to get the 98-year-old mother's pal to tell the owner of the B&B to let the CNA use the reception area, the patio, the hall bathroom--by Yelping the place if necessary--have been rebuffed.
The hired help come to the back. They look different. They talk different. Maybe they are people of color. Maybe they weigh more. Maybe they have another accent. Maybe they have a uniform? Maybe the wrong brand of jeans? Maybe anything that gives away they're not Tommy's crowd.
Don't places like this charming little vacationing spot have chambers of commerce that set policy for oldsters and their entourage? You'd think they would.
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
After El Paso And Dayton
That such a slave as this should wear a sword,
Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these
Like rats oft bite the holy cords atwain . . .
King Lear, 2.2.70-73
"Hate has no place in America,” the president said. “Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart and devours the soul.”
Watching his face, I thought of those criminal nurses who get a kick out of putting someone in a coma and then reviving them. Being thought of as a hero. Anything for admiration.
Trump's words said one thing. His eyes, his face, said the reverse. Like a child forced to apologize and who sneers out a savage "Sorry!" Trump insulted America again, refusing to dethrone the NRA and partying at home. No one really expected him to support universal background checks or to enforce red flag laws. Or to sing hymns or hold hands with the families of victims. His role is to make deals, not to govern, not to help, not to pray, not to sympathize. Not to heal.
He is still trying to sell himself to Americans who didn't vote for him, while apologizing to some of the white supremacists who did. "You know I have to say this stuff," his eyes telegraphed, "and you know I don't mean it."
We know Trump doesn't mean that what "warps the mind" and "ravages the heart . . . devours the soul" is a problem--as long as he can make money or gain power.
The day after the election, when everyone I knew was swimming in sorrow, and when I said, "it's a sad day when Trump is elected," a stranger said, "I voted for him!"
I couldn't turn on my heel and walk out of the room--we were both receiving chemotherapy and had to sit opposite one another. But I was curious. As the medicine dripped into our veins, I asked her why.
"He's going to fix health care," she said. "He's a businessman." She didn't particularly like him, but she had faith in his competence.
So many believed, still believe, that he cares. Or, like the woman who believed he could fix health care, and who had ovarian cancer, were desperate. The odds of her being alive are slim, but if she is, I hope she's changed her mind.
Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these
Like rats oft bite the holy cords atwain . . .
King Lear, 2.2.70-73
"Hate has no place in America,” the president said. “Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart and devours the soul.”
Watching his face, I thought of those criminal nurses who get a kick out of putting someone in a coma and then reviving them. Being thought of as a hero. Anything for admiration.
Trump's words said one thing. His eyes, his face, said the reverse. Like a child forced to apologize and who sneers out a savage "Sorry!" Trump insulted America again, refusing to dethrone the NRA and partying at home. No one really expected him to support universal background checks or to enforce red flag laws. Or to sing hymns or hold hands with the families of victims. His role is to make deals, not to govern, not to help, not to pray, not to sympathize. Not to heal.
He is still trying to sell himself to Americans who didn't vote for him, while apologizing to some of the white supremacists who did. "You know I have to say this stuff," his eyes telegraphed, "and you know I don't mean it."
We know Trump doesn't mean that what "warps the mind" and "ravages the heart . . . devours the soul" is a problem--as long as he can make money or gain power.
The day after the election, when everyone I knew was swimming in sorrow, and when I said, "it's a sad day when Trump is elected," a stranger said, "I voted for him!"
I couldn't turn on my heel and walk out of the room--we were both receiving chemotherapy and had to sit opposite one another. But I was curious. As the medicine dripped into our veins, I asked her why.
"He's going to fix health care," she said. "He's a businessman." She didn't particularly like him, but she had faith in his competence.
So many believed, still believe, that he cares. Or, like the woman who believed he could fix health care, and who had ovarian cancer, were desperate. The odds of her being alive are slim, but if she is, I hope she's changed her mind.
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