total terror

So, I went to my mostly clergy group this morning and then to Waterbury Hospital to get my Zolair shots. (Which, by the way, have changed my life. Two shots every two weeks block allergens and make me healthy in all seasons.)

I got out my wallet to give the valet parker guys a tip, which I always do and many people don't. Shame on them.

Then, hours later, I was going to the grocery store to get stuff for dinner and couldn't find my wallet.

It wasn't in the coat I was wearing and wasn't in the place I put it and wasn't in my car.

I experienced total terror!

Do you realize how much of our lives we carry in our wallets?

My Medicare and Insurance cards, two credit cards and a bank card, my library card, my driver's license and lots of other stuff.

I was panicked and about to call the hospital to see if anyone found it and turned it in--minus credit cards and cash, of course, when I looked in the bag I take for my shots with my eppi-pen and the book I'm reading and found my wallet.

It's a sign of age that I put it there instead of in my coat pocket and didn't remember doing that.

But my total terror was gone and I was so relieved and so happy.

Getting older is no fun but a lot better than the alternative....

What we know, as of now....

Surprising as it might seem, I'm actually glad the Mueller report (or what we know of it right now) did not find definitive evidence that the President's campaign did not collude with the Russians. I feel a little safer knowing that those in power did not collude in a definitive way with a foreign power to influence the election of 2016.

And I want the whole report, in it's entirety to be released because even Barr (who I don't trust further than I could throw him) admitted the report did not exonerate the President from obstruction of justice. I want to know what the evidence shows. And did 'not exonerate' mean there was evidence enough but Mueller knew he could not indict a sitting President.

So, we have to see it all.

Enough happened that the president shouldn't yet be doing his victory dance.

And there are still investigations by others into the campaign finances and the businesses and other things going on.

It's not over until it's over.

Vince Lombardi said that years ago.

And it still rings true.

She's gone....

Mimi and Tim came and took Eleanor back to Brooklyn today.

She was a joy. Never cried once--laughed almost always--is very sure 'what she wants to do'--loves and runs with Bridget (though Bridget is much faster)--helped Bern rake the leaves in the back yard--talked non-stop--ate everything we gave her.

What a joy.

What exhaustion!

Bern has been watching TV all evening, half-asleep. She didn't sleep well since she slept in a strange bed with Eleanor.

I'm tired too, but I did about 15% of what Bern did with Eleanor.

She'll stay with me for 10 minutes and then says, "let's go find Grandma".

But like all four of our granddaughters, she is pure wonder.

She's here!!!

Mimi and Tim dropped Eleanor off about 10 a.m. and then headed up to the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, MA for a couples night.

We used to drive through Stockbridge on the way to Bennington College to take or bring Mimi. And we stayed there several times.

Lovely place.

So Eleanor is ours tonight.

She loves us both, but Bern is the better playmate so she sticks close to her.

She wanted french fries and an egg sandwich for dinner, which I fixed and she ate. She eats well.

What is still weird is how much she looks like Mimi at the same age. Almost puts me back 40 years.

Same hair and body and even dimples.

She and Bern are sleeping in one of the guest rooms while Bridget and I are going to be in our bed.

She is a delight. So funny and smart--but what grandparent doesn't say that?

But with Eleanor it is true, so true.

It's Mueller Time

The report of Special Council Robert Mueller has been turned over to Attorney General Barr. After almost two years, Mueller's investigation is over.

This will not be a long, involved post.

All I want to say is this: if the full text of the report is not turned over to Congress and made public, this whole process is meaningless.

White House lawyers want a shot at it.

To hell with them. We all deserve to know every word of the report.

That's the bottom line.

March Madness has begun

Bern gets as excited about the NCAA basketball tournament as she does the four major tennis tourneys. Which is EXCITED!!!

Today's the first full day and she has been watching since noon and will watch until she goes to bed. She filled out three online brackets, for goodness sake.

She pays little attention to the regular season so her brackets are based on gut instinct and guessing. And probably, knowing her, a leaning toward the underdogs.

But what will Saturday when our granddaughter Eleanor comes for an overnight while Tim and Mimi have a trip to the Adirondacks?

Oh, fear not beloved, Eleanor will not be a victim of 'basketball neglect', not by a long shot.

It's two days yet and already I noticed Bern has begun to put out crayons and paper and toys and books in our little fireplace area beyond the kitchen. And I've heard her tell Bridget more than once that "that baby who loves you is coming."

What Bridget makes of that news, I can't tell you.

I gave Bern a little framed saying for Christmas. It reads "I didn't know how much love my heart could hold until someone called me Grandma".

Nothing detracts her from Emma/Morgan/Tegan/Eleanor.

Nothing.

Not even March Madness or the U.S. Open.

Mr. Kelly Ann Conway

George Conway is my hero!

How odd is that--a deeply conservative lawyer is my hero?

But he has so stirred up He Who Will Not Be Named so much that the twitter storm the president has created proves all the thing George Conway says about him!

And I realized today that my insistence not to name the President is not just a Harry Potter reference, it goes along with what the Prime Minister of New Zealand has sworn not to do about the monster who murdered 50 Muslims there.

Could we export her to America and make Jacinda Ardern our President?

I'd write her name all the time.

Jacinda Ardern. Jacinda Ardern. Jacinda Ardern.

I'd use it because she has been so great in this terrible tragedy and because it is a wondrous name.

Jacinda Ardern.

And maybe she could give George's wife, Kelly Ann, some advise on how to deal with White Nationalists like her boss.

Jacidna Ardern, I'm a fan.

(My supervisor at a mental hospital in Maryland when I was doing my summer of Clinical Pastoral Education was The Rev. Don Fergus from New Zealand. If he was telling you he'd be in touch with you he'd say, "I'll knock you up".

I told him he couldn't say that in this country--especially not to Sister Jeremy who was a Sister of Mercy in my group.

Divided by a common language indeed.)