"Laboring on the 4th"

Broken Hackberry

            While most people spent Independence Day surrounded by friends frolicking in water and then feasting on foot-longs while “ooohhh-ing and aaahhh-ing” at fireworks, we labored in our back yard. A couple of weeks ago, our neighbor’s large Hackberry tree, which dominated the back corner of both our yards, cracked and split under the weight of its own leaves. The branches of this substantial tree arched over a redwood patio cover we’d moved to that portion of the yard when the Hackberry stood a slender twig on the other side of our fence. Over the years this junction of tree limbs, pittosporum, and patio cover became a squirrel playground. And during the lazily hot months of summer, those squirrels loved to lounge across those redwood beams and chop away their afternoons. This damage, partially hidden by the Hackberry’s boughs, became too obvious to ignore once the tree was gone.

            We toyed with the idea of repairing the patio cover since it is original to our fifty-year-old house. But between squirrel munching and wood rot, it became quickly clear that taking it down would be a better way to spend our long weekend. Pushing it down took only a matter of minutes, but dismantling took hours. We decided to neatly pile the pieces of wood that can be repurposed for some later yard project. The rotted portions received an axe treatment and turned into kindling for our outdoor fire pit.

David with downed patio cover

            Simultaneous to the patio cover demolishing we decided to refurbish a statue of a fairy. Over the years, her dramatic two-tone coloring had faded so much that she blended into the bushes. After I cleaned her thoroughly, my husband brought her inside and hand-painted her back to glory. 

Before 

After

        As he worked on her, I refurbished another statue that I purchased years ago. Once she regained her serenity, I repainted our Bistro set as well as several dollar store plant stands. The final chore found both of us draining out the hot tub, which we then scrubbed clean. We rewarded ourselves with a dip in the ice-cold water. What a relief to sit and soak after so much work!

      

The statue I worked on

      By the time evening fell on the Fourth, we couldn’t muster the energy to view fireworks. Our traditional viewing of Independence Day never happened, and I don’t ever remember fixing anything for dinner. All of the laboring on the fourth has left us with a little nook for our hammock and some wind chimes. Not bad at all.

Copyright 2017 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

           

              

“Our Moral Obligation”

         Another round of presidential misogyny left me fuming for a few days. A horde of angry responses snarled and gnashed their fangs within my mind. Yet I stayed away from keyboard. Not because I wanted to reign in my words, but because I fought for just the right order and organization to my thoughts.

         My little blog posts won’t change anything.

   The president’s deeply rooted personality disorder won’t miraculously disappear because I wish it so. There’s no magic. Not even the fervent prayers of the multitudinous faithful will rescue us from this current mess.

       Instead, we have to watch every day and wait for this man to stop skirting around social inappropriateness and actually break a law. A “biggy” that really matters. In the meantime, we summon every ounce of patience as investigations into obstruction of justice play out. Our gut tells us that this may not take that long; but whenever it happens, it may still be too late.

      And so, why do I write? Why do I pass along every article I read about this administration? What do I hope to accomplish?

         A moral obligation.

        A moral obligation to speak out every time an injustice occurs.

        A moral obligation to share facts and data that become obscured by ignorance—or even worse, a political agenda that seeks profit over prosperity.

        A moral obligation to pass along documented and referenced research about the administration’s desire for authoritarianism.

         A moral obligation to protect our right to vote.

         A moral obligation to voice dissent.

         A moral obligation to stand with our free press.

        A moral obligation to address the absurdities of this president and to yell, “THIS IS NOT NORMAL!”

        

      And that’s it. The bottom line. My moral obligation compels me to educate everyone I can with the understanding that we must stand together to fight against this abnormality.

Copyright 2017 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman  

   

"Nothing Up My Sleeve"

 

            Yesterday our president tweeted (again) something offensive. Everyone stopped to respond to his repugnant words. As it should be. Resistance means we can’t overlook the turn of a phrase that contains an intimidation tactic that this administration uses daily and ruthlessly. The White House responded that the president will respond “fire with fire” to criticisms thrown his way. I could spend hours on the topic of the difference between evaluating the job performance of an elected official, which is one of the jobs of the media, and making demeaning statements intended to shame or enflame in response to those assessments. A “fire with fire” response would have been a series of tweets that point-by-point addressed to Scarborough and Brzenzinski the issues under debate, not shooting off insults toward their intellect or appearances.

            As disgusting as the Twitter battle became yesterday, I was also troubled by this president’s proclamation at a meeting with the Department of Energy. I found it distressing that this administration’s agenda includes an expansion of off-shore drilling to oil and natural gas companies to push our country into “American energy dominance.” Not one word of this policy went toward clean energy funding. As I resist this administration’s misogynistic positions, I must also fight against an energy policy that will unravel years of work by conservationists.

            Almost unnoticed in yesterday’s news, because of the belligerent tweeting and disconcerting energy policy, came the report that a White House panel requested from all fifty states voter rolls. This information would include “the names, addresses, birthdates, political party (if recorded), last four digits of the voter's Social Security Number and which elections the voter has participated in since 2006, for every registered voter in the country.” Fortunately, representatives from several states have already turned down this request.

            It concerns me that this administration conducts magic tricks constantly. As we focus our attentions at one overt maneuver that attacks our civility and sensibilities, they slip by other, and perhaps far more dangerous, policy.

Copyright 2017 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman