Dear good people: In this crisis, a growing number of our fellow humans in America need food and, in too many families, diapers for their babies. If you are able, please donate to a hunger center or diaper bank.
As always happens, someone suggested cloth diapers. Think of money required to use cloth diapers. You must have a washing machine; a car if you have to drive to a laundromat; a babysitter if you work 1 or 2 jobs & have to go wash diapers at night. Let us not judge. Let’s help.
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For years, a close friend has teased me about the dish rack in my kitchen.
“Why, Con?” she wants to know.
Her list is the perfect closing argument:
2/ I have a dishwasher. Many of our dishes are durable enough to go into that dishwasher at the end of their workday. When I use china, the dish rack can leave its home from under the sink, briefly. No need for it to take up valuable counter space as a permanent resident.
3/ Solid reasoning. To which I say, “Please pass the Dawn.”
The pandemic, which slowed my daily pace to a crawl, has helped me understand this about myself: This is my thinking place.
I love this photo of Sherrod by @AnnaMoneymaker for the New York Times. He’s sitting just outside the Senate chamber, before dawn. His book: Keith Mestrich’s Organized Money: How Progressives Can Leverage The Financial System To Work For Them, Not Against Them.
Getting questions about that little door under the portrait. Sherrod said in the 19th Century senators were shorter. He’s promised to ask the Senate historian, so I’ll be back when I have the real answer.
Writers still release new books, and what a time to be launching our creations into the world. Let's do a thread of books published during the pandemic. Photos and links welcome.
I am loving the hundreds of pictures sent by readers. This is a favorite. #WearAMask
1/ When I was 6 years old, right after first grade had ended, my teacher invited my mother & me to her home. Unthinkable!
We wore Sunday clothes. I was so nervous & excited that I sat wedged next to Mom on Mrs. Behrendt’s sofa. I remember two things about what came next.
2/ Mrs. Behrendt gave me this framed Award of Honor, signed by her and the principal — and the superintendent! Mom talked about that for weeks. It was displayed on our dining room wall for years.
3/ As we were preparing to leave that day, Mom walked onto the front porch and Mrs. Behrendt pulled me back for a hug and whispered into my ear, “You are a very smart little girl. Let the grown-ups worry about grown-up problems.”
I have known Lylah Rose Wolff since she was a little girl who was frequently up to her elbows in a craft of her creation. She is trying to look fierce in that first photo, which I snapped in the late ‘90s during a painting project in my home.
2/ Lylah was such a kind and whimsical child, and had the habit of suddenly sitting next to me on the couch, on the floor, on our front porch to ask questions that launched my mind into flight. I remember just one, because I wrote down our exchange in a notebook:
3/ “If you didn’t know my mom, would you still have found me and become my friend?”
We were planted on my front steps, sitting hip to hip after picking up dropped blooms from a hanging fuchsia. Her opened hands were full of petals, her eyes focused on my face.
1/ This is my friend Gaylee McCracken & me in 1986. We were working on a newsletter at a laundromat because I didn’t have a working washer. I had a camera on me, always, & when my son aimed it at us, we started clowning around. We were 2 young mothers with career dreams on hold.
2/ Gaylee was a silkscreen artist who had always wanted to be a doctor. I was a stay-at-home mom who yearned to be a full-time journalist. Others judged or dismissed us for our ambitions, but we were a team of two & never stopped believing in each other.
3/ We learned that there is no one trajectory for a rewarding life. We made each other brave. Here we are in 1999, when Gaylee graduated from medical school. I was a feature writer at The Plain Dealer & single mom. She is a beloved primary care physician. I’m still writing.