1/ Title this, Why I Use a Dish Rack

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.

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 For example, @jimtankersley has a new book out, The Riches of This Land. publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/jim-tan…

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. Here’s one way to find a hunger center or food bank near you: feedingamerica.org/find-your-loca…

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.

1/ A story.

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:

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.

If you are watching the president’s news conference, you just saw him shaking hands with Target’s CEO.

Don’t model that unhealthy behavior. Hand over heart is a much safer way to greet others. Also, @VP Pence just put his hand on the microphone after nearly a dozen have spoken into it at close distance.

Don’t do that.

Pull out alcohol wipe and wipe off microphone, before and after using. More good modeling by government and health leaders at pressers.

1/ Four years ago, my daughter went into labor with her first child. My friend Sue raced me to the airport in record time for two evening flights, w/a short connection time. The airline employee at the 2nd gate looked at my purse & laptop case draped over my arm. "No," she said. 2/ She pointed at my suitcase. “You can’t take that on the plane.”

I assured her that I had gate-checked it on the previous flight, and asked to do that again. “No, she said. “You have to go back to the terminal and check it.” My heart was now pounding.

1/ First, a disclosure: I first knew Elizabeth Warren as my husband's colleague in the U.S. Senate. She & I have had some brief, meaningful conversations over the last few years, but I would not presume to describe us as friends.

And yet. 2/ After my brother's suicide in July, Elizabeth Warren texted. Then she called. And then she wrote a personal note of support.

This was during one of the darkest times of my life, and I had no intention of sharing this publicly.

Until now, in response to recent coverage.

1/ “Outbreaks of scabies, shingles and chickenpox were spreading among the hundreds of children who were being held in cramped cells, agents said.” nyti.ms/2YFJd8A 2/ “The stench of the children’s dirty clothing was so strong it spread to the agents’ own clothing — people in town would scrunch their noses when they left work.”