The first thing

My pre-breakfast routines are pretty well-formed and consistent. I won't belabor you with all the detail, but it all culminates in a period of reading on the couch with Leon sitting to my left and a cup of coffee on the table to my right. There were times when Rascal sat to my right, and in the last few months of her life she took to perching behind my head and, at times, climbing down onto my shoulder.

What remains constant is the reading. I reserve this time for very long view reading. For a while it was Al Anon daily readers, followed by a variety of stoics, rabbis, neo-Hindu/meditation gurus, and then the Bible. The Good Book had me feeling I had maxed out on expressly spiritual reading, and my eye was caught by Annie Proulx's Fen, Bog & Swamp, which Natalie had picked up for Mary for her birthday to help her dig deeper into the thought process around her Gamelands series. So I set to it.

This is a very good book, not unlike McPhee, but somewhat less distracted, a testimony to what a lifetime concentrated on reading, reflecting and recording can create. I will keep going.

The story of abuelita

There were a number of shows going on at the Center for Documentary Studies the other day when Mary's was opening. I could have done a better job perusing them, but was caught up with a combination of hosting/talking to friends who showed up (thanks to all of you!) and also reverting to my graduate school days and feasting on the food that was brought. Somehow even after all these years away from grad school the economizer in me cannot resist the clarion call of free food, particularly when it includes a rather serviceable (if surprising) mac and cheese, as Thursday night's spread did.

In the kitchen there was an installation called "my grandmother's kitchen." A very nice young Latina (she preferred Latina with an a to Latinx) woman had decked the kitchen out with a wide range of decorations and foodstuffs to recreate the atmosphere of her grandmother's kitchen back in Texas. We talked for a while about a range of stuff, including baked goods. I told her I had never settled on a preferred item in Mexican bakeries (my polite way of saying I had never been impressed with anything in them) and asked her what her go-to was. She indicated a cinnamony brown item and said it was particularly good with coffee with a little whiskey in it. I took one of those home and toasted it for breakfast the next day. It was fine with a little butter on it.

After most everyone had left, Mary went in and talked to her. In short order Mary heard the story of her grandmother or perhaps great-grandmother, whose picture was on the fridge. Apparently she had been abducted by a white guy and forced to bear his children. When she learned that this wasn't the first time he had done this, and that he had killed her predecessors, she was fortunate to get away.

It seems to me that the moral to my story here is that, instead of pumping her for info about baked goods and snacks (she told me other stuff) I might have asked her about her installation as a whole, or noticed the pictures of the family members on the fridge and asked about them. Then she might have told her story. 

Reversals of fortune

Veritable oceans of ink have been spent speculating on how we got to a reelection of Trump. One of the favored theories is that it was the inflation that consumers suffered through that brought Biden down, the proverbial "price of eggs." Inflation was undoubtedly a major cause, but it's not because it was so bad. Our brief period of pretty bad inflation fairly pales in comparison to real instances of inflation, like Argentina's for much of the last few decades, or Venezuela's, or Rhodesia's, or Weimar Germany's. Or even our own inflation through the 70s and into the 80s.

The problem was to not so much the inflation under Biden as such but the presence of meaningful inflation at all after the end of the "Great Moderation," the period of successful central banking ushered in by Paul Volcker after his appointment by Carter, carried forward by Greenspan (the financial crisis notwithstanding) and his successors Bernanke, Yellen and Powell. People have been spoiled by stable prices and don't know how to think about or cope with inflation. 

In his 1965 classic The Anatomy of Revolutions, which looked at the American, French, Russian and Chinese revolutions, Crane Brinton pointed out that revolutions don't start because things are really bad, but when things have been pretty good and then do downhill a little. People unaccustomed to adversity get riled up and go around a break things. Compound generalized displeasure with a pressure cooker of social media and you have a recipe for disaster. And he we are.

All I can say is thank God the central bankers were able to keep us clear of the deflationary threat that hung over our heads coming out of the financial crisis. If you think inflation is bad, try a few years of deflation and then get back to me.

The damned leaves

They just keep coming. There's no escaping the fact that I'm gonna have to get up on the roof and push the ones up there down by this weekend. In fact, with rain approaching tomorrow, I should probably do it today.

The last place I usually attend to is the steps coming down to our front door. Relatively few people ever come there, mostly just deliveries. But that's why I should clear them.

A few weeks ago when our soccer team was announced as inductees to the CHHS Athletic Hall of Fame, a co-inductee was John J. '82, who starred for our football team as a running back. John told me he's been living in Carrboro all these years and working for UPS. He also recited the litany of injuries he's suffered over these years, knee, elbow... Obviously a bunch of wet leaves don't help with that.

Still obviously numb

Like a black hole, the question of Trump's victory and its implications continues to suck in all too much of the world's energy, including my own. This will go on for a long time. Democrats do need to transition from thinking not just about how we got things wrong and what we did wrong to how we are wrong. That's a factor.

But we're not and have not been wrong about everything. One interesting thing here is how close the election actually was. As the California votes continue to come back Trump's lead in the popular vote continues to narrow. It's now at just about 2% and could settle much closer to 1.5%. Moreover, with a shift of around 250k votes in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania Kamala could have won without the popular vote. This was closer than we all thought. Trump's mandate is not as thumping as it has been made out to be.

Though he did win and perhaps his voters will back off on their attacks on the election integrity. That would be a win for all of us.

Here in our home, we are also still processing the loss of our cat Rascal, though ironically Leon seems the least affected by it. But what do we know about his internal state? Cats are not great communicators. By now we have returned all the rugs to the main part of the house and we are allowing Leon to roam freely. Some are more free, even as others have died.

The economy, stupid

Today in the Journal there's an article about how inflation was the number one issue on voters' minds. Some thoughts on this.

1. From the very beginning Biden and Kamala's line of reasoning and attack on inflation was stupid. They blamed greedy corporations and promised to crack down on them. Idiocy. Companies need to pass their costs through to customers to stay in business. Consumers can then make consumption choices. Why don't we trust the populace to be more intelligent and say "we printed more money during the pandemic. It's supply and demand. Supply creates demand and raises prices. We couldn't reduce supply through taxes so high supply created demand." Yes it's complicated but we have to let people think for themselves if we want them to be intelligent. 
   
   Oh yeah, on the labor supply side immigration helped bring inflation down. Particularly when we lost >0.4% of the population to COVID.
   
   
2.  One of the people in the Journal article was a mid-American hairstylist who wouldn't pass higher costs through to her customers out of consideration for how hard things are for them. Which is lovely from the community standpoint. But shitty business. Then it turns out her husband is a YouTube content creator who home schools their two kids. And they wonder why they can't buy a house. 
   
   Often the cultural right will criticize kids for taking impractical courses of study like Women's Studies, English, blah blah blah and then complaining they can't pay the bills. There is some substance to the critique that the public purse shouldn't have to subsidize that. Though to restrict support would restrict these areas of study only to rich kids. 
   
   But nor should some home-schooling YouTuber expect a bail out.
   
   
3. Time is running short so I need to hustle but one more couple in the Journal article were Northern NJ folks with low 6-figure jobs who could only afford one kid. So they voted for Trump. I am going out on a limb here but I wonder if part of what's going on here is that as progressively more of the profits in America are flowing in to the mega tech companies (including Musk, the great proponent of baby birthing) that other companies are less able to compensate people. This is complete speculation but I wonder...
   
   

Butterflies

It would just be dishonest of me to fail to note that today is an anxious day. The polls have led us to feel good about Josh's chances, though I have worn my knuckles out knocking on wood.

But the fact that the world-historical monumental jackass Trump is as close as he is to returning to the White House fills me with shame. How do I live in a country, nay a world, where something like 50% of the population thinks that's OK. Where people are so susceptible to disinformation that they will believe anything he says, seemingly reading directly off a teleprompter put there by the GRU.

Kamala Harris is far from perfect. Joe Biden's belated dropping out the the race and the backroom way in which we elevated her to the top of the ticket was not the greatest, though admittedly it spared us the necessity of going through a gut-wrenching set of debates where Democrats attacked each other viciously. But nor is she horrible. We can work with her and trust her to acquit the office honorably. If she is elected, she will need to up her game to act as a meaningful counterweight to Xi and Putin on the world stage, and she will need allies of greater stature and weight than are on offer at present.  

Then there's the issue of Michelle Morrow and Mo Green. Fingers crossed.

Rascal moves on

I have been remiss this week in failing to note the passing of our cat Rascal. We got her and her "brother" Leon from the Goat House Refuge down by Pittsboro not too long after coming to NC, somewhere around 2009-10. 

She was always the more social of the two. So much so, in fact, that she was known to upstage even Josh. One time at a fundraiser at our house he was standing on the stairs, addressing the assembled crowd, while Rascal went back and forth along the bannister, pretty effectively upstaging him. Thankfully it did no harm to him politically.

She was always happy to be petted, especially if you would scratch her haunches. She loved in particular to perch on the pillows on the back of our couches when we were watching something or reading. Sometimes, in fact, she was even willing to play the role of pillow herself, letting me put the entire weight of my head back on her while I watched TV. That was pretty awesome. She loved to hop into any box that crossed her path and also bags, if they were laying on their side. She also had this adorable way of hanging a leg or two off of a couch or table, as in this classic photo where a sleeping Graham unconsciouly pays tribute to her.

In her last few months things went downhill. She lost more than half her body weight. She started leaving various types of presents around the house, often on the rugs or couches, so we swathed the couches in blankets and towels. It was a bit of a pain for us but we had no indication that she was in pain. We were happy to let her live out her days as long as made sense. She is missed.

The thin line between small talk and oversharing

On the way back from Cleveland today I was picked up at my hotel at 5:15 for a 7am flight. Actually the driver was early, so it may have been 5:10.

A very nice guy, to be sure. But super chatty. When I told him I was from NC he paused and then was telling me about a trip he had taken to an AA convention in Myrtle Beach with a friend who is a recovering alcoholic. I told him I was in AA. He was quiet for a little while then he recounted about how awesome the lazy river was at a neighboring hotel. "It was much better than the one at our hotel, so we snuck in over there." Then he started telling me about the guy who made the omelets at his hotel, who was named Omelet Ray for his complete mastery of his craft: "I'm pretty simple, I just like bacon, sausage and cheese," he told me. 

It was like this pretty much the whole way to the hotel, just a ton of detail. Oversharing.

Which made me wonder. Am I like that? When does one reach the edge of making light chit chat to pass the time and venture into the realm of inane and excessive detail?

Certainly the night before at dinner with four members of the firm that was courting us only the CEO had much of a gift for small talk. I did have to wade in with a story or two, lest the conversation should die out.

And I had to pick the apps and the sides since, for some reason, everybody else was afraid to make suggestions. I picked pretty well.

Rolling up the trades and hollowing out towns

Maybe it's because I'm descended from small-town businesspeople, but it has long struck me that one of the ur-scenes of the disconnectednes and anomie that afflicts small towns is the destruction of so many local businesses by chains of everything. I know I'm not alone in this observation, I don't make a claim to any great originality here.

Which is why it's so wonderful to walk into a place like Dick's Hot Dog Stand in Wilson, which is right next door to the Wilson County Democratic Party HQ, where we went to canvass on Saturday. Open since 1921, it looked awesome. I was very sad to have eaten a turkey and swiss in the car on the way down.

But I digress. It had long seemed to me that the trades (plumbing, HVAC, electricians, etc) were one of the few places where it was still possible to start and run a good solid small town business. So it was with some sadness that I read an article in the Journal about how the trades are being consolidated and rolled up by private equity companies. 

Now the management consultant in me sees how this could happen, how one could get economies of scale in purchasing, one could define fairly standard practices not just for the actual carrying out of tasks on sight but of training, etc. I can also see how the corporatization of the trades could lead to better opportunities for classes of people largely shut out of them now.

But I also see a loss of some pretty well-hewn pathways to independence for a class of people who like to work locally and in community and build relationships. Yes you put money in the hands of existing tradespeople when they monetize upon exit. But another leg of the the small-town table could be kicked out from under it and a rare path to prosperity and independence for less academic types could dead end into the brick wall of The Corporation.

ISP Shabbos

Thinking about the apparent disconnectedness of neighborhoods like the ones we've been visiting (not all of them, mind you. When I canvassed in Stem I saw a fair amount of porch-sitting and driveway hanging out. Also a decent number of walkers and hedge trimmers in Fuquay Varina) it occurs to me that much of it probably derives from people isolating around their screens of choice. One remedy for this would be for internet service providers and cell companies to shut off service for a period, like parents often do around bedtime to make kids unplug and sleep. Of course, by now too many services run over the internet and cell networks ("I've fallen and I can't get up!") so I know this can't happen. But one way or another forcing people to get off their screens could be helpful.

Disinformation aside, all that I have seen from Western NC in the aftermath of Helene indicates that people have been very generous and neighbor-oriented without regard for political or whatever affiliation. This seems to be more or less the rule after natural disasters when modern communications are challenged. People recoonnect and help each other.

If we could manufacture that condition without endangering people, it would be great.

On integration and ZIP codes

On Sunday we canvassed in Willow Spring (or is it Springs?), NC. As had been the case in nearby Fuquay-Varina a couple of weeks back and also Roxboro, Stem, Butner, basically all the places we've canvassed this year, we were impressed with how integrated the neighborhoods were. Not so many Asians as Chapel Hill, but a broad range of white, black and hispanic people living next door to one another. Trump flags and Kamala signs here and there.

And then it occurred to me: it's not so much that these places are exceptionally well integrated so much as that Chapel Hill and the affluent ZIP codes where I spend my time are particularly segregated just by way of price.

Don't get me wrong, the subdivisions we've been in haven't been all that cheap. Houses in the one we visited Sunday were 10-12 years old and were valued by Zillow at $350k-$500k for 2500-3000 square feet. That's a lot more house than you can get for that money here in Chapel Hill.

So basically it would appear that we are more outliers than the places we are visiting.

I will say that the places we go have been generally pretty low on street life. Sunday was a beautiful day, temps around 70-72. We saw one kid out on a bike and two people out walking. They were visiting from Jamaica. A couple of guys working in garages on projects. Otherwise people were indoors or perhaps in back yards. Which is a shame. I suspect it's mostly because people are glued to one kind of screen or another, but that's bad.

Holes in the self

A few weeks ago at our 40th high school reunion my hopes of having at least a half-way decent conversation with the girl (now woman) I had an unrequited crush on back at the day were cruelly dashed. Yeah I stood around in clumps with her but and we exchanged witticisms but I had hoped to chat a little and bask in the glory of her attention at least momentarily. One time I sat down next to her (again in a clump of folx) and she sprung up immediately and said "I need to go talk to Nik, I haven't connected with him." I assume she meant Niklaus. I get that. Who doesn't love Niklaus.

Then the other day I was at the polls and a woman I had served with on a board was there with her husband. We had worked together pretty closely for years on important stuff. After we voted I hoped to catch up a little but she was immediately off doing other stuff around the church, where she's also on the board. I get that she is a pretty high octane WASP doer at all times, but it felt in the moment like she was avoiding me.

The problem is of course me. Part of me still just wants everybody to like me which is just ridiculous, counter productive and silly. At least you, my reader, take the time to stop by the blog and subject yourself to whatever I serve up, and for this I am grateful.

Gotta get organized to go canvass in Fuquay Varina now. 16 days till election day. GOTV time.

Third-Rate Romance

Really I just want to bookmark and share this video. Just perfect. Didn't know this song before but I really like this performance. I am on record as a Josh Turner fan already. Carson is also always solid but this is the first I've seen of his little brother Skylar, who I think stars here.

Canvassing on

By now I -- mostly with Mary -- have knocked on maybe 175 doors and talked to 40-50 voters about the upcoming election. In the towns of Butner, Stem, Rocky Mount, Fuquay-Varina, and Roxboro. Everyone is following the top of the ticket of course and many people are aware of Josh and Mark Robinson. In addition to advocating for the state legislative candidates for whom we're nominally canvassing (which have included Bryan Cohn, Terrence Everitt, Lorenza Wilkins, James Mercer, Lisa Grafstein and Safiyah Jackson) we're making sure people are aware of the Mo Green-Michelle Morrow race for Superintendent of Public Instruction. For those of you who haven't been following that, we have Mo Green -- who did a great job running NC's 3rd largest district (Guilford County) vs. Michelle Morrow, who has no experience in education, said that Obama should be executed on pay per view, that Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act and put the Constitution to the side around January 6, and other just flat out crazy shit.

We are also trying to get people to understand what it means for a party to have a supermajority in the state legislature so that they can always override the Governor's veto. That Phil Berger is really a huge factor in their life right now, even though they've never heard of him.

It's a lot to get through. But we are headed back out Sunday. I feel a little slack to not be headed out both days but some concessions must be made to self care

Cornbread and eggs

I made some cornbread the other night to accompany some bbq (pretty good) and slaw (excellent) we picked up at the store in Hurdle Mills on the way back from Roxboro. Great store. Always worth stopping in.

It wasn't the best cornbread ever, for whatever reason, but likely cuz it was a little low on salt. Yesterday evening I crumbled some up and threw it into the mediocre chicken chili Mary had gotten from Trader Joe's. Both of them improved. It got me thinking about how to incorporate old cornbread into stuff, like for instance scrambled eggs. It seems like a very natural combo -- especially since Mexicans have been making Chilaquiles for a long time with much success. The internet confirmed I wasn't the first to think of it.

So this morning I tried it, throwing in a little cheddar as an insurance policy then squirting a little salsa verde on there for spice. I approve this message. It also has me thinking more expansively about how to do things like make a spoonbread loaded with some veggies, cheese and perhaps even bacon as a dinner main course. I suspect that the internet will have gotten there first. 

As a bonus, I was thinking about how the cornbread in chili was a lot like cowboy food and it took me back to this great scene from the 2009 documentary Sweetgrass, one of the more singular movies ever.

The End

I finally made it to the end of the Bible today. I just looked back at the blog and see that I have been at it for more than two years, so I'm happy to have gotten past this initial phase of engagement with the text. The next phase will certainly be a little time away.

But before I move on let me make a few comments about Revelations. I was a little anxious about this book, mostly based on my well-documented fear of horror films, many of whom draw inspiration from this last book of the Bible. But when I got to it I found that what it reminded me of more than anything was watching The Avengers with Graham. As with the super heroes series, Revelations alternates between seeming like the coast is clear and the second coming about to commence before some other plague or demon beast swoops in and a bunch more people get carried off into hellfire. Lather, rinse, repeat. Just like in the Old Testament how it seems like everyone's in good shape for a while then they drift back to those damned hill shrines to those pesky other gods. Even at the very end there's a warning about the sanctity of the text itself: if anyone adds to the holy writ, they will be damned. Same thing if anyone takes away from it. Then it ends on an up note.

I will confess that all through the Bible it has been difficult to keep my attention on the text. I start to reading, then drift off. I suspect that is from a childhood of going to church and then ignoring what is going on up front, whatever the preacher or whoever is saying or reading, while looking at the stained glass and calmly reviewing the events of the week. Not as a conscious decision, mind you. Just because that's how it works for me. I got the main points, for the most part.

I am not entirely done with the Bible. It's kind of a phenomenon. But I will take some time off.

Brief hiatus

These have been some busy weeks. Lots of client meetings during the week followed by weekends of canvassing and then getting together with folks in this context and that. All good, but a lot, not leaving a lot of time or energy to reflect and write.

This weekend Mary and I headed up to Roxboro, always a favorite destination since it's where my mom is from and where I went to visit my grandparents back in the day. 

Roxboro is looking a little bit up. Businesses continue to invest in and revivify Main Street, though there's still work to do. 

We canvassed a small neighborhood back behind the Food Lion, with a mix of newer and older, smallish houses that per Zillow trade in the $200k-$250k range. As one would predict, there was a mix of folx back in there. Some Trump signs but also a mix of Black people and recent transplants from Durham, Ohio and elsewhere. Solid D houses. One guy had very clearly posted No Trespassing signs but he was home and when we knocked he invited us in and said that yes, he'd very much like a ride to the polls.

A good solid day. 

Ghosted by a child

Graham and I have been having weekly check in calls about his search for an internship for next summer. This last week I was trying to nudge him on the importance of having informational interviews and talking to people about their jobs, their industries, their career paths -- as compared to the general futility of firing off resumes to random megacorporations across their career web sites -- and I visibly upset him. So much so that we needed to cut the call short.

I immediately apologized, but he didn't respond for 24 hours or so. With Graham it's never 100% clear if he is intentionally ghosting me or whether he just didn't see the text (as he sometimes claims, perhaps plausibly). But I know I experienced it as being cut off, which saddened me tremendously. The last thing we ever want as parents is to upset our kids. There are moments to administer some tough love, and I guess that job and career search is a domain in which some non-intuitive learnings need to be conveyed, but it doesn't need to be in a way that upsets our kids.

I know of parents who have been flat out cut off by their kids, one of them because of their son's borderline psychotic girlfriend. Somehow they have been able to carry on with their lives. Ultimately one has to realize that one does the best that one can, is not in control of other people and that time heals most wounds. But it's hard. 

The Big 2-0!

And so, as if in the blink of an eye, this blog is all grown up and ready to set off on its own in the world. Twenty years old.

I had a nightmare last night. Trump carried Massachusetts on the way to victory. What the actual fuck? Praise the lord I woke up, and that Mary and I head off to Fuquay-Varina under the auspices of County to County to knock on doors for NC State Senator Lisa Grafstein and Safiyah Jackson, who is running for the first time for NC's House. Aside from the gubernatorial contest everything is rather tight here in NC. Everything we can do helps.

I may have touted him before, but for me right now the artist of the year title goes to this Jesse Welles kid from Arkansas. He cranks out a fresh song every few days. Not every one shimmers with brilliance, but none suck and many of them grow on me. The one below is seasonally (and life stage) appropriate and approved for all audiences.

Thanks so much to all my regular readers. You know who you are and I think I do. I appreciate you.

My blog, venerable yet vulnerable

As we shall soon see, my blog has gotten rather long in the tooth. Last night I was looking for a specific post and the whole thing refused to load and for a moment I was filled with fear. Has Google stopped supporting this platform? You can see how it easily might. I sincerely doubt it's a big money-spinner.

Many years ago a friend and reader ran a script and backed the blog up and sent me the file. Which I of course lost. Yesterday I began to reflect on what would be lost if the Grouse disappears. From the perspective of discourse, not so much. Anything I've written here about some abstract topic can either be recaptured elsewhere and/or lingers somewhere in the back of my brain or just isn't that important.

But the specifics of my kids' lives, the notes on their early childhood, those remain rich and irreplaceable veins of gold, if only for me and (if she ever bothered to look at my blog) Mary. So I need to back it up later today, after I get done with work.