Scout Moves

Just last week, I got a note from someone asking how it is I don’t completely implode from the vitriol and ignorance and hatefulness that gets spewed on Facebook—she assumes I don’t implode—and I told her that I block those posts, or those posters, from my newsfeed. There is more to a person than politics, so by putting a wall between their offensive views and my sensitive disposition, I can still like the person for their other qualities without seeing them with warts and fangs. Besides, sometimes someone can have a differing opinion that isn’t based on ignorance. It’s just different. But still, I know what she means. There are people who are just unpleasant and negative and arrogant, and they assume everyone else wants to know about their politics because they, of course, are right and point straight to the truth. Those people I don’t mind seeing as is, warts and all. Otherwise—I’ve noticed lately that some of my friends “like” a post about requiring welfare recipients to be drug...

I have such an appreciation for Inauguration Day. We Americans like to fight, we lean toward violence, we entertain all kinds of opinions in the public square, we make a mess of things and then pick ourselves up and move on. But on this day, we manage to come together and swear in a president. True, he has to ride in a bullet-proof car and stand behind bullet-proof glass in case some jack-ass tries to shoot him, but we get through it. Today happens to fall on Martin Luther King Day as well (along with my father's birthday—he would have been 93), so we mark two great days at once. Just in case MLK doesn't get fair coverage today, I am resurrecting my newspaper column from a few years ago. I think it's generally bad form to quote one's self, but I'm willing to commit bad form in order to make my point one more time. Here goes: Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. My deceased father’s birthday is this week, as well, and on some years, it coincides with the day comm...

The other day, I drove into a cloud. I’m not talking about a little fog or some high elevation mist, and I’m not talking about this mystical place where we all store our photos and music—what is that, anyway? I mean, I drove into the kind of cloud that strikes fear into the hearts of men, that rattles airplanes in descent, that carries rain and wind and unknown weather drama. I was driving Emily back to school at the end of her winter break, and we were on I-77 North headed toward Cleveland. Our next move was to turn onto 480 West, and as we approached the ramp, I noted that the large cloud to the left looked like a mountain. Have you seen those? If you live in flat land as we do, the sight of a large cloud that is low enough to the ground that you can see the top edge of it, but maybe not the bottom edge, puts you in mind of a mountain range. Emily remarked that she wished we lived near an actual mountain range so that we could actually be driving near the Rockies and not near clou...

I read quite a lot of books in 2012—I would finish one book and then start the next with rarely more than a day's break in between to process one before I started digesting another. I credit (or blame) my Kindle for that because the damned thing is so handy and compact. I got it last January right before a beach vacation and haven't been able to put it down. I used to say that about actual books, just one individual book made of paper that was so compelling "I couldn't put it down," so isn't it interesting that I would now use that phrase about a device that allows me to read many books, one after another? I got an iPad Mini as a Christmas gift from Husband, which has replaced the Kindle because I can read and check email and check Facebook and play Drawsomething and then read again in quick succession, and let me tell you, this thing, this little iPad—I can't put it down. And I keep reading. Over Christmas, I finished Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wi...

I think it’s Thursday, but I’m not certain. We’ve been traveling a bit over the holidays, and when I’m away from home, I don’t pay attention to the time or the date or the day of the week. The Scout family likes to spend New Year’s together, and Husband and I have always been amazed that our kids seem to prefer to be with us for the event than with their friends. Good kids. The other day, we tried to review our New Year’s experiences—a resort in Pennsylvania, Disney World, a Caribbean cruise, Maui, our lake house. A couple of years ago, we split up, and while Emily was in Romania shooting off fireworks in garbage cans, the rest of us were having dinner in Napa. This time around, we flew to Austin, Texas where Katie is now a grad student (you can follow her at Knitosaurus ). Nicholas in his airline carrier. We stayed at a hotel downtown, just a few blocks from 6th Street where all the bars and clubs are lined up, and Katie stayed at her apartment because we delivered her cat, ...