Is it time to start sleeping in our clothes?

 With Vice President JD Vance threatening that ICE will begin "door to door operations," and the rogue agency clearly targeting anyone even slightly uncooperative with the regime, maybe those of us who are at all vocal in opposition need to start sleeping in our clothes. Especially in colder climates, who wants to be dragged out in their PJs for the humiliating spectacle of being cuffed and stuffed, carted away to a mysterious fate by secret police?

Keep some sturdy slip-on footwear beside the bed to complete your ensemble. And be mindful of how your nightly moisturizing routine might make you look to the cameras.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!! Likewise, you may have no hint that the all-seeing eye of the regime has settled upon little old you. Dress for the weather outside, in case you have to face it unexpectedly.

Lots of apocalypticists and general preparedness advocates have kept a "go bag" handy for years. Unless you plan to beat feet through the back door as the agents kick down the front one, don't expect to be able to retain a handy kit of personal possessions after your arrest. You'll probably have a shaved head and an orange jumpsuit within hours. But, for the sake of dignity and protection from the weather, stay suited up at all times, in anticipation of your time in transit to that fate.

Even if they just pop the door and shoot you in the face, you want to look good. On the other hand, in the case of summary execution, sporting the flannel pajamas, mug of cocoa, and fleece blanket will get the point across that maybe you aren't such a terrorist mastermind after all.

Everything in political violence is for emotional effect. That's why we keep our protests scrupulously nonviolent. They call us a threat, we show up in goofy costumes, or cheerfully assure them that we're not mad at them. And they shoot someone in the face. Who looks like a threat now? All of this posturing from the regime on one side and positioning from the opposition on the other is ultimately to persuade the sideline public that they want to support one side or the other. Do you prefer the goofballs in frog suits who want to share a living wage and universal health care, or the masked, armed, angry men who want to shoot you because you don't grovel quickly and thoroughly enough?

The vast majority of us do not have to worry about the goon squad kicking our door in and dragging one or more family members away. But no one has perfect immunity. Just because it probably won't be you does not mean that it never could. Certainly the percentage of people who should be subject to home invasion by law enforcement, after thorough investigation and under a valid warrant, is minuscule. There were already enough mistakes before the current regime decided to make it a regular occurrence. They're being sloppy both in preparation and in accountability afterward, because the people in power don't really care about accuracy. They care about intimidation, about maintaining order by making obedience seem like wisdom and self defense.

Strange Day

This is a strange day, and not just because it started at 3 a.m.

The cellist rolled out of the driveway at 0330 this morning on her way to Maryland to take an orchestra teaching position there. Her 15-year struggle in the cultural wasteland of northern New England had worn her down to the point where she did as crusty locals tell incomers to do, and went back where she came from.

The decision was not made lightly. It doesn't not reflect on the happiness of our marriage or her ability to deal with the climate and isolation of northern rural life. We're not as far north or as rural as the state has to offer, but we're well clear of anything that would be mistaken for urban or suburban. Such a place has many attractions. High-quality arts education is emphatically not one of them.

Northern New England seems actively hostile to her profession. When it comes to serious music education they only like half-assed shit that makes everybody look bad, but does not single out individuals as particularly bad. It is a pact of mediocrity. The few sites where music is pursued at a somewhat higher level are like small, low islands facing the waves in a cold, empty sea. Those islands are already populated with other castaways, eating everything that grows or washes up. They're as likely to push another person's raft back out to sea as they are to try to accommodate one more on the island. To be fair, there's only so much food and shelter.

A parting like this creates a strange new reality for both people. The one going forth has to undergo the displacement, homelessness and a new job. The one left behind has to live with the sudden absence of the partner. I have to relearn how to live alone, but not really completely alone, because I have to maintain the place we had in such a way that she can return when her time permits. But when she's not here, she's not here. I have to do everything in a larger and more complicated facility than I would have if I lived truly alone. While she is occupied by all the new things in a new job -- regardless of the familiarity of the profession -- I have to get used to being here, missing only the most important person in my life.

In 1996 when we started into our relationship, I could have lived with a seasonal cohabitation. We had that for a couple of years, but never really questioned that we would merge our living arrangements. She liked New England. Maryland was clearly sagging under the weight of surplus population. So she came here, full of hope. Once she'd given it more than a couple of years we could never go back to the way it had been when she was a plucky single woman living in Baltimore and I was a mountain hermit living in New Hampshire.

We both gave up much for what we gained. So this reconfiguration to something like that earlier phase is not and does not try to be a return. It's a new game. For one thing, I can no longer afford to be in this house by myself. If I suddenly had to make do without the financial contribution of my spouse I would virtually disappear as I cut off things like cable, phone and Internet to reduce expenses. The nice cushion I had in the mid 1990s has been whittled away by necessary expenditures as we tried to stay afloat while she pursued her career in this cultural desert. What a couple of idiots, right?

We did not know she was terminally ill when we got together. I don't even think we knew it by the time we married. So that casts a shadow over any vision of the future. How soon will her kidneys fail? How much will she be able to work once she goes on dialysis? It's not a matter of months, but no one knows for sure how many years it might be, while research creeps along in search of treatments that might extend kidney function, let alone cure the disease. So there's that.

Obviously no one knows how long they have. Her brother dropped dead in an instant from a heart condition no one knew he had. We all know someone like that, perhaps even several people. And there's cancer, blood clots, ALS, MS, car accidents, bathtub falls,... But having a specific ticking clock adds to the sense of urgency when the person you wanted to spend your life with needs to spend significant amounts of time pursuing her adult professional goals a considerable distance away.

Today I stacked the last of the firewood. I usually solo that chore, so the lack of another person did not stand out. But the task made me think of winter, and preparing for winter, and all that needs to be done before then. Subtracting my wife made the prospect look more intimidating than normal. Winter, even in the age of global warming, is a primal force around here. You need to be ready and you need to stay ready for as long as it lasts. It is the season around which everything else revolves, the season of darkness and cold indifference to life. We are grateful for all that is not winter, even if we love the opportunities winter brings. If you're not using winter's advantages, its disadvantages loom monstrously.

I consider returning to Maryland, but only to a place outside the sprawl. Even then I don't know if I could afford it. One thing about hardscrabble places like rural New Hampshire, the cost of living is pretty low. Income is low, too, and the physical demands are greater than in southerly climes, but somehow a balance is possible that I never found in Maryland with my patchwork of credentials and experience.

Once the tourist economy fails along with the middle class, New Hampshire will have nothing. There's a bit of industry in the southern part of the state, but the job creators will have no incentive to put a facility in a place with so little transportation and communication infrastructure unless they're attracted by sufficient numbers of desperate people willing to work for cheap money. We're probably a couple of years from that, but nothing indicates that the political and economic trends will change course to prevent it. But in my new strange world I can't let myself look too far ahead in any case.

Winterize the lawn mower

Various things kept me from my own winter preparations in October, so on a chilly November afternoon I went out to winterize the lawn mower.

First I wanted to run it out of gas. I've heard conflicting advice on this. One school of thought says to get rid of all fuel in the system. The other says to fill it to the brim so the inevitable remaining fuel has less opportunity to absorb water from the air in the system with it. I've had good luck removing the fuel, so I keep doing it.

Since the mower had to be run anyway, I figured I could chew up and blow the leaves off where they had collected. This was after dumping a few bushels of them under the new porch to inhibit erosion where rainwater runs through the planking and off the steps onto the dirt below. Gutters and water bars eliminated roof runoff and any flow that might have developed across the yard, but a pesky runnel has remained. The telltale drip marks around it show the source of the water.

The mower is temperamental. It might go several times without a problem, but then it will simply refuse to start. Since your basic mower these days has some sort of solid state ignition and an automatic throttle, you can't tweak anything. You can only make sure it has fuel, that the spark plug is connected and undamaged, and yank away on the starter cord. When that yields nothing but fatigue, blisters and perhaps a nice pulled muscle it's really tempting to destroy the mower in some creative way and go buy a new one.

I discovered a solution by accident a couple of years ago. We had just about given up and decided to get a new mower when I gave it one more round of spark plug checking and air filter cleaning. This still did nothing. At a loss, I dropped to all fours to peer at the machine from its own level. Maybe I would notice something. Coincidentally, I looked like I was prostrating myself before it.

On the next try it started.

Since that time, whenever the mower has refused to start, whichever of us is trying to get it to go assumes the position. The mower starts.

Today was no exception. I thought I might have trouble since the mower had been sitting for at least a month in the shed, including some sub-freezing nights. Today is not exactly warm, and November's sun adds only a stabbing light, not a generous warmth. So, after several fruitless yanks on the cord, I got down on all fours, nodded my head, patted it encouragingly on top of the starter reel and pulled the cord. Vroom, off we went.

There are forces in the Universe that we do not understand. This lawn mower is definitely one of them.