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Playing Mahjongg By Myself

June 30, 2026 by mountainmornings

First of all, strike up the band! It’s been 250 years and our country is still standing. We’re a bit bruised by the current occupant of the White House, and maybe our bones are getting brittle, and sure, our friends overseas (and to the north and south) don’t want to play with us anymore, but it’s all good. At least the SCOTUS sometimes still gets it right – every now and then. The New York Times reported yesterday:

“The Supreme Court on Monday declined a request by President Trump to review a $5 million civil judgment against him after a jury found in 2023 that he sexually abused and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll. The announcement by the justices did not include any reasoning, and no public dissents were noted.”

Hooray for E Jean! She will maybe? get her 5 million; yep, the Justices pretty much said Mr T is a sexual predator, so what? He was found to have done the dirty deed at Bergdorf’s and he’s going to have to pay the fine. Maybe he can sell a few more coins with his head on them? And hold the presses! The Supreme Court just now rejected Mr T’s efforts to end birthright citizenship by a 6 -3 vote! Will wonders never cease.

But this morning I wanted to talk about personal friendships, and gaming. Not the internet type of gaming which is a solo endeavor – the kind where you actually sit down at a table with humans. My husband Bob isn’t competitive. In fact, he hates thinking of anybody losing, because when you win somebody has to lose, right? I used to joke that my husband was the only doctor in these United States who hates golf! He comes by this disinterest naturally.

His Mother, Grandma Ada, also looked askance at games in general. She never retired from her marriage counselor career, helping all the aides in her senior living community navigate love and loss. Whenever asked when she was going to retire, Ada would say, “What am I going to do, sit around and play canasta?”

It’s kind of funny that my sister Kay also has some disdain for games although she’s been known to play a card game called Spit and Malice. Sounds intriguing right? There’s a guy named Bill who would love to rope her into a weekly Bingo game, stay tuned! I used to think only Catholics played Bingo.

My neighbor, N, told me she started playing Mahjongg by herself to get better at learning the 2026 card and figuring out what to discard during the Charleston. She was a little slow in the beginning getting started, wanting to ask our teacher, Robin, for recommendations in the library. Since Robin flew back to NJ for the summer, N and I have been hosting games in our homes and I’ve noticed that she is now faster and surpassing many of us in her level of play!

So I figured I’d give it a shot. My dining table is set up as if four people are playing Mahjongg, but it’s just me. It’s difficult keeping four hands together and trying to stay focused while phones ring and the laundry calls my name. One is the loneliest number.

Did you happen to catch the PBS show “Wired for Connection?” https://pbs.org/show/wired-for-connection?source=social

Stay with me. It’s a fascinating look into the latest science on loneliness and how we humans are social animals. Evidence based, they study the effects of friendship: lower blood pressure: reduced dementia risk; stronger immunity; better sleep; and a longer lifespan. Not bad! And you would not believe the actual health complications that can result from a solitary lifestyle.

I’ve never been a girl gang type. Usually my MO is to have a few close friends and that’s it. Both of my mothers were loners. The Flapper was too busy working to socialize and Nell never learned to drive. We were like two Rapunzels on that hill in Victory Gardens. But since moving to Nashville in my dotage, I’ve acquired a bit of a posse.

There’s a few women who live on my street that are “ride or die” friends. And of course there’s cousin Peg in East Nash. We have the Germantown crew who still consider us friends/neighbors since we survived a tornado together, followed immediately by the pandemic and one near/trip to Italy. There’s always the Big Chill childhood friends who are scattered geographically but still close. And just this past year, I’ve found a whole new group of Mahjongg mavens!

There’s R who gives me a ride in her menopause convertible. There’s A and C, also Jersey girls, and Em a native Nashvillian and a realtor. There’s D who’s in charge of keeping a space for us in the library, and the aforementioned N from the block. And there are more women who cycle in and out depending on their schedules.

So I’m feeling hopeful. We Americans can right this ship! And I’m going to invite a few people over for the Fourth – the holiday that forever changed my family in our Year of Living Dangerously. Because why not celebrate our freedom while we still can?

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Sneaker Waves

June 23, 2026 by mountainmornings

Every time we travel, I learn something new. For instance, I’ve never heard of a sneaker wave. We’re not talking Nike variety, this is a particular kind of ocean wave that is like a mini tsunami. It usually follows a relatively calm number of regular waves and sneaks up on you, rolling beach walkers out to sea.

On this trip to California I’ve been getting a lot of sneaker wave feelings. Sitting at Twohees on Father’s Day watching a clown make balloon animals for the Twins; touring the Rocker and Kiki’s new house with their contractor: watching the girls play in water fountains at the botanical garden, suddenly my eyes well up. All the feelings just bubble to the surface and I’m lost.

Thinking about my son’s determination as a child, his ability to focus and his undeniable talent as an artist. Did I know when he would spend hours with his friend in our garage making stop motion films that he would grow up to lead a band in our garage?

And that band would take him around the world and land him in LA to make music for the film industry.

And did I think that in his 40s he would become the sweetest girl dad and the kindest husband? Parenting is such a crap shoot. We do the best we can at the time, and for some of those early years I was not as present as I should have been. I wasn’t happy leaving the Berkshires and living in suburbia. But eventually I came around, and found my tribe and started writing for a different newspaper.

I threw the baby Rocker birthday parties at the beach. I encouraged his curiosity. And I made tiny pizza bagels for the boys in the band and told the bass player to read Dune, never knowing that my son would work on the movie trailer. That he would compose music for Spielberg’s Disclosure Day.

Now I look at the Twins toddling around, both playing a harmonica while learning lots and lots of words like: Wow; Monkey; Car; Fish; and best of all NANA! Oh and when one girl gets excited, and starts to scream, the Rocker looks her in the eye and asks her how she’s feeling?

“HAPPY” she says.

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A Winning Streak

June 16, 2026 by mountainmornings

What a week!

The Knicks WON the NBA Championship with some of the most thrilling plays and underwhelming referees in the history of the game. Growing up in NJ, I’ve always loved the Knicks ever since their last win in 1973 when they defeated the Lakers. I was glad the crowd booed Mr T when he showed up at Madison Square Garden for Game 3, and happy to see Prince Harry sitting with the Commish at Game 5 for the win. I even loved seeing Taylor Swift do a little dance!

Tay Tay’s biggest fan, our Love Bug, has started training for high school basketball in the Fall. She even told me that she shot a 3 pointer that missed, while simultaneously running up to the basket to tap it in for the points. Incredible, she assisted herself! And that the girls played a boy’s team and WON. I’ve honestly never been so proud. Of course, I had to tell her about Bille Jean King. The Bug’s coach would like to recruit her for bigger and better teams, but for now she’d rather focus on volleyball… and starting high school.

And in even better news, last Thursday I walked into the library for my weekly Mahjongg game, fresh after the Knick’s come from 29 points behind win, and asked if anyone saw the game? Only the youngest woman there smiled and yelled YES, and I confessed that I’d gone to bed while the Knicks were 25 points behind thinking we were doomed. And now I cannot stop watching videos of the NY crowd at MSG losing their f-ing minds as the ball is gently assisted into the basket for the winning point. It is pure unadulterated joy! And just about an hour later, in the library…

I WON at Mahjongg for the second time since I’d started playing this year and I felt for just a few minutes a kind of joy – not the jumping up and down kind of joy – but an incandescent, quiet pleasure in understanding this game, in stretching my mind.

I was starting to feel defeated by Mahjongg. We had all been learning to play on the National Mahjongg League 2025 card, when the new 2026 card came out in April. Yep, just when you think you have a handle on strategy and a bit of memory for the winning lines, they throw it all up in the air and present you with a whole new card. “Save your 6s;” “Never stop the Charleston;” “Look for pungs;” were some of the tips I heard in the whirlwind of combinations my brain was trying to follow. This is not a game for the faint of heart.

Lately I’d had a passing thought, maybe I should return to the beginner’s table, where the play was slower and talking encouraged. Then it all came together.

To top off the weekend, we met our Germantown friends at the Schermerhorn Symphony to celebrate Juneteenth with the Nashville African American Wind Symphony (NAAWS). This is their fifth year in the community elevating composers and musicians of color. It was a glorious night filled with classical music alongside jazz and even some pop.

And speaking of concert halls, how about the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts? The tarps went up and the huge bronze letters came down on Saturday after Rep Joyce Beatty of Ohio initiated a lawsuit to remove Mr T’s name. Thankfully a judge ruled that the center could not be renamed without approval from Congress. Thank you Rep Beatty.

I believe the tide is turning. Let’s make a joyful noise for our nation’s birthday this year.

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Waiting for Smaug

June 9, 2026 by mountainmornings

Right before the deluge of rain yesterday, our bathroom vanity showed up. Wayfair was supposed to text me between 2:30 and 6:30 to tell me they were 30 minutes away, instead I heard a faint knock on the front door at 1:30. It’s a good thing I was home, waiting, and not out looking at ceiling fans with Bob. I’d had a green vanity with a marble countertop in my cart for weeks, but when it came time to order I changed my mind. It was the marble. It’s too precious, too expensive, and too much trouble for the occasional guest to worry about staining.

Today we’ll open the carton to make sure the sink isn’t broken.

The kitchen appliances are all stacked neatly in the middle of the living area, waiting for the plumber. I didn’t want a big L-shaped kitchen in our little casita, they will be lined up against one wall – half of a galley. And I opted for no dishwasher, and instead ordered a washer/dryer combo like we had in our Charlottesville four square.

Don’t judge me. My brother, sister, and even my husband and daughter prefer washing dishes the old fashioned way, I’m presuming anyone staying with us will be sharing meals with us anyway.

And speaking of my sister Kay, she’s waiting for the elevator in her NYC co-op to be replaced. She would like to have her furniture shipped down here; along with her artwork, this would make her Nashville apartment feel more like home. It feels more like a hotel at the moment, with good restaurants, PT and OT that comes right to her door, and all the T’ai Chi and Bingo she never knew she wanted. Since her arrival, we’ve talked about making this a permanent move, but she’d been on the fence.

It’s hard to wait with uncertainty.

The work on the elevator was delayed, so a two month stay is stretching into three. Still, nothing can be done until there is a new elevator installed…

Our twin granddaughters are on the move in LA. They’ve started walking and are trying running and jumping too! They know lots of words and love to sing the “I Have Two Eyes” song with us on FaceTime, sticking out their tongues, blowing kisses. I cannot wait for our visit in a couple of weeks; last time we were there, they were still holding onto our fingers to take a few steps.

But we have to wait – for the plumber, the elevator, and our trip to California. Even the Love Bug is waiting to start high school and get her first phone, without social media mind you. The Pumpkin, OTOH, has finally become the proud owner of a bearded dragon named Smaug thank you Tolkien (pronounced Smog). He waited to find the perfect, large terrarium, he biked to the stream in the park to find a big piece of driftwood, and he signed a contract with his parents about its care and feeding. Let the summer commence.

Although we will still have to wait until at least June 13th to see if the Knicks can pull off a championship season!

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to be Rude or not to be Rude

June 2, 2026 by mountainmornings

Since I’ve stopped watching morning TV shows with my coffee, my life has improved. No more cursing under my breathe, a political veil of dread no longer accompanies me to the shower. Instead, I open my iPad to Substack and read – about how women need estradiol hormones after menopause; about a writer’s style vs their voice; about the intersection of physical and emotional pain; and occasionally I’ll read Mary Trump’s insights about her uncle.

But last night, after visiting Kay for some tech support, I was caught off guard by a barrage of comments on Threads – my pivot away from Twitter aka X – about an interview on the Today Show yesterday. People were up in arms about the way Craig Melvin treated our former First Lady, Dr Jill Biden. The word that kept popping up was that he was “RUDE.” So of course I had to open the interview this morning…. but first I put the Today Show on and was astounded at how simplistic and redundant it was, and this was before the puff pieces. I didn’t miss it in the least.

I wanted to see if Melvin would apologize. He didn’t.

Over the years I’d done my share of interviews for a local newspaper. Of course there were no cameras, and some were just on the phone. But I would try to dig beneath the facade of local color, not focus on what they were selling me about themselves. Why did the nurse move here? When did the hedge fund guy get interested in basketball? I’d take a corner and run with it, to fill out their personality on the page. To overuse an overused word, I’d try and make them relatable.

Jill Biden needs no introduction. She’s a smart, competent woman, a college professor, who married an older man. She raised his two sons as her own after the devastating car accident that killed Joe Biden’s first wife and baby daughter. Being a native of Scranton, PA and having been torn from my family after a car accident, I had always loved Joe Biden. And Jill was his rock, his “gut check.” Now she’s written a book – a memoir, “View From the East Wing.” You remember the East Wing don’t you? Bob’s reaction to all the press is similar to many Democratic strategists – why bring this all up, the failed debate and his failing health, right before the midterms? This is what Jill said in a January 2024 AP interview, when her husband was 81 years old:

“I say his age is an asset… He has wisdom. He has experience,” (Jill Biden) continued. “He knows every leader on the world stage. He’s lived history. He knows history. He’s thoughtful in his decisions. He is the right man or the right person for the job at this moment in history.”

And now she tells us she thought her husband was having a stroke while debating Mr T on June 27th of that same year. I watched my husband have a stroke, and he didn’t go right back to work. The doctors told her he was fine. But she wanted to “…lift him up.” Melvin pressed her by asking if Joe was too old for the job, and wasn’t she setting a “pretty low bar” by telling him only that he’d answered every question later that night. She insisted it was his decision and his alone, to stay in the presidential race. I felt sorry for Jill Biden, but I can’t imagine she wasn’t prepared to play hard ball with the press. I actually find it demeaning for people to react as if she’s a poor, pitiful older woman who needs protecting. Get over it social media, we Boomers have survived Watergate and worse.

Jill Biden wrote the book. She watched her husband lose support, she watched the bulldozers tear down the East Wing. It was like living in a Shakespearian tragedy. She has a right to her own story. Another First Lady had this to say about that.

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It’s Been a Week

May 26, 2026 by mountainmornings

It’s been exactly one week since the Love Bug graduated eighth grade. All the girls wore white dresses and were handed one white rose. And I consider myself lucky to have been there, to witness her with her friends. Because she is September’s child, she is one of the youngest of her posse; still wearing Converse sneakers and socks. They laugh wholeheartedly, and cry as if the world just ended. Some of the students will be moving on to a different high school, but they promise to still call. Or do nearly 14 year olds make phone calls? More likely some text chains will continue, and some will change.

The forecast called for rain, and so the graduation ceremony was held inside.

The Pumpkin’s band, “Snakebite,” was the opening salvo of the evening. His guitar riffs were tight, and the bassist was quite a performer. Cell phone lights were waving in the air and they got a standing ovation in Music City no less. Four 5th Graders, younger brothers, ruling the roost, until the curtain closes and a gigantic screen descends for a video trip down memory lane. Parents and grandparents were tearing up. The Love Bug dancing at age 4, her friend as a baby covered in birthday cake. Then we see clips from present day, with the Bug spiking a volleyball at the net. She is a smart, talented, exceptional human – a wonderful friend, a loving grandchild.

Today the rain continues, with flooding likely and a chance of thunderstorms.

I am glad the Bride and Groom have stood their ground about cell phones. The Bug can text with her friends from her watch, but she has been gifted her middle school years in real life (IRL). I suspect once high school starts, she will have a phone. But I am also pretty sure she will be a responsible user; she’s seen the downsides already – all night texting for example. I asked the Pumpkin what percentage of kids in his grade have phones? “About 20%,” he said, which seems reasonable, better than I thought. After all, this week it seems our President had been leading us through his social media posts – even skipping his son’s wedding in the Bahamas to stay at the White House. Heather Cox Richardson wrote this:

“Trump’s social media account over the weekend was active. He twice posted an image of himself leering over Greenland with the caption “Hello, Greenland!” and repeated suggestions that “China Loves Trump.” He posted an AI image of Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) as a devil (I think), calling him a “SLEAZEBAG” and a “Dumocrat,” and an image of eight lawmakers or officials in orange jumpsuits (except for Obama’s tan one), claiming they had “Caused tremendous damage through Weaponization!” And he posted a number of images of colorful fountains.”

Scattered showers are still possible, flood advisory will lift in one hour.

The problem is, our flood advisory never lifts. Mr T is always flooding the zone, one minute saying the negotiations are going well in our adventure in Iran, and the next bombing them. Despite its blatant illegality! We have a government that bends the knee to this orange would-be king who rules via late night and early morning social media rants. Maybe we need our legislators to pass a law setting an age limit for elders with dementia? No social media accounts over 70 if you use AI to make yourself look like Jesus.

I am drowning in his fantasy world, trying to create a slush fund for his cronies. I wonder if the GOP will grow a spine, finally. And now excuse me while I find my umbrella and tell the painters to move their trucks because the new dumpster has arrived. Just in time.

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Taking Kay to Costco

May 19, 2026 by mountainmornings

Consumerism.

Costco is the size of a few football fields. Never was there ever a store in history where you had to pay to play. You must be a member to enter the cavernous walls of pallets filled with anything and everything your heart desires. Outdoor furniture, steaks, refrigerators, paper towels, hearing aides – you name it they’ve got it. They even have books and toys! Or you could fill up your tank and get your tires changed. It was all a bit overwhelming, but Kay had never heard of it and she was there for the fashion only.

We’d always joke about Bob getting almost all his clothes at Costco. But it wasn’t until my newly-transplanted sister noticed an outfit I’d thrown on that sparked her interest in the store; it was a light, gauzy green, cotton shirt that happened to match a pair of Eileen Fisher pants. Every now and then I pick up something pretty, along with the huge cartons of Starbucks coffee. And I’m always interested in that special cotton you can wash and hang to dry – the wrinkly fabric is part of the charm. In this 90 degree heat, it’s essential.

I told Kay the same shirt may not be there, but it was worth the sociological field trip to give it a try. Kay has been used to the same Upper East Side neighborhood for decades. The stores are pint-sized and specialized. I remember the first time I saw a pair of lilac, leather baby shoes from France in the window of a children’s store around the corner from her 96th Street apartment. I was strolling down Madison Avenue when the Bride was little and I’d only known white Stride Rite shoes for new walkers. I’d get out the white polish every time we’d travel. It was almost rebellious to think a baby might wear a soft shoe. Now I’m introducing Kay to something new. In the past she might have shopped at Macy’s or Bergdoff’s or Bloomingdale’s. And it’s not as if she’d never been to a shopping mall. When visiting the Flapper in MN she had a plethora of huge malls to visit with our brother Dr Jim.

But I warned her about Costco. “It’s for people who own restaurants, or sororities,” trying to prepare her for the experience.

She didn’t want a scooter, her fancy walker would do just fine. Although she said she’s an excellent driver, the Ada incident in Target was still weighing heavily on my mind. Kay would not be distracted from the mission. We headed straight for the tables piled high with clothing I hoped children weren’t making in sweatshops in Asia. And lo and behold, there were still some shirts left like mine and she picked out a navy blue, and then found more summer clothes for her new life in Nashville. She’d let go of her walker and hold something up to assess the size while wondering why they didn’t have fitting rooms. She could not believe the prices… I could feel it was hard letting go of her old life, but she was willing to adapt.

I stood there remembering, walking up Beacon Hill as a young college student in Boston to Filene’s Basement, an institution where clothes were marked down according to how long they were on the floor. Beautiful designer finds were strewn across tables and piled in bins. Women of all ages and socio-economic classes would try things on in the aisles, either having a friend shield them by holding up a coat or just wiggling things underneath their arms and legs. Coming from a small town in NJ, I was shocked and simultaneously exhilarated and enchanted.

When we returned to her apartment, someone asked Kay how she liked Costco; “I loved it,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. Next up, a huge art supply store in East! OH, and the morning before the Costco trip, last Friday I played “Mahjongg in the Mansion,” a fundraiser for Cheekwood Arboretum and Museum – and I won a travel tile set in the raffle!

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Teatime

May 12, 2026 by mountainmornings

Hoping everyone had a pleasant Mother’s Day weekend.

The Bride surprised me yesterday with High Tea at Thistle Farms. We had scones and petite sandwiches, tiny quiches and tarts and of course, Tea – Lavender Earl Grey. Since we had both experienced afternoon tea in Canada on recent trips, we felt like true aficionados! It’s rare that I get to spend time alone with my delightful daughter; her life is busy with work and the Grands’ sports activities. I cherish the time we get to walk along the Greenway with her dog Maple, just the two of us, without husbands and friends, and chat like old biddies.

On Sunday I cooked a fairly simple meal and the Bride baked her special sourdough bread. Bob picked up my sister Kay, looking regal for the occasion. The Pumpkin showed her his sketchbook of imaginary creatures and robots, and she praised his incredible imagination. We capped off Mother’s Day dinner with my famous, three-layer-deluxe-carrot-cake and let the Love Bug spread the toasted coconut cream cheese frosting, which is her favorite activity, next to volleyball.

Unfortunately, we tucked into everything so fast I forgot to take a picture! Maybe that’s a good thing?

Remember when we called ourselves the “Sandwich Generation?” We lived in Rumson, NJ juggling young children and trying to help Grandma Ada and Grandpa Hudson while they were still living in the same big, empty, Dover, NJ house an hour away from us. The marriage and family therapist and the woodcarver. We felt like we were stuck in the middle; endlessly playing catch-up with parenting or taking care of elderly parents. Don’t get me wrong, it could be fun but exhausting nonetheless. It’s a familiar refrain. Only, we’re all living longer; sometimes if we’re lucky, into our 90s. And hips break, and memory fades.

So now we’re living in the Club Sandwich Generation! I didn’t patent the phrase but maybe I will. We have new Grandbabies out in California, and we’ve relocated Kay a mile away while her elevator is being replaced in Carnegie Hill. The Twins are learning to walk, I’m learning Mahjongg, the Bride has started her own practice, Bluebird, MD. and Kay is studying T’ai Chi! When I used the Club Sandwich analogy, the Bride asked if we were the pickles!!

And BTW, the Bride was interviewed on a podcast for Mother’s Day about being a physician mom! She talked about pumping in the bathroom after the Bug was born, and now the ER has a lactation room for new mom nurses and doctors. I remember watching Downton Abbey while she was home nursing and doing her patient notes at the same time. Everything stopped at 5 PM at Highclere Castle for Tea! She was lucky to get a peanut butter cracker during an ER shift.

Aging is inevitable. I understand why the Flapper studied Buddhism in her later years. We continue to suffer when we expect everything to stay the same, when we cling to our possessions, when we constantly buy into algorithms that suggest the next best thing will bring us happiness, when we can’t stop comparing ourselves to others. If we become fixated on staying young, we are bound to be defeated by surgery and toxins that will turn us into unrecognizable versions of ourselves. I loved this essay today on Substack by “The Doctor Unbound:”

“’Your suffering does not come only from pain, loss, illness, conflict, or uncertainty. Much of it comes from your demand that life stop producing these things. You are fighting the nature of existence itself.’” Then he explained that peace does not emerge from constructing a perfect life free of difficulty. It emerges from changing one’s relationship to craving, control, fear, and impermanence.“

It’s nice to set aside a day to celebrate our mothers. I think about my Mother every day, how she had to give me up and how lucky I was to land in Victory Gardens with Nell and Jim. I prefer to celebrate International Women’s Day, because just giving birth doesn’t make you a good mother. And not every woman wants to deliver a child into this world. And some people are estranged from their biological mothers. And some women just cannot conceive, no matter the cost or trials of IVF. Mothering in this country is not as easy as it might be in say Scandinavian countries, in fact, it can be quite pickling. We have an incoherent president who calls himself the father of IVF!

On a brighter note, we had a new visitor to our bird feeder this week – the Rose Breasted Grosbeak!

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Meds by Mail

May 5, 2026 by mountainmornings

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds

Isn’t it interesting that I can get on an internet site, fill in a questionnaire, and get drugs delivered to my door in a matter of hours? I can get weight loss injectable GLP-1 syringes, I can get gummies that promise to grow my hair, and if I were a man, well you know about what that little blue pill will do… Have you seen the Amazon ad? The one where a guy falls down and hurts his back, while lying on the floor he dials up a ‘provider’ on his cell who ships his drugs straight away to his door! That sounds like pain meds right? Narcotics-Are-Us.

America is a wonderland of instant gratification.

Except when it comes to women. Once SCOTUS decided to eliminate a woman’s right to control her own body in 2022, our nationwide right to abortion fell to the discretion of the states. We all know what happened in RED states; clinics closed and poor women seeking reproductive healthcare had to travel to bordering states. Because let me say it again, wealthy women will always and forever be able to afford healthcare. They will fly to Switzerland for their depression. They will fly to South Korea for a facelift – have you seen the latest black comedy BEEF on Netflix?

Well did you know that about a third of abortions in this country are performed by the patient simply taking a pill in a timely fashion? It’s simple and easy, no clinic visit, no procedure, no dilation and curettage. No cramping, bleeding, or fear of sepsis in a back alley. But those old white men in RED states still didn’t want women to have access to this wonder drug mifepristone! And they certainly didn’t want doctors, or providers, to prescribe mifepristone by telemedicine from another state to women in their state!

But yesterday, some semblance of intelligence emerged from the Court; ALL women for a brief period of time will be able to obtain mifepristone BY MAIL! Imagine that.

“In a brief order, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. paused a lower-court ruling from Friday that had prevented abortion providers from prescribing the pills by telemedicine and shipping them to patients, causing confusion for providers and patients. The one-sentence order imposes a pause until at least May 11. He requested that the parties file briefs by Thursday, and then the full court will determine how to proceed.” https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/us/politics/supreme-court-abortion-pill.html?unlocked_article_code=1.gFA.iAGK.L0ZU7ZryabYn&smid=url-share

I would advise all the moms out there with pre-teen daughters to get online NOW and order their supply! This administrative stay might only last a week after all. I mean don’t we pack condoms into our sons’ luggage when they move away to college? Didn’t we get our children vaccinated against HPV?

Meanwhile, I read a headline this morning about RFK, Jr trying to wean Americans off antidepressants. Seems counterintuitive doesn’t it? Maybe enough women will show up at the polls to slow our descent into this gloomy, Christian nationalist night. Meanwhile, we’re moving my sister into a new southern sensibility, slowly.

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Gunshots, Garages and Gardens

April 28, 2026 by mountainmornings

Our garage renovation, aka the casita, has come to a standstill.

It was thoroughly expected. Only on HGTV can a whole house be built in 100 days. I’ve learned there are two phases of city inspections – the ‘rough-in’ is first, where electrical lines are placed and plumbing is dug. Our backyard is a minefield of trenches, just filling the bird feeder can be dangerous. The second inspection happens at the end, when the walls are up and the toilet flushes. And since the inspector couldn’t even find our casita hidden behind a huge dumpster on the first go-round, we are sitting in a state of perpetual construction limbo.

While gulping my first cup of morning coffee, I decided to read about the King’s visit to the White House of our Would-be-King. And I was delighted to see the first stop on the Lawn tour was to the apiary! I didn’t know that Melania had decided to keep Michelle Obama’s colony of bees. And their hive isn’t just a bunch of boxes; no, it’s an exact duplicate of the White House! Paving over the Rose Garden and demolishing the entire East Wing in order to build a $400 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom must have exceeded their renovation budget. 

It didn’t surprise me at all that Mr T’s first response, after surviving his third assassination attempt, was to reiterate his need for the Great Gatsbyesque ballroom. It’s a question of security, he wants us to believe, and not an homage to his own ego. Some Republicans are buying his story as they watched the three most powerful politicians on the Hill being escorted from the stage this weekend at the White House Correspondents Dinner – the President, the VP and the Speaker. It must have dawned on some of them how ridiculous it was to have the starting lineup of succession to the presidency all in one room.

In fact, the GOP would like the National Trust for Historic Preservation to drop its lawsuit against Mr T’s no-bid building project. Their response: “What Saturday’s awful event does not change is that the Constitution and multiple federal statutes require Congress to authorize construction of a ballroom on White House grounds, and that Congress has not done so…”

Now I’m not comparing our little Nashville casita to a White House ballroom, but we got three bids! Actually first, we had a bunch of contractors tell us our job was just too small for them. Anything under $200,000 wasn’t worth their time. Imagine that. Bob and I have survived many a building project together after almost fifty years of marriage. Did I just calculate that right? FIFTY?!!! Our very first renovation project was after leaving the Berkshires, to return to NJ. The Rocker was just two years old when we migrated back to the East Coast and installed a steel beam to open up the kitchen to the family room. When Bob hung the wallpaper upside down in one corner. Where our Welsh Corgi’s puppies were born in the new family room.

But I can’t forget about the bees! The Rocker was born at the edge of a Wildlife Sanctuary in an old farmhouse. Before we moved into East New Lenox Road, we had to have a beekeeper relocate a hive of honeybees from our fireplace.

Now we can look back and laugh at our marital renovation journey – from bees to building a house in a forest, to a casita. And as much as I enjoy a good laugh, I wasn’t even going to watch the WHCD this year, I only switched it on for a few minutes before going to bed. How could a president with absolutely NO sense of humor be roasted? What kind of nonsense was this? Didn’t this very event, a celebration of free speech, trigger Mr T into running for president in the first place?

And I watched him sitting there, oblivious as others startled to the sound of gunfire. Did he have his hearing aids in? And could he have been stunned into self-reflection while longing for his ballroom? Nope. Our President went right back into his malicious tirade against the free press while being interviewed by Norah O’Donnell. Notice how this female cardinal could care less about our casita.

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