Fish don’t see water

It’s so easy to believe what we are told

This is me. I had my own room when we lived in Spain, which was a big deal. It was the maid’s room. That’s what the room was officially called. The houses on a military base had maid’s rooms.

There was a maid’s room in our house in the Panama Canal Zone, too. It was the room you see on the ground level in the photo below. It had its own little bathroom and wasn’t a bad spot, but again, nobody I knew had a live-in maid – not even the base commander. My mom used our maid’s room for her darkroom.

This was not our house, but it was down the street from us. There were avocado and mango trees all over the place. I discovered I liked mangos – my dad built a mango-picking tool and collected them, but he could not convince me to try avocados. I was such a fool.

And it just hit me now – decades later – how bizarre this was.

Who thought – not just once but for at least two bases, on different continents, “US servicemen and their families OF COURSE WILL HAVE LIVE-IN MAIDS?”

What architect thought, “We need to design base housing so people have room for their maids to live with them?

Had these people ever met anyone in the military?

Did they know what people in the military are paid?

(Hint. Not very much. Plus you get to risk death as part of your job description!)

I didn’t know a single person in the military who had a live-in maid. Not one.

We did have a cleaning lady, but she came only once a week, and the only reason that was possible was because Spain was so desperately poor at the time that even on a serviceman’s salary, it was affordable to have someone occasionally.

Even as a Peace Corps volunteer in Chile, I had a cleaning lady. I paid her four times the market rate – it felt wrong to pay someone only five dollars for an entire day’s work.

But she didn’t live with me.

I’m trying to think of how one might justify a maid’s room in base housing.

This person below wrote about the maids’ quarters on the base in Germany. Maybe they were originally created as a form of social security? As a way of creating jobs for the local population?

I can see that. This writer even notes that as the German economy improved after the war, Americans could no longer afford maids.

My Dad took this photo from the maid’s quarters. The maid’s quarters were on the fourth floor with the dormer windows. Originally set up as living areas for the German maids employed by servicemen, by the late ’50s and early ’60s, they had become temporary quarters for those waiting for an apartment to become available. I liked staying in the maid’s quarters because they were huge. There were 10 rooms with a long hallway to play in.

There was a small kitchen area and a common bathroom area. I don’t remember them ever being used as maid’s quarters in the time we lived overseas due to the tightness of housing during the cold war era and as the economy became better for the Germans, Americans could not afford maids anymore.

We served, too

But then I saw this.

From a current website about base housing. On a base in the US.

My dad was stationed at that base my senior year of high school and then college.

We lived off base – base housing was tight, but still, I knew nobody who had a live-in maid. Nor did I know anyone with a cleaning lady at all. We were back in the US, with pay that did not benefit from a huge differential with the local economy.

And they are still, in the Year of Our Lord 2025, promoting a maid’s room.

For military housing.

That’s bad enough.

But why did it take so long for me to question it?

Should she stay or should she go?

(I’m glad I don’t have to make this decision)

Could you stay with a partner who had voted for that guy?

I’m not talking about someone who voted for him in 2016, although even that is less than desirable. My mom voted for him then – because of abortion – but it took her almost no time at all to grow to vocally hate the man. I mean, this is a woman who Does Not Talk About Politics but who will now willingly volunteer how despicable he is and has entered the world of election volunteering, working the polls and helping cure mail-in ballots.

Even a few days when I spoke to her about how we have crazy maga relatives, she noted that she and her five living siblings all hate the man.

So I guess if someone voted for him in 2016 and has seen the error of her ways and made the necessary corrections, I can forgive.

But what if someone you love voted for him in 2024?

What then?

A friend from high school – a friend who spent years working at as an immigration lawyer in Arizona and who has always been concerned and active about the rights of others – is married to someone who supports that guy.

They have been married for a long time – before that guy came onto the scene – and own property and have children together, so splitting up would not be that easy.

But what about someone you live with but are not married to? No kids? What do you do then?

My friend in Chicago, Chloe, went to her first protest yesterday. She went with a neighbor, Sophie, an experienced protester who works for a non-profit that helps undocumented immigrants who have been trafficked. This is Sophie’s life work – she has always been involved in social justice and cares passionately about the cause.

Her organization is about to lose its funding because of that man. So it’s not just that now these people will not be served, but Sophie will be unemployed.

She confessed that her partner – she has been living with this guy for years but is not married to him and they have no children – voted for that guy last November. He said it was because his small business had lost too much business to China.

Sophie was furious and told her partner he was selfish. Didn’t he care about anyone else? she asked.

No. He does not.

And he is happy with the tariffs because his business is picking up again.

What would you do?

(PS Names and situations have been altered to protect identities but the basic issue is “Do you stay with a partner who voted for and continues to support that guy?”)

Women-hating women’s club

What was she wearing?

This post is not about politics! (I couldn’t find an image of women hating women that didn’t include the president’s name and damn I do not want to show that guy at all on this page.)(So I guess it’s all political after all.)

But about something that can be just as toxic: family.

Until I met Mr T’s family, I did not know how awful family could be. I had always dismissed stories of bad families with a bit of (internal) “Well what did you do to deserve their anger?”

I blamed the victim.

I was so wrong.

(Honestly that has become the story of my life in the past few years, as I have learned about systemic racism and the patriarchy and – well – everything. I. Was. So. Wrong.)

The first time I met Mr T’s parents – we went to their home in Florida, getting up at 4:00 a.m. to get on a plane, fly to Jacksonville, rent a car, and then drive an hour to their house (That is, we spent money on plane tickets and a car – they didn’t pick us up), they pretty much ignored me.

We got to their house at about 1:00 p.m.

Now I don’t know about you all, but the second someone crosses the threshold of my house, I ask if they want something to eat and/or drink.

NOBODY WILL THIRST OR HUNGER IN MY HOME.

Mr T’s parents barely looked at me.

We sat in the living room and they talked to Mr T.

Nothing to me.

No questions.

No interest in me at all.

To be fair, they were disposed not to like me. I had asked Mr T to make sure we would not be sharing a bedroom at their house because I thought it would be too weird to sleep in the same bed as my not-married-to boyfriend under his parents’ roof.

Turns out they got all pissy about that, not necessarily because of any moral issues but because it meant they needed to clear some of the junk out of the spare room so Mr T would have a place to sleep.

They did clear a small space, but barely, and when they died ten years later, Mr T still had to throw out a ton of crap. They never did do any Death Cleaning.

(Also, Mr T had given them the link to my old blog, where I wrote a lot about my opinions, many of which I no longer hold because I WAS WRONG. I should note that this was 20 years ago and I never indicated I would support a would-be dictator which would be reason for them to reject me but of course I did and I do not. He didn’t even think about their not liking my opinions – he just thought I was a good writer and they would like it.)

(He was very, very wrong.)

(Although the main reason they never liked me is because they saw love as a zero-sum game and any love Mr T gave to me was love he was taking from them.)

Like – they didn’t ask me one single question about myself.

NOT ONE.

Not even, “How did you meet Mr T? Isn’t he the most wonderful person you have ever known? Let’s talk about how amazing he is.”

Nope. Not even that.

After about 30 minutes, 30 minutes of waiting for them to offer me water or lunch or even a damn snack, I was getting very thirsty. So I asked if I could have a drink of water.

Without looking at me, they told Mr T to get it for me and carried on.

I followed Mr T into the kitchen and whispered, “I’m hungry! Are they going to give us lunch?”

To which he replied that they didn’t eat lunch.

My friends.

Years ago, I didn’t drink coffee, but I made sure to have it in my cupboard in case a guest wanted it.

That is Host 101.

You feed your guests.

Our relationship did not get any better and when they were especially bothered about something – like Mr T not spending every holiday with them, which he did for the first few years after his divorce and before he met me, they blamed me.

Mr T’s parents – especially his mom – got angry not with him but with me if they didn’t get the letters they expected or the thank-you notes or the birthday gifts or the mother’s and father’s day acknowledgments they wanted.

We women are in charge of the thank you notes and the birthday cards and the relationships. If a relationship is bad, it is clearly our fault.

But even though I know it’s always The Woman’s Fault, I was still surprised at how this letter to the advice columnist turned out.

The letter writer blames the sister-in-law for the bad relationship the letter writer has with the letter writer’s brother – which yeah, OF COURSE IT’S THE SISTER-IN-LAW’S/WOMAN’S FAULT, but when I figured out – at the end – that the letter writer is also a woman, I gasped.

The fact that her brother doesn’t call her isn’t on her brother but is on her brother’s wife?

WTAF?

From the Washington Post (yes, I know. We cancelled month ago but they are still giving us access)

Although I’m six years older than my brother, I have always considered us close. After our parents passed many years ago, that all seemed to change. I’m thankful for holidays and our birthdays as they are now the only time I get a phone call. On every anniversary of our mom and dad’s birth or death day, I have texted a “Thinking of” message to my brother. He has always responded. This year, on our father’s birthday, I didn’t text him as I was sick with covid and pneumonia. I did receive a quick text of acknowledgment late that night. Within my response, I let him know of my illness. He replied with a “Get well soon.”

At 72, this recent illness had me down for more than a month. I expected that he’d phone to check on me but I’ve yet to receive one. I’m reevaluating my relationship with my brother. Although he’s an intelligent man, a good father and husband, he’s married to a demanding wife who hasn’t encouraged me and my husband to be close with them nor my nieces and nephews. When my husband and I visit once or twice a year, we feel it’s more of an obligation on their part than a warm connection. I’m tired of it.

(I am assuming this is a heterosexual couple because of the age of the writer.)

The LW is unhappy about the relationship with her brother and it’s all the sister-in-law’s fault.

Why is the SIL supposed to encourage a close relationship? Why isn’t the brother at fault?

(And let’s not even get into the fact that the LW visits once or twice a year – does the LW invite the brother and SIL to her house? Is the brother even inviting the LW or is she inviting herself? Twice a year visits would be a lot. And what’s keeping the LW from contacting the nieces and nephews directly and developing that relationship on her own? SO MUCH WRONG WITH THIS LETTER.)

(I also think death anniversaries are weird weird weird. Yeah, I think about my dad on his death anniversary, but my family and I don’t make A Thing about it.)

Anyhow I have no words of wisdom about this situation or about anything, really, except that I needed to unlearn my own internalized misogyny when I was confronted with it from Mr T’s mother. It wasn’t easy to undo decades of programming and I’m sure I’m still not done.

But damn I am starting to understand – not approve – understand a bit some of the women who voted for that guy. They hate themselves and they hate other women.

When to let go

It’s like I don’t want to admit that part of my life is over

There are clothes in my upstairs closet that I have not worn for over ten years. For over 15 years.

But I cannot bring myself to get rid of them.

What is wrong with me?

(Yes, I know much of what you see is coats – but there are regular clothes in the back.)

For one, a lot of these things don’t even fit me any more. And I don’t know who I am fooling with the idea that someday, I might be suddenly 20 pounds lighter and that gorgeous pink boucle sheath dress with the matching jacket will magically slide over my hips.

That’s just not going to happen. (Unless I get cancer or some other wasting disease, in which case I would suspect having old clothes finally fit would not be much comfort.)

(Although I could use that dress as my burial outfit.)

(Except I have already arranged for my body to go to the medical school and there is no open casket after medical school.)

(But now I am wondering if you can have open casket before your body goes to the school?)

(Hmm. I don’t think so – I think you cannot be embalmed for the medical school.)

(And I wouldn’t want open casket anyhow – first of all, caskets are crazy expensive – I want to be wrapped in a sheet and buried under a tree; and second, the makeup they do is awful – my dad’s makeup looked horrible.)

Where was I?

I have all these clothes. A lot of them don’t fit my body, but some still do.

What they don’t fit is my life.

I no longer live a life of Hard Clothes. Of dressing nicely.

To those of you who do, Respect! I do have friends who do their hair and makeup every day and wear Nice Things. I applaud their energy.

But I am lazy.

I haven’t put on makeup in years.

When lycra tights, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt are inappropriate, I wear the uniform I have developed: jeans, a long-sleeved black shirt, and Italian boots. (I am not ready to compromise on shoes.)

I wear that everywhere that lycra cannot go.

Yes, even the symphony. (This is Milwaukee – it’s not just that it’s a casual place, it’s that wearing high heels and short skirts is unsafe and really uncomfortable for many months of the year.)

So. Given that I wear either running tights (you don’t have to be running to wear them) or jeans, why do I even need a bunch of skirts or fancy dresses or sequined tops or cute pink boxy jackets?

It’s not like my life is going to suddenly become a swirl of fancy parties where sequins are required. I don’t even want that kind of life! I hate going out! I want to stay home and read.

Why am I keep clothes for a life I do not have now and probably will never have?

The long game and the short game

We can play both

I did voter registration at naturalization ceremonies yesterday. It gave me hope – 75 people who have gone through the apparently very long and difficult process to become US citizens.

Part of me did want to yell at them, “Run while you still can!”

But the other part of me was happy to see them and to think that maybe they will join us in the fight against tyranny.

And I was happy to see them so happy. People came with their entire families. One woman wore a dress with blue sequins on one side and red sequins on the other.

Behind her was a woman in a black abaya and with her face covered. But – her scarf had little black sequins on it.

I asked the USCIS official who conducted the ceremonies – and maintained his enthusiasm for all three of them, despite having to use the same script each time, if he ever gets tired of doing this.

He beamed and said no, he does not.

From that, I went to a protest about Judge Hannah Dugan, whom the trump regime has targeted and arrested (with dubious cause, it seems).

There were hundreds of us at the federal building in the cold and the wind. Most of us were older, but there were a few college-age kids there.

I mentioned invisibility as being one of our superpowers – those of us who are Women of a Certain Age.

Availability is another.

We have time. We can show up on a moment’s notice.

And showing up is important. This was the fourth or fifth protest I have been to in the past few weeks and this is the first time that I saw a lot of media there. The story made the national news. (They said there were “dozens” of protesters, but I can tell you that there were a lot more than that.)

Bodies matter! The more of us who can go to these things, the more coverage they will get and the more it will show others that they are not alone and anger trump, who does stupid things when he’s not angry and does really stupid things when he is.

Show up if you can.

(Here are some organizations that have been publicizing these events:

(Also. There are some good things happening.

Well, some bad things are being undone, I guess I should say.

But still.

Read Amy Siskind’s list from this week for details.)

Why don’t we just relax and enjoy it?

Screw everyone else amirite?

When my friend LuAnn’s husband, a Vietnam vet, became paralyzed, she advocated for their children’s school to become accessible to wheelchairs. When the school wouldn’t do it, she ran for school board, won, and made it happen.

LuAnn is now 70 years old and has run for the state assembly several times (unsuccessfully, sadly, even though Mr T and I spent hours and hours campaigning for her). But she continues to lead the fight for progress by speaking at protests, including a recent protest at the VA, and going to Washington DC to meet with legislators.

A friend of hers asked, on facebook, why LuAnn doesn’t just relax and enjoy her grandchildren. Why does LuAnn continue her activism?

When the friend was told that Elon Musk had told LuAnn’s husband’s VA physicians to resign, even though there are already staff shortages at the VA, the friend said that her husband didn’t have any problems at their VA.

I am old enough that I won’t need an abortion. I am sort of retired, so sexual harassment in the workplace doesn’t affect me personally. I have a passport (and a birth certificate that matches the name I use now), so I could easily register to vote under the horrible proposed SAVE Act.

So why should I care?

I will be fine, right?

I just finished reading the brilliant Rebecca Solnit‘s book, Recollections of my Non-Existence. (She wrote “Men Explain Things to Me.”)

When Solnit writes about recognizing sexual harassment only in retrospect, I thought about the corporate VP at my first job out of college who was fired for sexual harassment. (His behavior must have been really over the line for him to be fired.)

That phrase didn’t even exist at the time.

We didn’t even know.

We didn’t even know that such behavior was something we women had a right not to experience.

Even when we did – reluctantly – report such things to our bosses, things like “This (married, old enough to be my father) client kissed me I don’t want to work with him anymore,” we were discounted.

When Anita Hill testified about Clarence Thomas, my grad school classmates and I were livid that her words were dismissed. We had all spent some time in the workplace already and we knew. We knew she was telling the truth because we, too, had experienced it.

But nobody believed us.

Solnit writes that nobody believe her. They didn’t believe she was reporting accurately her own damn experience.

I don’t want any woman after me to be dismissed.

I don’t want any woman after me to suffer from pregnancy complications or an unwanted pregnancy.

I don’t want any woman after me to be denied her rights.

I don’t want women to have to scream that their experiences are denied and dismissed. I don’t want them to have these bad experiences at all.

How could I possibly relax and enjoy my life if other women are being denied their rights? How could anyone?

Badass women – and scared women – all of us – can change the world

We have a responsibility

I have been going to protests.

I don’t like it.

It’s cold and it’s really really boring to stand around outside, trying to hear what is probably not a very good speech, when I could be at home lounging on the sofa.

But – the very fact that the only thing I worry about is boredom is the very reason I need to get my ass out there.

Other people – people whose skin is not white – have to worry about protesting. They know that the cops are looking at them way more than they look at middle-aged white women.

Even some white women are concerned – not for their physical safety but for other reasons. I met a woman who has her own business. She attended the 50501 protest last weekend, but was masked and wore sunglasses.

“I can’t afford to lose customers,” she said. “I don’t want jerks as customers–“

“But you have to meet payroll,” I finished.

She nodded.

The women in the image above are in their late 70s. Unlike the masked protesters, they were happy for me to take their photo. (I did not take photos of the other protesters.)

I asked about their openess and they laughed.

“What are they going to do to two little old white ladies?” they asked.

We little old white ladies owe it to everyone else.

Invisibility is our superpower

Use your power for good

Last week, I went to a protest at the VA. On the sidewalk next to me, shivering in the cold, was an older woman with a walker, her oxygen tank, and her little dog.

“I have never been to a protest before,” she said. “But the VA took such good care of my father. I want to stand up for the employees.”

There was another older woman. She had a peace sign and a dove button on her hat.

“I am guessing this is not your first protest,” I said to her.

She laughed. “No. I have been protesting for over 50 years. We stopped a war.”

It’s hard for the opposition to characterize a protest as nothing but paid, violent radicals when there are little old ladies with walkers and oxygen tanks.

And when the local TV station came looking for someone to interview, the experienced protester knew just how to talk to them.

I have been knocking on doors, canvassing for Susan Crawford. This is actually not a waste of time. I talk to people every day who didn’t know about the election or don’t know about the candidates.

I’m always shocked when someone actually opens the door to me and even more shocked when people invite me into their home.

I never answer the door to strangers! And I would certainly never invite a stranger into my house.

But – as one woman told me, when I startled her by knocking at dusk (she was the last house on my list and I just wanted to finish the list, but usually, I only knock during daylight hours), I look safe.

I look safe, which means people will literally open their doors to me.

On Saturday, I canvassed with a friend. She’s in her late 30s. Adorable. She showed up in sweatpants and a sweatshirt that says “Love Wins,” the campaign slogan of an amazing legislator in our area, and her hair tied back.

“I didn’t dress up,” she shrugged. “I figured people are more likely to open their doors to someone who looks normal and not threatening.”

It’s not just that we and I look safe – it’s that we look trustworthy.

Which is why, within the space of 24 hours, not one but two women told me the stories of how loved ones had died in the past few years and how awful it’s been.

One woman lost her adult twin daughters to diabetes 18 months ago.

The other lost her 66 year old husband to a heart attack three years ago.

What do you even say when people tell you such precious, intimate stories about themselves?

There are the (rare) people who have told me that nope, they will not vote for my candidate, including a 54 year old white woman in my neighborhood.

I wanted to ask her, “What happens when your granddaughter needs an abortion and can’t get one? When she’s raped? Or has a pregnancy complication requiring an abortion for her survival? What happens when democracy disappears?”

An older man told me he wouldn’t vote for “the evil” Susan Crawford.

But I don’t bother. I’m not going to convince them. I say thanks, mark them on my list as not supporting the candidate (and hope they are never included in another canvass list again), and move on.

If you are a woman of a certain age, you can use your power for good.

Knock on doors. People will talk to you.

Go to protests. It would be super bad press for the cops to beat up on you.

Let’s use our apparent harmlessness to our democracy’s benefit.

YOU CAN DO IT!

Your voice – your body – your presence – makes a difference

I went to a protest at the Veteran’s Administration hospital yesterday.

There were hundreds of us there. I spoke to three people.

One of them was a woman in her late 70s. She had a peace sign button on her hat.

“This isn’t your first time protesting, is it?” I asked her.

No, it wasn’t.

She had protested the Vietnam War. “And we ended it,” she said.

She has been protesting since.

Photo by Anastasiya Lobanovskaya on Pexels.com

A man held a “Boycott Tesla” sign. The “s” was replaced with a Nazi double s.

He has never protested before. But he’s so angry that he made that sign and stands in front of the Tesla service center for an hour every morning before work.

A woman labored to the sidewalk with her walker, which held not only her dog but also an oxygen tank that fed the tube under her nose.

“Is it OK if I stand here?” she asked. “I’m just here to support you. The VA took such good care of my father.”

Anyone can do this.

Anyone can stand on a sidewalk with a sign.

Look for protests in your area. This VA protest was organized by Veterans for Peace. Indivisible is organizing protests. Google “[your city] protests.” I did that and found several. Stand outside your Republican Senator and/or Congressperson’s office. Call and write your Congressional representatives. YOU CAN DO THIS.

We have work to do

Our foremothers did the work for us. Now it’s our turn to do the work for our granddaughters and their daughters

Here we are, 100 years later, fighting the same damn battles (Source)

Oh man y’all I am so, so tired.

I am so tired of all the shit that is coming from that dictator wannabe (I am writing this on Sunday Feb 16 for publication on Saturday Feb 22 and who even knows what new crap will come our way between now and then?)

But, as an ally noted on an Amy Siskind post, “I am retired and I have nothing but time, so I can call Congress All. Day. Long.”

I am calling my legislators – the entire Wisconsin delegation, including the representatives, as their actions and inaction affect me as much as what my representative does.

Here is my script:

Really, Senator? Cutting funding for cancer research/school lunches/USAID/NOAA?

Even if you don’t care if people die from cancer/children go hungry at home/children go hungry around the world/we lose soft power/we don’t have clean water,

Do you care if people in Wisconsin lose jobs/farmers don’t have a market for milk/farmers don’t have a market for sorghum/we lose tourist money because we let Lake Superior and Lake Michigan get polluted?

And even if you don’t care about any of that, do you care that Elon Musk and his boys do not have the authority to cut funding? That even the president does not have the authority to cut funding? That power belongs to Congress. You are letting the president steal your power.

Grow a backbone/find your balls and stand up for your constituents and for the Constitution.

Call your legislators.

Senate

House of Representatives

The other thing I am doing is knocking on doors for Susan Crawford, who is running against the odious Brad Schimel for Wisconsin Supreme Court.

I hate knocking on doors.

But it’s necessary.

And honestly, it’s not been so bad this time because it turns out what I am really doing is letting likely voters know that there is an election.

Most people don’t even know there is an election and when I tell them that Schimel supports the pardon of the January 6 insurrectionists and that he has asked for that orange man’s endorsement, they say that’s all they need to know – they will vote for Crawford.

If you are in Wisconsin, please knock on doors.

If you are outside of Wisconsin, please phone bank or write postcards or donate money. You can find information on volunteering on Crawford’s campaign site. (This is one of many places for postcards.)

I will be knocking on doors from now until the election on April 1. I may or may not be posting in that time. I feel like there’s nothing to say but CALL YOUR LEGISLATORS.