A few days ago, Alan texted Annie & told her to lock up the house. His reason? He had seen a woman driving slowly past our house, looking down our driveway, then down our neighbor's driveway. Then he saw her doing the same thing on the street around the corner from our house.

"Did you ask her if she was lost?" I asked him.

"No. I think she was casing our house to steal something, maybe packages."

Annie was worried enough about it that she was locking the doors behind us for the whole weekend.

This morning, an unknown car drove down our driveway. Hobbes started barking, Annie was screaming my name.

It was an Amazon delivery driver working out of a private vehicle.

This shit is so toxic. That boat might be smuggling drugs! Kill everyone on it without confirming any facts! That oil tanker might be part of a terrorist smuggling network! Board it & take the oil! There might be some criminals amongst the millions of immigrants that enter our country! Seal the border!

Fear, fear, fear, fear - be afraid! Never stop being afraid! Only a STRONG MAN will be able to quell your fear!

Thank you, but no. I choose the way of the Prince of Peace.

"Pity the Nation" by Khalil Gibran (1933)

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs
and empty of religion.

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave,
eats a bread it does not harvest,
and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,
and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream,
yet submits in its awakening.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral,
boasts not except among its ruins,
and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,
whose philosopher is a juggler,
and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings,
and farewells him with hootings,
only to welcome another with trumpetings again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years
and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments,
each fragment deeming itself a nation.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

"Pity the Nation" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (2007)

Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.

Pity the nation whose leaders are liars,
whose sages are silenced.
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.

Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.

Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.

Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their
rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.

music link

Quantity	Item	9/2/25 Price
12 oz	Nestle Toll House Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips	$5.49
17 fl oz	Private Selection Avocado Oil	$9.29
20 oz	Seattle's Best 6th Ave Bistro Dark Roast Ground Coffee	$12.49
1 qt	Kroger 2% Reduced Fat Milk	$2.29
12 ct	Kroger Medium White Eggs	$2.69
18 ct	Vital Farms Pasture-Raised Large Eggs	$9.99
32 oz	Kroger Wild Caught Pacific Cod Fillets Frozen BIG DEAL!	$13.99
1 lb	Perdue Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts	$9.46
1 lb	Black Seedless Grapes	$4.98
1 ea	Fresh Banana	$1.24
1 pt	Fresh Blueberries	$3.99
1 lb	Fresh Strawberries	$1.67
1 ea	Medium Avocado	$1.25
	Total:	$78.82

The total cost of this grocery list increased from $74.54 on August 3rd to $78.82. This is an increase of $4.28 or 5.74%. These costs are 3.03% higher than they were on April 1st.

Quantity	Item	8/3/25 Price
12 oz	Nestle Toll House Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips	$4.49
17 fl oz	Private Selection Avocado Oil	$9.29
20 oz	Seattle's Best 6th Ave Bistro Dark Roast Ground Coffee	$9.99
1 qt	Kroger 2% Reduced Fat Milk	$2.29
12 ct	Kroger Medium White Eggs	$2.79
18 ct	Vital Farms Pasture-Raised Large Eggs	$9.99
32 oz	Kroger Wild Caught Pacific Cod Fillets Frozen BIG DEAL!	$13.99
1 lb	Perdue Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts	$9.46
1 lb	Black Seedless Grapes	$3.98
1 ea	Fresh Banana	$1.24
1 pt	Fresh Blueberries	$2.99
1 lb	Fresh Strawberries	$2.79
1 ea	Medium Avocado	$1.25
	Total:	$74.54

The total cost of this grocery list decreased from $80.34 on July 5th to $74.54. This is a decrease of $5.80 or 7.22%. These costs are 2.56% LOWER than they were on April 1st - this is the first time this price check has been lower than the April 1st starting prices.

Quantity	Item	6/2/25 Price
12 oz	Nestle Toll House Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips	$4.99
17 fl oz	Private Selection Avocado Oil	$9.29
20 oz	Seattle's Best 6th Ave Bistro Dark Roast Ground Coffee	$10.79
1 qt	Kroger 2% Reduced Fat Milk	$2.29
12 ct	Kroger Medium White Eggs	$3.09
18 ct	Vital Farms Pasture-Raised Large Eggs	$12.49
32 oz	Kroger Wild Caught Pacific Cod Fillets Frozen BIG DEAL!	$17.99
1 lb	Perdue Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts	$5.51
1 lb	Black Seedless Grapes	$5.98
1 ea	Fresh Banana	$0.25
1 pt	Fresh Blueberries	$3.99
1 lb	Fresh Strawberries	$2.79
1 ea	Medium Avocado	$0.99
	Total:	$80.44

The total cost of this grocery list decreased from $82.61 on May 2nd to $80.44. This is a decrease of $2.21 or 2.63%. These costs are 5.15% higher than they were on April 1st.

I do almost all of my grocery shopping at City Market, our local Kroger affiliate. I use their app & website to make my shopping lists. Today, I made a list of some basic foods. I saved the list & the prices.

Quantity	Item	4/1/25 Price
12 oz	Nestle Toll House Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips	$4.99
17 fl oz	Private Selection Avocado Oil	$9.29
20 oz	Seattle's Best 6th Ave Bistro Dark Roast Ground Coffee	$10.79
1 qt	Kroger 2% Reduced Fat Milk	$2.29
12 ct	Kroger Medium White Eggs	$4.59
18 ct	Vital Farms Pasture-Raised Large Eggs	$12.99
32 oz	Kroger Wild Caught Pacific Cod Fillets Frozen BIG DEAL!	$9.99
1 lb	Perdue Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts	$7.88
1 lb	Black Seedless Grapes	$4.98
1 ea	Fresh Banana	$0.23
1 pt	Fresh Blueberries	$4.99
1 lb	Fresh Strawberries	$2.50
1 ea	Medium Avocado	$0.99
	Total:	$76.50

Tomorrow (April 2nd), President Trump intends to impose a long list of new tariffs on American imports. So, in a couple of weeks I plan to check the prices on this list of grocery items again & see how they've been affected.

I invite everyone to play along with this little game!

music link

A WhatsApp conversation with chaosvizier this morning:

angledge: So my brain completely let me down in a life or death situation on Sunday.
chaosvizier: This doesn't involve another shed full of dynamite, does it? *
angledge: Nope
angledge: A* & I were coming home from Grand Junction after dark. A* was driving.
angledge: I was looking for animals. Sure enough, I saw a big old elk on the left side of the road, looking like he was going to come across.
angledge: "Brain", thought I, "we need to relay this information to A* forthwith!"
angledge: What did my brain do? Did my brain direct my mouth to say something useful like, "A*, elk on your left!"
angledge: No.
angledge: What I did end up saying was, "T-t-t-t-t-t!!" & I threw my hand forward in an imperious STOP gesture.
chaosvizier: Bwaaahahaha
angledge: Luckily it was enough information for A* to hit the brakes & look around. We didn't hit the elk.
angledge: But godDAMMIT Brain, really??
chaosvizier: "Yes ang, tit tit tit, I like them very much, what's your point?"
angledge: Thank goodness he didn't think it was an invitation to ogle me lol
chaosvizier: A* grasped the true meaning as opposed to grasping something else 🤪
angledge: The sound I made was more "Teh-teh-teh" than "tee-tee-tee". Not quite sure how to convey the wordless burbling.
chaosvizier: It's t-t-t-t-ted! He's c-c-coming to k-k-kill me!

* The shed full of dynamite references an old work story I conveyed to chaosvizier a few days ago about a time when my old job had me & my intrepid co-workers detonating some abandoned sticks of dynamite at a mine site. We somewhat underestimated the quantity of TNT that was involved & wacky hijinks (although no injuries) ensued.

My self-image is that I am a rational person. I consider myself intelligent, well-educated, & curious. When I need to make a decision, I gather information (considering the source's expertise & bias & trying to find as many opinions & lines of evidence as possible), I look to history for information on previous, similar situations, & I try to identify my blind spots (cultural cluelessness, my own biases, areas of knowledge where I have zero experience or understanding). I draw a conclusion, but then I try to remain open to changing my mind, if I am presented with more input. BY NO MEANS do I consider myself a perfectly rational decision-maker, no one is. But I think my methods have given me a fairly decent algorithm by which to discern fact from fiction, to predict effects from causes, & to navigate the world.

But now, I am living in a world where facts are... whatever someone chooses to believe, I guess. Or rather, facts are whatever are being promoted as facts in a person's particular social niche, media bubble, or information silo. If you are a progressive, blue, Democratic-leaning voter in the USA, then facts include:

• The election system in the US is not perfect, but it is generally secure & correctly reporting the will of the voters.
  
• Sexual orientation & gender identity are complicated processes, & cannot be simplified to "conform to the norms of the majority or be considered evil".
  
• Human activity is contributing to global climate change, primarily via the release of carbon dioxide & methane to the atmosphere.
  
• Etc. etc. etc. It's boring to list them all. They even made signs to put in your yard that displayed an abbreviated list of "progressive facts".

But my point is that I believe these statements to be true because I have reviewed evidence that I find credible supporting these assertions, & I have not encountered much evidence that disproves them.

But if my method is solid, & I'm actually following it, then why did I have a conversation last week with A* that went like this?

Me: Can you give me one thing to look forward to from the next Trump Administration?
A*: Improved economic conditions.
Me: How will that be achieved? Through tariffs?
A*: No, I don't really understand how the tariffs are supposed to work.
Me: How then?
A*: Through energy independence.
Me: Even though the US is already the world's top producer of oil & natural gas...?

But instead of trying to argue, I sat quietly for a few minutes, thinking through my response to this reasoning. (Side note: it took an immense amount of effort to NOT argue based on what I consider facts.) I realized that I would never support the Trump Administration's approach to "energy independence", which (without a doubt) will be to promote increased extraction of & reliance on fossil fuels. So then I asked:

Me: Do you believe that human industrial activities contribute to global climate change?
A*: I don't know.

And there you have it. A* is an intelligent person. He worked in journalism for more than three decades. He's certainly seen the arguments regarding human impacts on the atmosphere & the consequences, but he doesn't believe the data that seems so irrefutable to me. But because he doesn't believe in the connection between releasing carbon dioxide & methane & dangerous changes to the global climate, he isn't going to worry about supporting an "energy independence" policy that will increase the burning of fossil fuels.

This realization has sent me spiraling. We had a near-fight earlier this year when I asked A* if he thought Haitian immigrants were eating dogs & cats in Springfield, Ohio & he also said he didn't know. How can he not know? How does he determine what is true & what is false?

But on climate change, it hurts more. I am literally a professional environmental scientist. While the global climate is not my specific area of expertise, I am knowledgable enough to have a pretty good grasp on the data & the arguments. But apparently, my husband doesn't believe me when I say that data models have predicted for DECADES that continued release of carbon dioxide & methane into the atmosphere is going to have horrible consequences for humanity (well, for the entire planet), & that so far, real-world observations either confirm the predictions made by modeling or suggest that they were too conservative & things are actually getting worse more quickly than predicted.

So, does A* believe anything I say? Does he think my career is just some big joke? What is he thinking when I prattle away about my models of natural attenuation of dissolved-phase contaminants in groundwater? Does he want to pat me on my head & tell me to just go back to the kitchen & stop worrying my pretty head? Poor deluded little girl, thinks she knows something about how the world works! It's cute!

I don't know how to live in a world where - it's not even a world where we don't agree on facts, but a world where we don't even agree on how to determine whether something is true or false. I don't know how to talk to people. I don't know how to process any incoming information or answer any questions. There's doesn't seem to be a point to doing those things anyway, because how are you supposed to decide what you should be doing, if you don't know what's true?

In this mindset, the mental obliteration promised by a long, hard drinking session sounds really good. So do other forms of annihilation. I'm not there, but it's been a long time since those things seemed so tempting.

Audio version

My cousin asks if I can describe this moment,
the heaviness of it, like sitting outside
the operating room while someone you love
is in surgery and you’re on those awful plastic chairs
eating flaming Doritos from the vending machine
which is the only thing that seems appealing to you, dinner-wise,
waiting for the moment when the doctor will come out
in her scrubs and face-mask, which she’ll pull down
to tell you whether your beloved will live or not. That’s how it feels
as the hours tick by, and everyone I care about
is texting me with the same cold lump of dread in their throat
asking if I’m okay, telling me how scared they are.
I suppose in that way this is a moment of unity,
the fact that we are all waiting in the same
hospital corridor, for the same patient, who is on life support,
and we’re asking each other, Will he wake up?
Will she be herself? And we’re taking turns holding vigil,
as families do, and bringing each other coffee
from the cafeteria, and some of us think she’s gonna make it
while others are already planning what they’ll wear to the funeral,
which is also what happens at times like these,
and I tell my cousin I don’t think I can describe this moment,
heavier than plutonium, but on the other hand,
in the grand scheme of things, I mean the whole sweep
of human history, a soap bubble, because empires
are always rising and falling, and whole civilizations
die, they do, they get wiped out, this happens
all the time, it’s just a shock when it happens to your civilization,
your country, when it’s someone from your family on the respirator,
and I don’t ask her how she’s sleeping, or what she thinks about
when she wakes at three in the morning,
cause she’s got two daughters, and that’s the thing,
it’s not just us older people, forget about us, we had our day
and we burned right through it, gasoline, fast food,
cheap clothing, but right now I’m talking about the babies,
and not just the human ones, but also the turtles and owls
and white tigers, the Redwoods, the ozone layer,
the icebergs for the love of God—every single
blessed being on the face of this earth
is holding its breath in this moment,
and if you’re asking, can I describe that, Cousin,
then I’ve gotta say no, no one could describe it
we all just have to live through it,
holding each other’s hands.

This weekend was spent doing gardening tasks. I have been slowly beating back a bramble patch that is inconveniently located at the end of our driveway. I'm digging out the brambles & replacing them with flowers & shrubs. There is bedrock about six inches below ground surface here, so planting each plant feels like a sentence of hard labor. My hands are cramped today after hours swinging a pickaxe on Saturday & Sunday. But the new bed looks really pretty.



I planted Leadplant (Amorpha canescens), Coronado Hyssop (Agastache aurantiaca), 'Electric Blue' Foothills Beardtongue (Penstemon heterophyllus), Bee-Mine Red Bee Balm Monarda (Monarda didyma), Sonoran Sunset Hyssop (Agastache cana), Vermilion Bluffs Mexican Sage (Salvia darcyi), & Red Birds in a Tree (Scrophularia macrantha). There's also a Meadow Sage (possibly Salvia nemorosa, I'm not entirely sure) that was here when I moved in.

I thought all the species I chose were native to my area, but I reallllly didn't do my research! Leadplant & Meadow Sage are native to parts of Colorado, but not my specific region. Agastache cana is native to New Mexico & Texas, so at least I was close, while Agastache aurantiaca is from Durango... Mexico. Mexican Sage, surprisingly, is also native to Mexico; specifically, to the Sierra Madre Oriental. Red Birds in a Tree is native to southern New Mexico. The Foothills Beardtongue is a southern Californian. And my "native" from furthest afield is the Bee Balm Monarda, which originated in wide swaths of the Eastern U.S., but not anywhere in the Rocky Moutains or Four Corners regions.

Despite their foreign-ness, the new plants are getting good reviews from the (actual) locals!


Broad-Tailed Hummingbird on the Coronado Hyssop.

As long as these plants can thrive in my high-altitude yard with little care from me, & provide beauty, nectar, & oxygen, they are welcome to become naturalized citizens of Loghill Mesa.