All week long I’ve been chasing the feeling I had making pesto in my kitchen on Saturday afternoon. My big kids were playing outside with the neighbors and so the apartment was quiet and the kitchen was positively glowing with late afternoon sunshine. The windows were open and the pansies were waiting to be planted. At one point, Silas came in and dragged the wooden step stool from the bathroom to stand my side and add pesto ingredients to the blender. It was one of those dazzling slivers of parenting ease and magic that keep me slogging along in moments that are…less sunny.
The napkins in this collage aren’t make-believe; I bought them this week from a local shop as an antidote to a rainy week and a replacement for the napkins we’ve worn through over the past year. The kitchen cart is a possible storage solution I’ve been sitting on for awhile now, and the soap is my very favorite. Here’s to make-believe and reality colliding.
A bright yellow phone, just in case.
A gingham dress for maximum cheer.
A new block of my favorite soap.
Assorted bird cards for scribbling notes to long lost friends.
A pen with a level; who could ask for anything more?
A set of cloth napkins in a very sunny pattern.
A rolling kitchen cart for plant potting and other things.
A lemon tree for soaking in all that sunshine.
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TAKE ACTION:
In an effort to ground this make-believing in something a bit more down to earth, here are a few things that need our immediate attention:
Trans Day of Visibility is next week on March 31, but in the week leading up to the celebration, trans activists Chase Strangio and Raquel Willis are calling for a #TransWeekOfAction where folks take concrete steps to defend trans people from state bills that threaten their safety, healthcare, and very existence.
+ In Arkansas: Call Governor Asa Hutchinson at 501-682-2345 and tell him to veto HB1570 which bans healthcare for trans youth and insurance coverage for all trans people and SB354 which bans trans women and girls from sports and polices all athletes’ bodies in women’s sports.
+ In South Dakota: Call Governor Kristi Noem at 605-773-3212 and tell her to veto HB1217 which bans trans women and girls from sports and creates a state registry of youth athletes based on their bodies.
+ In Alabama: Call Governor Kay Ivey at 334-242-7100 and tell her to veto HB1/SB10 which makes it a felony to provide gender-affirming care for trans youth and HB391 which bans trans women and girls from sports and polices all athletes’ bodies in women’s sports.
11 Comments
I don’t have the cart, but I do have the basket that sits on the bottom and it’s great! sturdy, holds a fair amount, I use it for laundry at the moment, but I have used it for blanket storage in the past and it worked great for that too. I always enjoy your make believe posts and the ability to tie make believe to reality at the end. Thanks always.
Called all three governer’s offices in three minutes total – two went to voicemail, and one was answered by a very kind woman who said she’d pass my message along. Easy breezy Trans LIVES MATTER!
That dress is definitely dreamy!
Oh that phone reminds me of The Golden Girls! They have a similar one that hangs in their kitchen. š Now I have to go watch some reruns!
That’s the phone of my childhood kitchen. Harvest gold phone, wallpaper, dark wood cabinets w/ antiqued bronze pulls. Trendy 1973. Dating myself…
Love those block print napkins! I’m sure my crew would ruin them with spaghetti sauce or chocolate, though.
As the parent of a trans kid, thank you so much for this. And also, I want a lemon tree so much!!
My mother actually STILL HAS that very phone in her kitchen! And, yes, it still works.
We recently installed a landline and a real, actual phone in our house that connects to the wall and has a cord and a dial tone. We did it so that our 6-year old could call 911 if needed. It turns out that all of us love it. Approximately four people have the phone number so we are excited whenever it rings. My daughter thinks of it as “her” phone and she loves to call people and answer it, which is helping her learn a great life skill. And, when my husband had to call his dad before his dad went into major surgery he had a crisp, steady connection and a physically comfortable phone. It is life-changing! I highly recommend it!
I love that! An honest-to-goodness concern of mine is a phone that rings off the hook with spam calls. Not a prob?
We have had it for about three weeks or so and have had one spam call.
I did not mention that we also have an answering machine (an answering machine!!!!) that we sometimes huddle around to screen a call. A life skill straight from the 90s.
We still have a landline. And an answering machine. Can’t seem to let them go…
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