Anticipating peace

Blogger's been running in French for a few days, and I posted this morning, hit Publier le Message, and--poof--into the vast darkness it went. It reminds me of a friend who used to wear her wristwatch set to Paris time, though she lived in Virginia; evidence of yearning--reminder of something more, or something else, except that she died before she ever got there.

Oh, the tenuous connections we make.

My sister is visiting with her toddler daughter--the sister who fabricates (or exaggerates) illnesses. Last night she fed her child a homemade waffle, though the child is supposed to be highly allergic to dairy and flour. "Don't tell her Dad" sister sighed, cutting the thing up for the child--as if sheer weariness drove her to it. Made me think of last Christmas, when she hollered at me for offering the child a krumkake. "It'll kill her," she roared. "Her throat will close up--she won't be able to breathe!" The child's father was there then; I guess he's the core market for that dish.

My sister tells me that I am not the maternal type--that "everybody" was shocked when I became a parent, and that "nobody" thought I was cut out for it. I don't know why I let it wound me, but it does--the thought that "everbody" was, that "nobody" did. This sister was an infant when I was 11; her earliest memory of me was when I was in college. So there's that. But I can't fathom why she feeds me this line so routinely. I remember when Maisie was a toddler and my mother said to me--out of the blue--"You're such a good mother." I felt so moved--so affirmed; mothering is exhausting, and generally absent a cheerleading section, or even a reliable guide. So I was determined to give that same affirmation to my sister. Yesterday I chose a moment when she was being gentle with her child, and I said, "You're such a good mother." "I know," she said. So unlike me. Nature is confounding.
***
I don't know what to say about Ned Lamont, and that--that there's not much to say--is his biggest problem. But Connecticut didn't need to be the home of every Republican's favorite Democrat, and Lieberman had to go. The worm turned for me with Lieberman long before he took his stand on the war: for me, it was his position on international adoption, i.e.: Give us the babies! Adoptive parents are born lobbyists: they write, they call. What's an elected representative to do? Why, what else but travel around handing out awards to the adoptive parents that most vigorously oppose the governments that unearth corrupton in their international programs and slam the door on foreign adoption. Cowardice masked as leadership.

Buh-bye, Joe.