Taken one way that’s a bad thing. Like my spending five years, successfully, avoiding contracting COVID-19, through PPE then vaccines and boosters. Now while I have my booster, my husband needs a prescription to get his.
In a positive light, contagion can have a good meaning, such as:
Ideas, here’s a small one. My m-i-l grows a garden every Spring. This year’s crop was so successful I suggested a Fall garden and she said no. I planted just greens, especially as my first try at growing Lacinato kale, black kale aka cavolo nero, was ingested in total by cabbage worms while they left the other kales, cabbages and chard alone. A few weeks later I had seedlings and m-i-l said, how about some radishes? So now she’s added more chard, plus broccoli and cauliflower and this weekend wants to add more radishes and greens. Ideas are contagious!
Hope, in that small, sometimes revolutionary ideas, might someday see the light of day. Over my adult lifetime I’ve been placed on boards and advisory committees only to come up with something different that was politically daring at the time, too much so for the powers that be. Years later I find out that City Planning was in the archives and found this remarkable idea to leverage California’s small-town I-5 like the renowned Route 66. Now it’s their idea, but I know it just had to germinate for a couple of decades before someone found it again. Contagion and hope, a winning combination. Which leads to…
Courage, and my 67th birthday gift to myself. Yesterday I joined the No Kings Protest in a small red city in a big red state. There were only about 100 of us who weathered the literal storm (thunder and lightning plus downpour on me and my Ambassadog, as we had to wait an hour afterward to be picked up by my husband). He said he’d “let” me go after we drove past and saw it was a bunch of older folks and families. I replied “I didn’t ask you for permission, dear.” He was convinced that even if participants had no weapons, this is a concealed carry state and he pictured MAGA snipers on surrounding rooftops. I did secretly bring an old cloth COVID mask and saline solution for teargas, but we ended up with just two bored local police officers. Ambassadog Principessa Lulu jumped up to hug one of them (she’s 35 lbs.) and I apologized, he said no problem and petted her. There were no incidents, just two vets yelling at other to “get lost” for a moment, then nothing untoward. Organizers stepped right in and diffused the situation. I was offered a ride home by several participants but “home” was a 30 minute drive so I declined to accept. One gave me her plastic rain poncho, which helped considerably. Now I read that there were over 7 million participants nationwide. It was important to me to go because I love my country and believe in the Constitution and rule of law. I’d like to have a country to celebrate next year, lest I need to move to Canada to avoid prosecution for standing in a local park wearing a No Kings bandanna with my fellow No Kings Ambassadog.
Keep the faith! In democracy we trust, Dee
Cooking with Dee 