The Leafy Macdonald District

We both felt the need to have a little field trip this morning and get away from water leaks, strange noises that seem to be coming from underneath the house and leaking irrigation pipes, so we piled Spike and ourselves into the car and drove downtown to King's nursery in search of a plant for a pot by the front porch. 

We settled on an echinacea, but it's the end of the season so will probably need replanting soon. It seems to be shoulder season at the nursery so a lot of the summer plants have been moved out and the winter ones have yet to make an appearance. I bought some small plants to replant the terrarium only to find that the ones I bought were still too big. I cut a fern back until it fit under the lid, planted a string of pearls and will put the too-big-to-work-at-all dracena in the pot where the now retired orchid was.

We took Spike for a walk around the MacDonald district which always reminds me of a somewhat tonier version of parts of Berkeley. Most of the houses are very large lots, the wide streets (no such thing in Berkeley) have virtually no cars on them and the houses are well maintained with beautiful gardens. I like this one with its gracious, wrap-around porch, porte cochere, and neatly trimmed hedges, all somehow reminiscent of a quieter time. Also, I'm well aware that it is a well-heeled residential population.

Somehow this seems to have triggered a rant. No need to read further if you're not up for it.
Despite all efforts to avoid politics, I find myself becoming more and more upset with America's growing acceptance of gun violence, ownership of weapons of war, violent political rhetoric and just a growing awareness of incivility. A very poignant column in the newspaper was written by a mother struggling with how to answer her 6year old's question in response to shelter in place drills in her kindergarten classroom...'Mommy, why do we have to hide?'

Before Trump those politicians who crossed certain lines were shamed into withdrawing from runs for office. Now Trump says any old outrageous, unsubstantiated obscene thing that crosses his mind, and clearly feels no shame, so he gets away with it, regardless of the harm it causes. And nobody seems to know how to stop it, so they fight back on his level. It all seems to be descending into a schoolyard brawl...

I like Harris but I think it's high time she made some concrete statements about climate change, immigration, and gun violence and Israel's increasingly irresponsible conduct of the war in the Middle East. "There is no place in this country for gun violence" is hardly an answer, because clearly, there IS.