Essay: A few post-election thoughts from a dismayed voter

I like the economy and precision of author Bob Woodward's recent book titles about the presidency: "Fear" and "Rage" and"War,"

 

If I were writing a book right now it would be called “Dismay.”

I’m dismayed that my candidate did not win the presidential election. But I am equally  dismayed at the thought that so many of my fellow Americans voted for a convicted felon who vowed to “lock up” those he views as enemies. Who said he’d be a dictator on “day one.” A man who said on the stump he was going to “protect” women “whether the women like it or not.”

Who are you, fellow voters?

Americans like to say—in a wide variety of circumstances—“we’re better than that.” Guess what. We’re not.

Of course, I accept the outcome of this election. Logically, in the legal sense, with my left brain. Emotionally, it’s going to take a while.

I’m working on it. I am relying on my favorite mantra, “Go with the universe.” Matt Gaetz as attorney general? Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. heading Health and Human Services? Let’s see how that works out.

I feel like I’m distancing myself, and watching a not very well written farce play out on a stage.

This is probably a healthy thing to do.

I saw the presidential race as a battle between good and evil. But I’ve since learned that, to many voters, the price of gas is more important than the future of our democracy. That being asked to call a person “they” instead of “she” is more important than insuring America is doing its part to deal with climate change. Donald Trump has promised to deport millions of immigrants. I guess some people think that’s reason enough to return to office the guy who suggested that we drink bleach during a pandemic.

OK, deep breath. I don’t like the price of food right now. I get it that many people who rent their homes are in precarious positions because of high housing costs. Despite my liberal leanings, I even understand the backlash against what the right likes to call “woke.”

The widespread fear and hatred of immigration, I must admit, puzzles me. I agree that the system has problems. I can see how some border towns bear an undue burden. But we need immigrants. Here’s one simplistic, yet important reason: they fill jobs in meat-packing plants, nursing homes and agriculture that Americans don’t want.

The fact is that two of Trump’s biggest plans, the deportation of migrants and the imposition of tariffs on foreign goods, are likely to hurt middle- and working-class Americans.

Somehow, the Democrats could not get that message across. Suddenly, we are perceived as elitist. It’s mind-boggling. I am sitting here worried, as a person in her 60s, about the future of Social Security, Medicare and vaccines. Elon Musk is Trump’s new best friend, and it’s the Democrats who are elitist?

I am trying to understand all this and, so far, failing.

My husband and I own our home. We have comfortable retirement incomes. So far, so good, as far as health. I am grateful for what I have. But I am certainly not immune to inflation. I get mad, too. I stood in the grocery store recently transfixed by the price of olive oil. It was outrageous.

My reaction: I looked for a cheaper source. I did not run out and vote for a would-be dictator.

A huge factor in the campaign was disinformation. Need I say more than “pet-eating migrants”? I was a school librarian for 32 years, and labored mightily to help students improve their critical thinking skills. Imagine how I felt when I heard a TV pundit say that, in focus groups, people consistently asked “what’s an authoritarian?”

I wept.

Just the other day, people in a Facebook group for people interested in frugality wondered why some members were worried about higher prices after January 20th. One said glibly that she couldn’t wait for prices to drop to 2016 levels, which she apparently expected to happen 10 minutes after the inauguration.

I resisted all temptation to type, “Lady, do you remember prices during the pandemic?”

Oh, well, it is what it is. Thanksgiving, the best holiday (because it features stuffing), is next week. Christmas is coming. The Jacquie Lawson digital Advent calendar, which I download annually, is set in Paris this year. It will be a welcome distraction. Ooh-la-la.

I will resolve in the New Year to see what I can do to further the cause of climate protection, which is my most important issue. I will be on alert for other opportunities to fight the good fight.

I’d like to do something about the price of olive oil, but I don’t see that happening.

By the way, olive oil is not elitist. It’s good for you. And given the future of health care in the Trump administration, prevention will be key. 

I will focus on the fact that my state and the region I love, New England, are firmly blue. I will appreciate my haven of sanity. I will continue to applaud my neighbors for choosing good over evil.

I see you, my friends, and what you have done. What’s next? What can we do to protect our democracy?

Maybe write a chapter called “Hope.”

__________

 I welcome email at lizzie621@icloud.com

Review: "The Murders in Great Diddling," Katarina Bivald

Berit Gardner has writer's block. Her agent is hounding her to write another successful novel, but she is bereft of ideas. Berit moves to Little Diddling, a rather rundown village in Cornwall, in hopes of a fresh start and inspiration.

 

She is not disappointed.

Berit loves her new home, Wisteria Cottage. The village seems filled with interesting characters. She feels the stirrings of a book…But the real excitement starts at a tea party at the local manor house. There’s an explosion—and the heir to the family fortune is killed.

Detective Chief Inspector Ian Ahmed is soon on the scene, but Berit runs an investigation on her own.

The dead man is Reginald Trent. He was threatening to sell several properties in the village, which would close down several business. So he has a lot of enemies. Plus, he seemed to be having money troubles. Who is this strange man, Gerald Corduroy-Smith, who Trent seemed to have dealings with? Could that really be his name?

Reginald’s aunt, Daphne Trent, is the eccentric lady of the manor. The estate is overflowing with books—and some of them could be quite valuable. She and Reginald did not get along.

Sima Kumar, village leader, wants to capitalize on the murder to draw tourists to the village. She conceives of a literary festival to attract visitors. Sima is polished and accomplished, but she had a relationship at one point with Reginald—a relationship she doesn’t want to talk about.

Then there are Mary and Eleanor Hartfield, the elderly sisters who run the village bakery. Their scones are tasty, but what did they do before they came to Great Diddling?

This warmly written mystery features a likable cast of characters and lots of humor. The literary festival, with its panel of fake authors (no real ones would come) and its “reading day” in which all the participants sit around with books from Daphne’s collection, is both charming and laugh-out-loud funny.

Berit plays an important role in solving the mystery, and yes, gets her mojo back. I was happy for her, but rather sad to be leaving Great Diddling.

Column: Lessons from The Horrible Hernia Horror Show

At the end of October in 2021, I went into the hospital for a routine hiatal hernia repair. I expected to stay overnight. But there was a “complication,” and I ended up on the Critical Care Unit for a week—without food or drink.

Now, every year, as Halloween and Election Day and the anniversary of my mother’s birth (November 4th) roll around, I get the heebie-jeebies. A burst of post-traumatic stress.

It was a difficult experience.  I’m still processing it.

But this year, I have been thinking of my experience in a new way. It was hard enough to hear that a friend needed major surgery. But when she told me it was scheduled for Halloween, I shuddered inwardly as I remembered being in bed, hooked up to five tubes while being tended to by a nurse in a T-shirt with a jack-o’-lantern motif.

I shared my mental image with my friend in a lighthearted way, but I hoped I had more to offer her in the way of support. Like what? The experience did give me an insight into what it takes to endure a difficult situation. I’ve learned how to look on the bright side of my problems. I’ve learned quite a bit—and am still learning—about myself along the way.

I was still groggy from the anesthesia when I heard the grim news. A tableau of foggy faces in front of me. My first thought was, “I’m trapped!”

It was my worst fear. When I was growing up, there were still a few polio outbreaks. I’d been vaccinated, but I still had a horror of the worst possible outcome of the disease—to have to live in an iron lung. To be paralyzed would be the worst thing that could happen to me.

My abhorrence of confinement led to a dislike of zoos, though I loved animals. I hated seeing dogs chained outside.

Now here I was—stuck. My first thought, when lucid, was: “How can I unhook myself from these tubes and get out of here?”

Right. My esophagus had been nicked in the procedure. I had to make it through the week while it healed. Then I would swallow a substance while being x-rayed to make sure the break was all sealed up.

I refused to think of what would happen if I failed the test.

There was no escape. I had to lie there with horrible thoughts racing through my head. 

I am still in awe—because my entrapment phobia is so intense—that I was able to make it through the week with only a couple of minor meltdowns. But I learned that I just had to deal with the situation. I had no other option. I read my books, napped and looked forward to my husband, Paul’s, visits. Pandemic restrictions were still in place so I couldn’t see anyone else. But I could text and talk on the phone.

It’s not easy to look on the bright side when you can’t eat or drink. I have realized since this experience that I actually think about eating and drinking most of the time.

But there was no food forthcoming while I was in the hospital. I couldn’t even have a sip of water. Where was the bright side? I was alive.

This took me weeks to realize. I was initially angry about my predicament. I didn’t ask “why me?” Why not me, is my philosophy. No, I was just upset with the universe. I had prepared myself for surgery, for a period of recovery that would include a modified diet.

I wasn’t ready to fast for seven days!

But, eventually, I saw how lucky I was that the doctors noticed the nick immediately, and fixed it on the spot. If they hadn’t, the resulting complications could have been a lot worse.

I recently discovered that I could read a play-by-play of my surgery—the “Horrible Hernia Horror Show,” as I call it—on my patient portal app. It was disturbing to read, but the report reinforced my feeling that I was fortunate; that I should be grateful.

Perhaps even more interesting were the notes of the chaplain who, along with a priest, visited me. “She at first was struggling being at the hospital and CCU…” But I was now demonstrating a positive attitude and was accepting “that she needs the rest and care that CCU can offer. Patient demonstrates a strong faith that is clearly a comfort to her.”

I had come a long way in four days.

The Horrible Hernia Horror Show was the first time I’d spent any time in a hospital. I’d had minor surgeries before, such as a carpal tunnel release and a bunionectomy. But this was the big time. I had plenty of time to think about the fragility of life (not to mention my esophagus) that week. I am always chastising myself to “go with the universe” and stop trying to control life. Here was my opportunity.

I made it through and I’m a stronger person for it. As for my friend—she called me from her hospital bed to tell me she was out of surgery and doing well. But we had to cut the conversation short because her dinner was arriving. Dinner!

I can’t tell you how happy that news made me.

 I welcome email at lizzie621@icloud.com

Review: "We Solve Murders," Richard Osman

I love the “Thursday Murder Club” series featuring the intrepid and quirky residents of a senior living complex—Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim and Joyce.

So when I heard that author Richard Osman was starting another series, my reaction was “Oh, no!”

I didn’t want him taking any time away from my septuagenarian friends.

But fellow “Murder Club” fans can rest assured. Osman’s winning combination of comedy and compassion, wild capers and rapid-fire one liners is on full display in this new series—along with a fun cast of characters.

Steve Wheeler, retired policeman, appreciates his quiet life in a village on the edge of the New Forest, where wild ponies sometimes wander down the high street and munch on the floral displays. He enjoys trivia night at the pub, and spending time with his cat, Trouble. But all is not well. Steve lost his wife in a tragic accident, and carries around a Dictaphone in which he records his “conversations” with her.

Luckily, he has daughter-in-law Amy to keep tabs on him. Amy has demons of her own—a traumatic childhood—and likes to literally keep herself on her toes. She works in private security, which takes her around the world on sometimes dangerous assignments. Amy always has time for a chat with Steve, though, and calls him in to help when her current placement, guarding famous actress Rosie D’Antonio in South Carolina, goes sideways.

Big time. Amy’s on a perilous tightrope and doesn’t know whom to trust. She’s being framed in the murders of three clients of Maximum Impact, her company. Clearly someone in the business is involved. But who?

Steve reluctantly joins Amy and Rosie, and the three flee to St. Lucia. Their adventure takes them from there to Dubai and Dublin, meeting a variety of good folks and thugs along the way. Steve puts his professional skills to good use, but he’s also adept at reading people and disarming them; for example, he makes an ally of a burly TSA agent through a shared love of Van Halen.

In true Osman fashion, friends and lovers are made, bonds are forged and the bad guys get what’s coming to them.

This was a fun romp and I’m looking forward to the next installment.

But first, another "Thursday Murder Club" book is in the works, and (drum roll) a Netflix movie featuring Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie and Pierce Brosnan as the wily quartet I hold so dear to my heart.