Soapbox

I understand that commercials- even the ones that pretend to be- are not realistic.
Charmin features a family of bears, none of whom wear clothes,  with parents who are unwilling to puck up their son’s underpants because they might have poop on them…. but he shows them that, thanks to Charmin, he gets is bottom clean now- and does a dance wherein he waves his naked butt at them to prove it. He doesn’t wear clothes- so why does he have underpants? And did I mention that they are bears?!! Also, they sit bare-assed on upholstered furniture. If they don’t clean properly, dirty underpants are the least of their worries.

Ok, commercials are their own special world. I get that. We tend to tune them out anyway, so when one is so bad that it breaks through the shell, then it starts to bother you every time you have to see it.

Such is the annual Christmas commercial where the wife surprises her husband with a gift of his-and-hers sunglasses, and he takes her outside and surprises her with the gift of his-and-hers massive, luxury pick-up trucks. Surprise! She squeals in delight and runs over and claims… the one that he wanted for himself.

There is SO much wrong with this commercial it’s hard to know where to start, but in 2020, it is a dozen times worse than in other years.

First: who buys someone a car, let alone plunks down $50k for a luxury truck, without letting them drive it and pick the color, options etc. that they want? If you get it wrong, you can’t exactly stand in line to exchange it for the right one the day after Christmas. So it serves him right that she took the color he picked for himself.
This has always bothered me about the “Buy her a car for Christmas” meme where a new ride, tricked out with a 4 foot bow, waits in the driveway to delight the wife and kids.  (Also, do car dealers actually sell those giant bows, ’cause I’ve never seen them in the Christmas section at Target.)

Second: Because we’re not quite shittily, smugly rich enough just putting one car ‘under the tree’, now we’re gonna drop $100k on two vehicles without any need for a family consultation about finances (and regardless of the fact that we clearly don’t need even one pick-up because these folks are NOT the “hauling firewood or scrap salvage” type).
Name me a spouse out there whose first reaction upon seeing that much cash sitting in the drivwway wouldn’t be to say “What the hell did you do?” But no- she runs greedily to claim her prize, like a kid who finds both a chocolate AND a vanilla ice cream cone.

There are always poor people.  I often wonder (sadly, that’s how my brain works) how it feels to see these rich people commercials all day. Because that’s the ad standard: a lifestyle that can’t be maintained on less than a quarter million dollar income to sell laundry detergent. Imagine struggling to make the rent this month because your daughter was sick and you had to miss 2 days of work and seeing “regular folks” depicted as rich. . Commercials may have added some black families and Hispanic families and same-sex families to the mix but they never feature regular, driving a 10 year-old-car, working-class folks.
Christmas ads are one giant smash in the face, reminding most of the country that they are not part of the American dream.

And here’s where 2020 factors in.
We’re entering another lock-down phase (because Covidiots apparently want to die) which means some businesses that had only recently opened will be closing again. There are millions of families with an estimated 18 million children experiencing hunger and facing the possibility of homelessness right at the holidays, and the Republican party refuses to even debate the second Covid relief bill that the House passed months ago. I digress.
Imagine being stuck in your tiny house again with your kids out of school again and you out of work again and your suck-ass Republican congressman too busy packing the court with extremists, insulting people who wear masks and not telling the President to concede the damn election to care about you having nothing to feed your kids for dinner…. and then this truck commercial comes on the TV.

I get it: some people are rich. I know that 10 rich people matter more than 1000 poor ones. That’s not new, or exclusive to the repulsive, consumer economy that is America.
But now? With the life-or-death struggle that millions of your fellow citizens are going through right now, you have to make people feel even worse with commercials like that?
It’s just extra mean.  Nyah-nyah, we’re giving ourselves trucks for Christmas and you’re hoping for a loaf of bread! Shouldn’t have been born poor, fool!
Even the covid-catering commercials are all people “struggling” to deal with working from home “during these challenging times”… so they jump on their very expensive indoor trainer bike to relieve tension.

The rich have theirs, and most of them clearly don’t give a damn about anybody else.

It’s been a roller-coaster.
The logistical aspects of living down in what is basically an efficiency apartment haven’t been too bad. But the other parts are harder.

It seemed likely by Nov. 5th that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would win the election, when all votes were finally counted. By Saturday it was mathematically impossible for Trump to win and the election was called. Although counting was still going on, the end was obvious.
Well obvious to everyone but Team Trump.
He doesn’t do math. He only does Trump.

There were cheering crowds in the streets around the nation and the world, and bells ringing in Paris as if it were the end of a bitter war. (Live your life in such a way that the world doesn’t not rejoice when you lose your job I read.) It has been a war but it is not over.
Screaming in all-caps on Twitter things like “STOP THE STEAL!” and “I WON THE ELECTION- BY A LOT!” and “DO SOMETHING” Donald Trump kept up his campaign of lies, even as Joe Biden began putting his transition team in place. Declaring that they had “mountains of evidence” that “illegal votes” were being counted, Trump lawyers began filing lawsuits to “STOP THE COUNT” in states where Biden’s lead was widening, (while demanding “COUNT EVERY VOTE” in states where Trump was ahead. Make up your mind). So far over a dozen cases have been summarily dismissed by judge after judge, all saying “You have lots of noise but no substance. This is all hearsay and accusation with nothing to back it up your contention that anything illegal has happened”.

Trump’s high-powered professional team just quit, no doubt recognizing that their reputation was not being burnished by working on such a frivolous and hypocritical case to undermine democracy. (The fact that Trump has a history of refusing to pay his debts to contractors and even lawyers probably didn’t help.) In one case they filed a brief that literally had a post-it note attached as “evidence”, handed in by someone who said someone told him that they had seen… Many are now calling it the Post-It Defense.

But that hasn’t stopped Donald Trump, who refuses to concede and has his surrogates and idiots fanned out declaring that he actually won if you don’t count those illegal votes (by which he means votes for Biden, apparently) and will dance at his own inauguration in January.
And while simply refusing to surrender doesn’t mean that you get to win the war, it is making things much, much worse.
Trump reportedly hasn’t taken a National Security briefing since October, because he just doesn’t even pretend to care any more. And yet he has refused to allow Biden to get Nat Sec briefings. Which means, literally, that no one is driving.

Of course no one has been driving for, well, years, and that seems to be fine with the GOP, as long as they are in power and still able to line their pockets.
While only a few are openly supporting Trump’s ridiculous claims, most of them are mouthing meaningless s**t like “It is important for democracy that every legal vote be counted and no illegal ones and until that has happened we do not know who has won the election…” blah blah blah. But we DO know. The Secretaries of State- even Republican ones- in states that voted for Biden by narrow margins are all saying- No. Look, we don’t like the results, but we ran a clean election, our votes were counted honestly and Donald Trump lost”.
So now Trump is calling for them to resign, or be impeached, for the people to rise up and… and overturn the 5+ million vote advantage Biden has and install Trump on the throne, because he thinks he deserves it. Because it’s not fair for Biden to win just because 5 million more people want him to win. Because f*ck democracy and the Will of the People: Trump and the GOP is entitled to stay in power.

From my sofa in the basement while I wait to see if I have contracted the disease that has hospitals in places like N Dakota at 100% capacity (but still no mask laws- because Freedom) I am one tiny voice pushing back, encouraging people on my political page (over 100k followers, so not that tiny) to do the same. Calling, emailing my idiot Republican senator and others, reminding them that history will remember them as aiding and abetting a criminal. But Ohio, despite the hardship and loss, despite the deaths, despite the corruption, open attacks on democracy and sheer not giving a damn, voted for Trump. And they won’t be around for most of history.

Yesterday there was what was billed as a “Million MAGA March” in Washington to Stop the Steal and keep Trump in power. It was attended by the Proud Boyz (on the verge of pulling out their white hoods and admitting that hell yes, they want to put the blacks and browns back in their place) and the QAnon delusionists (who insist that there is an international cabal of pedophile killers whom Trump is fighting) and the gun-wavers, woman-haters, angry entitleds and guys who just like to have an excuse to swear at people.
Despite the fact that they say they are there to worship and keep him in power, Trump just drove past them and waved on his way to steal more taxpayer money at his golf club. Because even fighting to stay in power takes a back seat to his favorite grift.
Trump’s latest spokesliar bragged that there were “more than a million” great patriots turned out to protect democracy (out to overturn democracy, you mean) when overhead camera shots showed no more than a few thousand. A nice crowd, but she was off by a factor of 100. Fitting, though, given that Trump started his administration by sending his first spokesliar out to insist that “Donald Trump’s Inauguration had the highest attendance of any inauguration in history, period!”
Because in Trump’s world, a lie becomes true if you just state it emphatically enough.

Joe Biden has 306 electoral college votes (Trump tried telling swing states who went blue that they should just refuse to appoint any electors who would vote for Biden, so that he could win (see “F*ck democracy and the Will of the People). Those states have said- Er… no. Absent strong evidence of an unfair election, we are required by statute to appoint electors as determined by the popular vote.
But thanks for making another strong argument for why the Electoral college should be eliminated entirely.

Meanwhile, down in the basement…
In just a few more days I will have passed the 14 day mark, the point at which virologists assure us that is the longest it can take to start exhibiting symptoms. I can stop worrying every time I have to clear my throat, or realize “Crap- my glands are swollen- am I getting sick?” I can go upstairs in my own house without first putting on my mask and sanitizing my hands, and people won’t have to wait for me to leave the room before they enter. I can sleep in my own bed and put my arms around my husband again. Ted won’t have to sit at the top of the stairs and talk to me. We won’t have to text each other goodnight.
Until the next time.

I find myself unable to detail here too much about the ongoing (and worsening, because Trump!) pandemic. Yes, there has been a vaccine announced that seems to be 90% effective. (Trump immediately claimed credit for its development and Pfizer had to push back and remind the world that they took ZERO money from the US government for their work. Trump would take credit for the sun rising in the east if he thought it would get him something). But it will be April before large scale immunizations can begin, and it will be a 2-step vaccine that won’t really confer immunity until after the second dose.

In the meantime, despite having the highest new infection rate in the world, half of America seems to want to get Covid-19! An incoming state Rep in Georgia was all over social media proclaiming that “Masks are oppression! My Body- My choice!”
Dumb ass. It’s NOT just your body! It’s the bodies of everyone you come in contact with, and everyone they come in contact with!
A group of parents held a secret prom for their kids (they’re now called Superspreader events) and sure, parents, kids and staff at the venue have started getting sick, but still they refuse to tell health officials who all was there so they can do contact tracing and get people to isolate themselves— because freedom!
“We made a lot of kids happy, and we’d do it again” one father said. And if a few of them end up in the ICU, or pass it to their grandma who dies- oh well.

Thanksgiving us coming up, and there is no doubt that millions of people will go ahead and host their traditional large family gathering. Because it won’t feel like thanksgiving without Uncle Bud and Grandpa arguing over football while Aunt Sally makes her famous gravy…
Honestly, if these people had been living in America during the 2nd World War, we would have lost. They would have refused to ration,  buy bonds, plant victory gardens and put up black-out curtains or any of the measures the measures the population was asked to make, because How dare you inconvenience me! How dare you ask me to make any small changes for the greater good, to help our country overcome extreme peril?

The “Masks are Oppression” lady never had to drink from the Coloreds Only fountain, or went to apply for a job and saw the “No Irish” sign.

Take it from someone who wore a mask for 15 hours in a crowded room and can’t even go up to get something out of the refrigerator w/o masking and sanitizing: masks aren’t that hard. Breathing when you have Covid is 100x harder.
Being a doctor or a nurse at a hospital that is overwhelmed- who had to put staff in garbage bags because they ran out of disposable gowns, who has to give people some IV fluids and a shot of steroids and send them home with a wish and a prayer because they are no beds to admit them; who has to watch people struggle mightily for weeks to overcome the virus only to have them suddenly die… ask them if wearing a mask, or staying away from the gym, or not having a big Thanksgiving dinner is too damn hard.

I’m angry. I’m scared. I feel guilty because I haven’t had to bear the brunt of this. In any war there are front line troops who carry most of the weight, but hopefully, the civilians back home pitch in to help however they can. Not this time. This time they’re denying that a war is even going on.
Doctors, respiratory techs, ambulance drivers- they are our front-line combat troops, and they are getting blown to hell. And instead of doing SMALL things to ease their burden, half of this stupid, stupid country is making it harder. By refusing to contain the spread of the disease they are planting land mines in the road ahead, blowing our troops apart. Helping the enemy.

And most of that comes back to Donald Trump, and his year-long campaign to simply SAY that Covid-19 is not a problem, say that “We’re rounding the corner” and “it’s almost gone” and “Masks don’t help they’re just a political attack on me” and “doctors are lying about how many people are dying”.
Who are you going to believe: me, or all the evidence all around you? And millions of people put their heads in the sand and believe what they want to believe: that’s its all a plot and nothing bad is happening.
Trump, by his refusal to wear masks or have any White House safety protocol is directly responsible for hundreds of infections and dozens of deaths. His refusal to form any sort of coherent national strategy to contain the disease makes him indirectly responsible for 10’s of thousands more.

Joe Biden already has a Covid staff. Donald Trump’s staff has Covid.

Clearly humans are too stupid as a species to survive, and too reckless to deserve to. God should have put dolphins in charge. I can’t write about it any more. I don’t believe in putting my head in the sand but I need to protect my mental health. It’s getting harder and harder to sleep at night, thinking how many people will be dead by Christmas because their family refused to just spend Thanksgiving being thankful that they were alive

Oh baby, hold me tight~
I can’t take the news tonight.

It’s terrifying to think how many Americans went out and risked their health to cast their vote to drive the car off the cliff.
I got home from the polls a little before 9:00. I took a long shower to try to scrub the 450+ people we processed at my precinct off my skin and went down to the basement, where I plan to basically stay for the next 10 days until I know I haven’t contracted Covid.
It was my intent to curl up and sleep and not look at any news results until tomorrow. After all, there were no longer and letters I could write, phone calls to make or donations to send that could influence what was happening. However what little sleep I got was filled with people making cryptic remarks that were intended to offer me clues as to what the results were but told me nothing, so a little after 1 AM, frustrated and exhausted and wide awake, I picked up my phone and swiped to the news page.

And now my hands are shaking.

The election has not been called yet, which in a way is a crushing defeat, given how far ahead Biden was in most polls. But even if he pulls it out when absentee ballots are counted, the “Blue Wave” did not happen. The whole middle of the country is solid red. Texas looked pretty blue when I got home but it’s now red, as is Ohio.
WTF Ohio??

How could that many people vote for death? What the hell does that madman have to do to convince you that he’s- well, a madman? Because if anything is clear, it’s that many, many people are going to die as a result of a Trump second term. So many people worked so hard to keep it from happening, but clearly, as many also worked to destroy American democracy, civil rights, human rights and lives.
Donald Trump’s Covid-19 policy has been “Ignore It” and a quarter-million of us have paid the price. And his response to that has been to simply shout that “We’ve rounded the corner” Covid has been eliminated, doctors are lying, there will be a vaccine any day— come to my rally and DIE FOR ME.

And people did. Every single day we got more news that proved that his campaign rallies were literally killing people… and still they came.
And, apparently, they voted.

4 years ago, when it became clear that Clinton was going to lose to Trump, Steve came to me and put his arms around me and after a minute whispered, “I’m scared”. And I was too. I knew it would be bad, but it was so so much worse than I had feared. I had hoped it would be George W Bush-level bad, but was far worse. (Hell, George Bush is against Donald Trump!)
And unless a miracle happens, it is going to get exponentially worse still.

Trump’s hideous Supreme Court majority is going to vote to end the Affordable Care Act… in the middle of a pandemic. When the Republicans, after a decade, still have *nothing* with which to replace it. Millions will lose health care coverage and be unable to afford hospital treatment for Covid that might save their lives.
If there still are hospital beds available to be treated in, which there already are not in some areas that have resorted to make-shift field hospitals in fairground buildings.

The Trump Thugs: armed bands of MAGA red-hat wearers ranging from mere entitled idiots to violent white-supremacists plotting serious domestic terrorism, will feel empowered as never before to harass and attack minorities- oh, and their own governors if they dare have the temerity to institute public freaking health policies to limit the spread of a killer disease.
Because they want to go back to drinking beer in bars and how dare anyone tell them not to?
The Brownshirts of Hitler’s Germany have become the Red-hats of America.

And the utterly sociopathic Republican congress who as a body stood back and watched as their own constituents suffer and die, have already violated every principle they ever claimed to have held. Collude with Russia as they hack the US election systems and even our power grid?
Sure. Whatever.
Call our military “losers” and “suckers” while simultaneously using them as props and photo ops?
Ho hum.
Lock children in cages- including 500 kids, some just toddlers, separated from their immigrant parents never to be returned because DHS didn’t bother to keep a record of whose children they were?
They’re not our kids, so…
Grift hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars by playing golf almost weekly at your own golf clubs, overbilling the Secret Service and others for the rooms they must book, golf carts they must use, etc just to take care of you?
Well at least he’s not Obama in a tan suit.

God almighty. I can’t even keep writing the crimes against justice, the Constitution, and the People which  Republicans have aided and abetted Trump in committing. There is literal blood on their hands but, thanks to a bunch of dark money donors, it looks like even the worst of them will keep their senate seats.

And looming over it all is Covid. A disease we COULD be managing, but we’re not. Because freedom matters more than lives to the pro-life party.

Things Donald Trump has blamed ~So far~ for the ridiculous infection and death rate in America:
* Masks. Wearing masks doesn’t help. No, it actually makes it worse. Only democrat America haters wear masks.
* Testing. We don’t have skyrocketing infection rates- we just have the best testing in the world! If we didn’t test so many people, we wouldn’t have so many cases. He actually said that.
* Nurses. It wasn’t that his federal task force (headed by Jared Kushner) totally failed to ramp up national production of PPE’s (personal protective equipment) despite knowing we would need them. No no, he hadn’t diverted shipments away from hospitals (particularly in states with Democratic governors) and even sold them overseas. No. The reason hospitals and nursing homes had to dress staff in frickin’ garbage bags because they had no gowns and re-use gloves is that nurses were stealing the supplies and selling them. (Because you know nurses: always in it for the big bucks)
* Military families. The reason Covid blew through the White House like a tornado and he got infected himself wasn’t his terrible policy of not wearing masks and having large group events. It was military and their families and police officers who insisted on hugging and kissing him because they just love him so much.
* The Wind. Wind blows Covid around and that, not the lack of masks, infected people.
* The Media. Turns out we don’t have escalating infection and a quarter-million people dead- it’s just that the lying Fake News media keeps talk-talk-talking about Covid and making us think we do.
* Doctors. Because blaming nurses wasn’t repugnant enough, now Trump says the high death rate is just doctors ~saying~ that people who died of something else actually died from Covid FOR MONEY. Because doctors get paid more for Covid patients, see? So if  you die from emphysema but you also happen to get Covid, those unethical, money-grubbing doctors (who have been risking their own lives daily for almost a year now treating Covid patients) are putting “Covid-19” as the cause of death when it wasn’t. See?

Who are you going to believe: every doctor and virologist and public health expert on the planet… or Donald J Trump, con-artist, grifter of tax money, who steals from charities and puts babies in cages?

And by the 10’s of millions… people chose to believe him. Even as they watch friends and co-workers and family members sicken, they believe him.

It’s after 3 AM now and whatever purging I hoped writing would help accomplish has not happened. I’m exhausted, and heart-sick, and flat-out terrified. I could pick up my phone and see if anything has changed in the past 2 hours but I’m not going to sleep either way. The not-knowing isn’t enough better than the knowing to let me sleep.

Did anybody have the same dream as I?
Did anybody have the same dream last night?

So I have what amounts to a mask stand in my front yard. After weeks of mailing them across the country and having people come to the door to ask for them, it occured to me that, with social distancing, people who need a mask might not want to ask for one face-to-face.
So I put a big sign in my front yard and a large plastic jug to put the mask in. I sew a few almost every day. Sometimes they build up as days go by without any takers, then other times they disappear as fast as I can make them.

Last evening there were 7 in the jug (2 child and 4 adult-sized) and this morning I saw that the cupboard was bare.
So to speak. I wondered if several people had stopped by or if it was one person who needed a lot. And then I had a thought: I hope someone isn’t taking free masks and selling them!
Yipes. That would suck.
I chewed on that though as I added the three I made yesterday and went about my day.

About 3:30 I saw a minivan pull into the intersection and stop. A young girl, maybe 7 or 8 and looking to be of east Asian descent, jumped out, ran into the yard and started going through th bin. She held up one mask packet towards her driver, then another.  I didn’t want to scare her off by coming out but it looked like she was after something she wasn’t finding, so I put on my own mask and stepped out.

“Hi honey. Can I help you?”
Rather than be intimidated, she gestured me to come over. “Hey, are these mask really free? she asked excitedly.
“They sure are” I said. “What do you need?”
“I need a mask” she said.
I nodded. “Yes you do. That mask you’re wearing is much too big for you. These should fit you much better.” I turned the packs over. “Which one do you want? This one has little dogs on it, and this one has astronauts.”
“Can I have them both?” she asked.
“Of course”.
“And this one too?”
“Well that one is grown-up sized,” I said pointing to the lable on the back.
“It’s for my dad,” she explained, gesturing to the van where the driver waved and called “Hello!”.
“Then you should take it too” I said.
“And this is all?”
“Well if you come back tomorrow or the next day there will probably be more. I usually sew a few every day so it just depends if someone else has been by or not”
“Oh good!” she said “’cause I have cousins!”
I sat back on my heels and laughed as she scrambled to her feet.
“Take care now!” I called.
“Stay safe!” she shouted and waved as she climbed into the van and slid the door shut.

What a little charmer she was!

I made a mental note to myself to be sure to work on kids masks- for the cousins. And I’m no longer going to worry about people taking them to sell.

• So I’ve got these kids…
  Well, foster kids. In a way.For a few years now I have been raising caterpillars: ever since a common field milkweed popped up in my yard. Every school kid recognizes the beautiful monarch chrysalis with it’s gold tracongs, and knows the story of the amazing journey south to just one valley in Mexico to overwinter. I know  how monarch butterfly numbers are dwindling and how only about 1 in 100 eggs makes it to butterfly, and I wanted to boost those numbers by a few.And so I did- by a few.

  After the first year, I increased the size of my operation, and the scope. Last year Steve did some research and planted fennel in the butterfly garden. Apparently, “If you plant it, they will come” because the black swallowtails started laying eggs too.

  

  And now it’s 2020: the year when everything went to shit. The year of fear and hardship and death. I really needed some extra joy and hope and life, and butterflies seemed to be a good way to do that.

  By this point, the designated butterfly garden has become a mini art installation too.

  
  My birthday gift from my sister really cemented the look- and the feeling- I was hoping to achieve by having it: a place of peace.

  
  For Christmas last year Ted bought me a really cool pop-up screen house and I decided to use it for the swallowtails. I left them in the garden last year but so many caterpillars hatched and were promptly eaten that I decided to step in and hand-raise them. It has worked so well that I bought a smaller one for the monarchs, to keep the large ones from crawling out of the old plastic terrarium I used for the hatchlings.

  Pretty soon the Meisky maternity ward was humming along nicely. At one point I had 7 swallowtail chrysalises (chrysali?) in the habitat at once. Hatchings have been a regular occurrance for the past few weeks. One morning Ted and I had breakfast on the deck and watched a swallowtail and a monarch emerge within about 10 minutes of each other.
  
  I was able to see some moments I hadn’t witnessed before, like a swallowtail pupae shrugging out of his caterpillar skin, and we got some great video of the moment of the butterfly emerging.

  So despite being the summer of mask wars and bleaching doorknobs and anger, it has also also the summer of life. Tiny, flutering life. Other than 2 or 3 little caterpillars that died for some unfathomable reason, my kids were healthy and grew and perhaps 3 dozen have already flown away. I figure 85-90% of the eggs I found survived to get their wings!
  

  Now summer is waning. The swallowtails are all in pupae stage or hatched and flown and I am anxiously urging the remaining monarch caterpillars to eat faster.

  I try to put the habitats out for as much of the day as I can. I figure that these little guys (having no functional brain) probably get important cues from temperature and light and the angle of the sun, so I want to expose them to those things. The larger habitat has so much surface area and is so light that wind gusts are dangerous, so I have taken to putting a large rock inside each morning after I clean it and add new forage.

  A few days ago I took the rock out for some reason and forgot to put it back. I looked out and saw the large habitat was on the deck instead of the table! I rushed out and was dismayed to find all the contents in a heap in the corner of the container, including greenery, climbing sticks, 2 fat caterpillars and the broken remains of the glass vase their leaves had been tucked into.

  Feeling guilty for being so careless, I carefully extracted the kids, got them onto fresh leaves in plastic bottles, vaccumed all glass shards out of the container and put everything back in place. Within 10 minutes both caterpillars were crawling around and eating again. What a relief.
  I jokingly dubbed them The Crash Test Dummies.

  Yesterday I had some errands to run. The weather forecast called for for pop-up showers here and there, but when I left there was little wind and blue sky showing, so I left the  habitats outside with rocks inside both to anchor them.

  While I was out I heard thunder and texted Ted (who was working from home), asking him to bring the caterpillars inside if it looked stormy in our neighborhood. A few minutes later he replied that he had been working in the garage and didn’t realize that a storm was coming. By the time he did, the habitats with 2 chrysali and 5 caterpillars, had been blown- not just off the patio table but off the deck entirely. The 2 swallowtail chrysali in the habitat seemed fine but he had no idea the condition of the caterpillars.

  I drove home through driving rain, berating myself for being gone so long, not bringing them in before I left and generally being a bad foster mother. I arrived and found a mess. Ted brought both screen houses inside and set out old towels to sop up the water that was still dribbling out of them.

  I stood and surveyed the wreckage.  Disaster for Scotland!

  I knelt down and got to work. Cooing gently “It’s alright guys- I’m here now. You’ll be just fine” and other inanities that caterpillars can’t even hear, let alone comprehend, I set about extracting and separating the various elements of the habitat: soaked cardboard from the bottoms, plastic bottles,  pebbles used to weigh down the bottles, half-eaten leaves and 4 shell-shocked caterpillars.

  I got my microscope and looked at each one. Caterpillars are basicaly just skin bags with guts inside, and since none of them were… leaking anything, or had crushed antennae or legs, I decided that once again, they had somehow survived the disaster. And indeed, after a few minutes, they all started cautiously moving around on their leaves again.
  “I never should have named you the Crash Test Dummies” I said, shaking my head. “It was asking for trouble”.

  There had been a 5th caterpillar who was much smaller than the others and of him I saw no sign. I looked carefully at everything I took out of the houses. On the bottom of the big rock I found what looked like a cast-off skin from an earlier molting, but it was about the size of my missing charge. Since I couldn’t find him anywhere else I decided that he must have been squashed.

  I loaded the 4 big guys into the large habitat and decided to wash out the small one and put it away for the year. I sprayed a few spots with an organic, non-toxic cleaner and turned the hose on it, thoroughly rinsing it, and set it out to dry. Then I went down the basement to sew more masks.

  “Hey Trace” Ted called  a few hours later, “there’s a caterpillar in that little habitat.”

• “No” I said, getting up from my machine. “No there’ not. No WAY. I looked really carefully at every inch! Then I washed the hell out of that thing with a garden hose!”
  I hurried outside and looked where he was pointing and there, clinging to the seam on one side of the screen house was a small caterpillar, not much bigger than the paring from your little fingernail.I got down on my knees and genuflected. “It’s a miracle!”I called. “Thank you, oh God of caterpillars!”
  Behold Lazarus the Unbreakable.

  Today here is where we stand:
  The 2 swallowtail Chrysali are still hanging there and will probably hatch in a day or so.
  Of the big caterpillars, one moved to the top of the box and is hanging in his J shape, soon to pupate. The other 3 are stuffing themselves at a ferocious rate and no doubt already feeling that mysterious caterpillar urge to crawl away and change.

  And Lazarus, the cleanest caterpillar in the world, is at least 30% bigger than he was yesterday and seems as healthy as can be.

  He will be my last baby of the year to fly- assuming he successfully manages all the incredible internal re-arrangeing that butterflies must undergo to get to that point. He will be such a late hatchling that he will probably be one of those who sets out flying south and west, crossing a thousand miles on delicate wings, looking for the monarch valley to spend the winter.

  So if you’re walking down the street or through a park in a few weeks and you see a beautiful monarch wobbling his way south- take a moment to say hello.
  It just might be my little Lazarus.

  (What is Disaster for Scotland about, you ask? Here you go)