Another Week: Number 131

I spent most of this week on “dew point house arrest” — windows closed with the air conditioner running, because it’s uncomfortably sticky outside and always on the verge of rain that never actually arrives.

The construction across the street at Mitchell School, which has been pounding and beeping for more than a year, has hit a milestone. The new gym’s façade is all bricked up, and the grounds — cleared of most equipment and materials — are now being graded. At the same time, the next street south of me has been torn up for lead pipe replacement, which will also come to my block sometime soon. For the moment, it’s just nice to have a vibrating couch.

Captive on that couch, I have been watching CNN’s soul-destroying coverage of Donald Trump’s “12-Day War®” against Iran and his insistence that Iran’s nuclear sites were “obliterated.” Once again, he tosses a pork chop, and the newshounds dutifully gnash it to smithereens.

Then on Friday, the Supreme Court awarded Trump yet another first down toward his goal of eliminating the rule of law. On CNN, Wolf Blitzer made a dramatic show of pulling out his pocket Constitution, demonstrating that he had no comprehension at all of the Court’s ruling and should really consider retirement. They can replace him with an animated character that congratulates “good reporting” and reminds us we’re “in the Situation Room” every 30 seconds.

Glancing down at CNN’s bottom-of-the-screen crawl, I read that Bill Moyers, “the conscience of America” and one of my heroes, had died. Perfect. Sean “Diddy” Combs and his freak-offs get a chunk of every hour for weeks on end, and Bill Moyers gets relegated to the crawl.

Another journalistic concern: Are we possibly overusing the word “iconic” in headlines these days?

My lunch menu, most afternoons, now consists of a greenish banana,  a Granny Smith apple, and a naval orange.

When I was growing up, my mom always said, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” More recently, I read that bananas increase longevity. Then there was a story recommending oranges.

Fine. There’s my lunch. I don’t necessarily crave a long life, but avoiding medical interventions while I’m here would be great. This week, though, I read a story reporting that mushrooms cure “old people smell,” so I guess I’ll have to start pencilling more of them into my dinner plans.

I also read a great article about walking that confirmed much of my own experience. Mostly, I’ve been listening to music in my AirPods during walks, but Saturday, after reading this story, I walked the path at Petrifying Springs with open ears.

In the middle of the forested “horseshoe” portion on the trail’s north end, a young mom approached from the opposite direction, in deep discussion with her daughter, who hugged her around the waist. Suddenly, both of their faces brightened to huge grins at something behind me, and I turned to see — and hear — a white-tailed doe clip-clopping across the blacktop. The four of us exchanged silent glances.

It was a magical moment — one I completely forgot about later that evening when I was unexpectedly cornered by some core familial bile.

Because of the way the screens and storm windows on my house are designed, every now and then — usually in the fall — a hornet gets trapped between them. When that happens, the only way to free the insect is to allow it into the house, which I do not want. I’m not proud to admit waiting a couple of days until the hornet has died.

I thought of those hornets during Amy‘s last days, when she told me, “I’m trapped.” Maybe I am, too. Perhaps we all are.

I walked 7.61 miles this week.

My Mom Jayne (2025)

On June 16th, Mariska Hargitay was a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

I don’t watch Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and I was completely unfamiliar with her, but she got quite a reception and had a powerful presence. I learned that she is the daughter of actress Jayne Mansfield, and that her documentary about her mother — My Mom Jayne — would start streaming on Max on June 27.

This seemed like the perfect option to watch with my mom, Shirley, who is a human database of anecdotes about movie stars and singers of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. We watched it Saturday evening.

My mother recognized Ms. Hargitay from TV, but had not connected her to Jayne Mansfield, who died in a car accident in 1967. Mom twice reminded me, “She was beheaded!”

This film is a fascinating untangling of various threads: It examines Mansfield’s viral popularity as a bombshell Marilyn Monroe clone despite her intelligence, humor, and musical ability on the violin and piano. It presents the several men she married, their various effects on her life’s trajectory, and her children, eventually five in all — including Hargitay, who interviews her siblings for their viewpoints.

As the story unfolds, a family secret is finally revealed that I will not spoil here.

The film’s overall effect is a great sense of relief through finally setting things straight.

My mom and I both enjoyed it.