Another Week: Number 121

Spring finally arrived here Monday morning and stayed several hours. Then the crazy wind returned.

On Wednesday, I saw a squirrel in a total panic on my back fence.

The energetic little mammal had painstakingly collected pieces of garbage from my neighbor’s yard and carried them up into one of my seven Taylor Junipers to make up its cool new nest. Plastic bags, styrofoam carryout containers, red Solo cups, and mattress stuffing had all been bitten to size, then tucked high inside the towering shrub, hidden from view.

Alas — the blowing wind ultimately blasted the whole assemblage to bits, scattering trashy debris in my yard. Now the squirrel was without a home, like a complete unknown. He’ll have to strike another match, go start anew.

I feel ya, little fella.

I read a good article this week and added its author’s book to my wish list: “Realising we’re all made-up characters in a story world helps me understand people,” by Will Storr. Like me, he has a bad personality.

On Monday, 84 days after swearing a notorious insurrectionist into the most powerful office in the world, it began to dawn on people that Donald J. Trump might not really “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States” — only after he and the President of El Salvador performed an Abbott & Costello routine to shrug off the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and suggest that American citizens will be next.

Suddenly, the phrase “constitutional crisis” was on every pundit’s lips.

Ya think?

On a brighter note, although I’m not the biggest Gavin Newsom fan, God bless him for finally bringing a serious lawsuit against Trump’s tariff regime. Like an idiot seeking applause for playing air guitar, our president has spent three months signing giant executive orders that are not actual laws, and no one has had the guts to tell him that this is not how we do things.

As for me, I’m busy getting into heated arguments with chatbots over jackets, and stocking up on sneakers like some sort of … well, squirrel.

On Friday, I completely blanked on the name of the Cotoneaster shrubs bordering my yard. I had to Google it — not a good sign. Later, on TV, I watched the Cubs beat the Diamondbacks at Wrigley and enjoyed it thoroughly — another bad sign. Next thing you know, I’ll be back on the beer.

Since childhood, it has seemed like Good Friday is always stormy. This year, we even got 15 seconds of pea-sized hail.

Despite it all, I did walk 6.24 miles this week.

Jason Isbell on Fresh Air with Terry Gross

On Wednesday, I listened to an episode of Fresh Air from three weeks ago featuring Terry Gross‘s interview with Jason Isbell.

I have been a fan of Isbell’s songwriting and guitar playing going back to his years in the Drive-By Truckers. Amy was head-over-heels in love with him.

More recently, Isbell has divorced his wife — musician Amanda Shires — fallen in love with someone else, and released a new album about it all, accompanied only by his guitar. I have seen occasional items while scrolling Google News, but I have yet to purchase and download the new album, or even listen to any of it.

Isbell is one of America’s most talented current songwriters, and Terry Gross is our absolute best interviewer, so I was intrigued to hear their exchange, and it did not disappoint.

As she’s known to do, Gross questioned him frankly about specific lyrics, and he got a bit defensive and lawyerly. You could hear his raised hackles. So she backed off a bit, he relaxed, and they had a great conversation about slightly less touchy subjects.

On Monday of this week, Gross’s husband, jazz critic Francis Davis, died at age 78.

Rick Steves’ Poland

On Wednesday, I visited my mom for lunch and found the perfect one-hour program to occupy us. Rick Steves’ Poland is a new special that follows the Vistula north from Kraków, through Nowa Huta, the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp memorial, Warsaw, Toruń, and finally Gdańsk.

My mom was especially interested in Casimir III the Great. (Her own mom was named Casimira).

The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

On Friday, Mom and I streamed The Last of the Mohicans via Hulu. Neither of us had seen it, and it rates 88% on the Tomatometer, so we gave it a try.

The story opens with a lot of logistics and expository dialogue, but soon settles into an epic romantic quest. Daniel Day-Lewis plays “Nathaniel Poe,” a white orphan raised by a Mohican chief. He soon rescues and desires Cora (Madeleine Stowe) —one of two daughters of an officer in the British army — from a Huron named Magua (Wes Studi) seeking revenge for the deaths of his wife and family.

The main thing about this movie is that it’s an epic of the sort they stopped making even before 1992. There are battle scenes with scores of extras. There’s a huge fort under canon attack. Chases wind through forests, along dizzying mountain trails, and underneath waterfalls. The musical score swells as the lovers lock eyes.

Nothing looks like CGI.

We both enjoyed it well enough.