Another Week: Number 128

Wisconsin spent the week under smoke from Canadian wildfires. The smog ebbs and wanes. The alert level goes from yellow to orange, then back to yellow again. Sunrises are a smudgy brownish-orange with rosé-colored light. There’s a dirty, purplish ring around our atmospheric bathtub.

On the national level, America is becoming exhausted like a dog driven to mental collapse by an excessive game of fetch. Donald J. Trump, as always, tosses pork chops. The media and the public, as always, chase them down frantically — only to see yet another pork chop tossed. This week, it was Trump’s “vicious Twitter feud” with Elon Musk.

The exercise keeps us occupied while our 249-year-old government is being dismembered like an inconvenient corpse.

On Monday, Marc Maron announced that his WTF podcast will be coming to an end this September after 16 years. I’ve been listening for 14 years, since that big New York Times article, and Amy was a huge fan. Just last week, I was wondering how Maron finds the time to do comedy tours and comedy specials and act in movies and TV shows while also putting out two 90-minute interviews per week, plus a weekly newsletter. I can barely manage to publish one of these blog posts per week — usually late.

This week, I got some more mulching done and planted a Weigela. Once again, a robin followed me around the yard. On Thursday, a hummingbird zipped past me to gather some spider silk from the siding. She’s been a semi-regular customer at my feeder.

Whenever I see people staring into their phones, I’m reminded of the conceit-confirming “mirror, mirror on the wall” in Snow White. Now, on my own phone, the Google News algorithm has just fed me a story confirming that seeing a hummingbird is spiritual validation from the universe — exactly as I had suspected!

I also watched some women’s tennis from Roland Garros. During the three-setter between Elena Rybakina and Iga Swiatek, commentator Lindsay Davenport underlined the sport’s isolation: “You’re out there all alone,” she said, “and you go a little bit crazy.”

At social events over the last four decades, I always relied on Amy to handle the interactions. She loved catching up on everyone’s lives and connecting all the dots. Now, on my own, a roomful of people can feel like an overwhelming flood compared to one curious robin.

On Saturday, my sister Karen threw another birthday party, celebrating our mother’s 90th, in the clubhouse of Mom’s apartment complex. It was really something. There was catered food and cake, with wine and beer and bottled water. The turnout was pretty good, and Mom seemed pleased.

I engaged in several conversations, nervously spitting out whatever came to mind. Meanwhile, a separate part of me observed the whole scene from a slight distance — everyone a bit older, some limping a little, others not present.

Later I learned that one woman wasn’t feeling well, and had to leave early. I had known her in my teens as the foxy high school cheerleader who lived down the street from me. Following my mom’s party, she was taken to the ER and was ultimately diagnosed with cancer.

Driving home Saturday night on Green Bay Road, my headlights caught something in the darkness on Kenosha’s north edge, dashing across all six lanes right where the speed limit increases. It was a lone coyote.

I walked 2.97 miles this week.

Waitress (2007)

Sunday evening at my mom’s, we streamed a 2007 comedy/drama on Hulu: Waitress, starring Keri Russell as a waitress at a pie diner in the South who bakes inspired pies and is married to an abusive jerk (Jeremy Sisto). As the movie opens, she finds out she’s pregnant with his child. This brings her to the new obstetrician in town, played by Nathan Fillion.

Cheryl Hines plays a co-worker, and Andy Griffith has a supporting role as the diner’s owner.

At first glance, this looks like a run-of-the-mill romcom glazed with homey nostalgia. But as it unfolds, the writing and directing shine through with a refreshing sense of warmth and wit far above the ordinary.

Waitress was written and directed by Adrienne Shelly, who also plays a co-worker —and the film is dedicated to her, because she was murdered before it was released.