Turning Inward

As I write this, New Jersey is one week away from choosing its fifty-seventh governor.   I went ahead and voted for Mikie Sherrill, my congresswoman, over Jack Ciattarelli, but the polls are scaring the crap out of me.  Jack could very well be New Jersey's next governor, which means that MAGA values - now predominant nationally - will take over at the state level as well if that happens.  I'm ready to concede that Mikie Sherrill has been a lackluster candidate, and lackluster Democrats usually don't win elections unless they have a far, far worse opponent - so long as it isn't Donald Trump.  Jack's not quite at that level of awfulness anyway.  He's awful, but not so awful that Mikie Sherrill could get elected governor just because she has a "D" next to her name.

I've gone past the point of caring.  I'm going to turn sixty next week, and I'm turning inward toward taking care of my house, my cats, and my immediate surroundings - such as the community park I've taken more of a responsibility in taking care of, seeing ass no one else seems to have the time or the desire to do so.  Waverly Park, as the park is known (it got its name from an adjacent side street), is pretty much my only interest in the public realm.  I don't belong to the Waverly Park Conservancy.  I am the Waverly Park Conservancy.

My latest project is a bold and ambitious one.  Waverly Park was - the operative word here is "was" - distinguished by the large number of burning bushes growing in its natural, more wild side.  (The park has a landscaped side on the western bank of the brook that runs through it; the wilderness side is on the eastern bank.)  My late mother could see the bushes from a window in our house and enjoyed looking at the red and orange colors of the leaves of the bushes in autumn.   Well, they won't be there for much longer.  I have since found out that burning bushes are an invasive species from China and don't belong in a wilderness setting anywhere in North America.  Inspired by what zoologist Jane Goodall, who just died recently, said about how each of us ought to help make the world a better place and how each of us has the ability to do so, I chose to cut them all down after a lot of thought about it.

It's hardly an easy task.  The burning bushes are expansive and extensive, and they have these fibrous, dense, membrane-like root systems that make it difficult to dig into the ground and plant something different, and the stumps of the bushes are impossible to remove.   I have to put plastic tarps over the stumps (in some cases, there are clusters of stumps in one spot), cover the tarps with leaves, and leave them there for . . . a year.  Given all of the leaves that will inevitably fall from the trees above, I have to mark the stump locations with stakes so that I don't forget where the stumps are when it's time to remove the tarps.  The picture above shows only the beginning of the undertaking of this project.  

I'm moving into the most ambitious phase of taking care of the park as I look toward 2026.  I put wood filler in the picnic table I donated to the park and hope to re-stain the wood in the spring.  I am also looking to plant flowers in a more regimented fashion, as I saw in gardens in Paris and Munich this past summer, and I am planning to install a birdbath in a small lawn area where the park meets the street.  I want this park to be the best and the most gratifying community park in the region.  Also, I hope to get trees planted to replace the burning bushes - in fact, the town, which owns the land, might plant some trees for me.  Which sounds like a good idea, considering the impenetrable soil.  I didn't realize how few trees there actually are in this part of the park until I began removing the burning bushes. 

I no longer have any interest in an better, happier America.  In fact, I still hope for a national breakup into separate countries.  I also don't care about how my state could be a better place.  I can't control or even help to control either of those things.  But I can do something about this park.    

Seceding From Seceding

The weekly anti-Trump, anti-MAGA protest was today, just like every Sunday before, and after having gone for months except for when I was Europe and a couple of other schedule conflicts, I stayed home today.

I had to clean my bathroom.

Actually, it was because I was getting tired of it.

Though I did have to clean my bathroom.

The truth is, my secession campaign wasn't gaining traction or supporters.  I would bring a sign saying "NJ MUST SECEDE!" and copies of my sample state ordinance spelling out the reasons for New Jersey to leave the Union.  I would read my sample ordinance out loud.  But there were few who took copies of my proposed ordinance, and most people seemed to to ignore me.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still for breaking up the Union and having one state - not necessarily New Jersey - taking the first step with secession.  But keeping up the protesting for such a long-shot idea doesn't seem worth it, at least for now.

And besides, there's another reason.  If the Republicans get in to the governor's office next year, New Jersey obviously won't leave the Union.  it will likely, however, leave the northeastern states health cooperative and join Vermont and New Hampshire (both with Republican governors) as the only eastern states north of the Mason-Dixon line taking vaccine advice from RFK Jr.

And yes, I think Jack still has a shot.  Hey, why fib?  Because even though polls that show the GOP within striking distance of winning this campaign are Republican-leaning and thus can't be trusted enough people might trust them enough to stay home on Election Day.   And yes, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, who called out such polls, thinks that the polls showing the Democrats still ahead are more accurate, but this is the same Simon Rosenberg who kept saying of the Democrats in 2024, "I'd rather be us than them." 

Besides, I'm not going to make America a better place by protesting a leader who has too many supporters to just quit his job.  I have to do a job of a different sort.  I already do such a job.  I've committed myself to continue to work on maintaining the community park and improving it when the situation demands so, such as with plantings and the like.  So, I'm serving my community,  I'm helping the environment, and I'm providing a public amenity - three things Trump is against. The best form of protest for me is to continue keeping the park up to par.

When I'm not cleaning my bathroom.