Old Sleeping Beauty here, rousing from her slumbers…
Looking around and about…shaking her head at her DUMBNESS in taking so long to open her eyes.
I didn’t wake up on my own. Jim Dodge—the great one, America’s Baker—did it.
Saturday, Jim came down from San Francisco to lunch and brought us a glorious big loaf of his Walnut Cardamom Bread. I asked him to teach me how to make it. Jim said he would, and began giving me the list of ingredients.
“First you need spelt flour.”
“I can probably get that at Amazon.”
Beat. “You’re not going to buy spelt flour from Amazon! Sylvia!”
“Oh,” says I, and I think Jim was with Bill at the table and I was in our kitchen several feet away so when I ducked my head in shame he didn’t see it. I murmured, “You’re one of those…our good friend Deborah also won’t buy from Amazon…”
Feeling sheepish time. Embarrassed. Coming up short. But really just caught slumbering.
I met Jim Dodge when he was master of Fournou’s Ovens Restaurant in the Stanford Court Hotel atop Nob Hill—1978ish. There was already a susurrus around him—this was a man of parts—Gene felt it, I felt it. From the beginning, when Jim said something, it meant something. No folderol. Our worlds were distant, but sharing a deep affection for our mutual literary agent, Susan Lescher, over the years our friendship endured. Jim even drove down from The City on the occasion of Bill’s and my wedding…what a doll.
Thus I was knocked cockahoop.
Then Friday night as usual Bill and I watched the “PBS Newshour,” devoted as we are to the commentary of David Brooks—rascally Mark Shields left this world three years ago, a great loss. In Shields’ place the program placed an attractive young man*, Jonathan Capehart. Capehart became a member of the Washington Post editorial board in 2007, held the post till 2023. The exodus of columnists and staff began in 2024, finally with Jeff Bezos not permitting his newspaper to endorse the Democratic candidate for President. Last Friday night, Capehart told us viewers that he, too, could no longer bear to work at the paper.
That resonated with me. Jonathan’s body language telling us why he had to leave was revealing—he just kept shrugging, sort of shaking his head…as though he wasn’t yet comfortable with the new fit of his life. Twenty years on Katharine Graham’s legendary newspaper…hard to walk away from….particularly, I would think, in liberal circles, for a gay Black man.
Jonathan Capehart’s giving the shiv to Jeff Bezos put steel in my spine.
Yesterday was Bank Day around the Park house. Bill loves Bank Day. His Swiss/German parts love seeing numbers entered in a ledger, neatly sticking return labels and stamps on envelopes, carrying the envelopes out to tuck them in their laundry clip against the mail slot.
Me? The Russian/Jewish/Scotch/Welsh bunches are okay with Bank Day because my husband is very generous and sweet. I amuse myself writing out the checks for Bill to sign (he can no longer see to write), diddling with the adding machine…
But there was the lump of money owed—forgive the expression—Amazon.com. I’ve found it fast and easy (you must admit next-day delivery is welcome when you’re out of special vitamins) to order a surprising variety of daily goods from Mr. Bezos’s warehouses. However I do curse when big huge enormous cardboard boxes come with smaller cardboard boxes inside…
But between Jim Dodge’s shaming and Jonathan Capehart’s courage I canceled my Amazon Prime credit card—giving us 5% off certain purchases…saving money when I go to Whole Foods. I plan to boycott Whole Foods. There’s less organic produce than ought be, and while I do admit the seafood is excellent, there was a warning recently about “potential contamination” with E. coli found in organic ground beef at Whole Foods, so not shopping there is no great handicap.
I plan not to buy anything from Amazon. We’ll go to the library for audible books for Bill…watch Netflix and Hulu and so forth for movies services and not Amazon Prime. We’ll be fine. Rustling up new resources is good exercise…not doing business with the ill-intentioned is good business practice, wouldn’t you say?
Jim Dodge said that Walmart online is making a concerted effort to attract Amazon customers. I compared prices with many of our Subscription items—all manner of goods from my purple eyeshadow to peppermint oil under the hood rodent repellents for our outdoor-housed Rav4 that come every couple of months that I don’t need to remember to buy—and Walmart prices are the same or less.
More, Jim mentioned something about the Walton family—and I’ve just looked it up. Christy Walton (principle Walmart heiress) is one of the world’s most generous women. And she’s for Democracy…took out a full page ad in the New York Times to promote June 14th “No Kings Day”—remember Trump’s birthday “parade?”–and backs anti-Trump The Lincoln Project. My sort of girl.
Apparently Christy Walton’s “No Kings” speeches have MAGA boycotting Walmart.
What MAGA is against, I’m for.
At least for now…Please Heaven given us the time soon when MAGA folk will wake up, like me. A divided America is not America at its finest, strongest.
But most of all, when will MAGA believers realize—as Rachel Maddow limned out Monday night—we are no longer anticipating the takeover of a dictator.
The Dictator is no longer a Wannabe.
The King has his fiefdom alarmingly under control
Its boundaries increase day by day.
Congress and the Supremes now fit neatly in his pockets. That’s a fact.
Anyone for a visit to Alligator Alcatraz, unhealthy “immigration detention center?”
Hear that a couple of days ago ICE grabbed a young woman student at Purdue University, daughter of a Southern Korean Episcopalian minister in New York–who has long had her Visa– and carried her off to a federal detention facility in Louisiana?
“The Cruelty is the Point” –Adam Serwer’s book points out how in The King’s domain, cruelty is the modus operandi.
Harrowing, sobering.
In Texas, Republicans are ruthlessly illegally gerrymandering territory in order to carve out seats for five more of their representatives. That would give Republicans The Congress for sure…perhaps for forever. Trump’s Will Would Be Done.
That ain’t right.
We have our Democracy to save, protect.
So no more looking askance.
Bill reminded me of the stage in Nazi Germany when good citizens were in denial there were concentration camps being built…
THE KING’S GLORY-SEEKERS SHOULD BE HOBBLED AS MUCH AND AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
DO NOT BUY FROM THEM.
NOT A PENNY IN THEIR POCKETS THAT WILL END UP IN THE KING’S ARSENAL.
Day by day, hour by hour, it’s in the little things. The seemingly small choices. Where we shop. To whom we give our attention. When we speak out instead of keeping still.
TALK TO FRIENDS…WE MUST VIGOROUSLY BE CERTAIN THERE WILL BE AN ELECTION IN THE FALL OF 2026.
Much work to do.
Damn I drifted and dreamed so long.
*Although I discovered to my surprise Capehart is now 58 years old…he doesn’t look it.
