Stacy Horn

This passage in To Kill a Mockingbird has always bugged me. Now I want to google it and see if other people have discussed it. (Yes, they have!)

“Atticus,” he said, “why don’t people like us and Miss Maudie ever sit on juries? You never see anyone from Maycomb on a jury – they all come from the woods.”

Atticus leaned back in his rocking chair. For some reason he looked pleased with Jem. “I was wondering when that’d occur to you,” he said. “There are lots of reasons. For one thing, Miss Maudie can’t serve on a jury because she’s a woman –”

“You mean women in Alabama can’t –” I was indignant.

“I do. I quess it’s to protect our frail ladies from sordid cases like Tom’s. Besides,” Atticus grinned, “I doubt if we’d ever get a complete case tried — the ladies’d be interrupting to ask questions.”

Jem and I laughed. Miss Maudie on a jury would be impressive. I thought of old Mrs. Dubose in her wheelchair –“Stop that rapping John Taylor I want to ask this man something.” Perhaps our forefathers were wise.’

People say Harper Lee was just representing the attitude at the time. Except she has her rebellious character, Scout, accept this line of thinking without complaint. It is seriously jarring and out of character for Scout. And for Atticus. I could see other people in the town not having a problem with this, but not Scout and Atticus. It’s particularly jarring because these characters saw the injustice when it came to prejudice against blacks, but fail to see the prejudice against women. It’s completely weird and off.

A picture of a spot on Roosevelt Island where there was a double-execution. I’m working on a section about this today.

A PBS piece about my book and my choir airs tomorrow at 5:30, but it’s on the website now!!! Marcia Henning, thank you so so much for this beautiful piece. I love all the edits and the graciousness and generosity of this segment. I couldn’t be more thrilled with what it conveys. You hit all the most important highlights. Thank you again, and thank you Bob Faw for being such a great interviewer. Speaking for myself, you made me feel comfortable enough to be able to think and speak from my heart.

I was already behind because I had to miss a bunch of days the first week of the Lap Swim Contest. Then, on Thursday, I stubbed my toe on my way into the pool. Could there be a more undignified injury? It swelled up immediately, hurt like hell, and so I went to one of those urgent care places. It’s not even broken but the doctor said no swimming for a week. It does hurt pretty badly, I must admit.

But that’s it for me for this contest, I think. The contest is to see who swims the most laps between July 6th and August 7th. I don’t see how I can win now. While I sit home night after night, everyone is swimming and racking up miles.

Well, I can still swim 25 miles and get to go to the party at the end of the summer. It’s going to bug me to not get a trophy though. OH! I did get an indirect compliment. The people who work at the pool had to call in an “incident report” and I overheard the conversation. At one point the person said, “She’s one of our top three swimmers.” I felt very proud.

People walking on the Highline.

I said I wasn’t going to do it but it seems I can’t resist competing. This year’s Lap Swim Contest began last week. There are two contests really.

1. First, second, and third place awards are given to the men and women who swim the most laps between July 6th and August 7th. These are given out at each pool, and also to the men and women who swim the most laps of all the pools.

2. Anyone who swims 25 miles or more by August 28 gets a tshirt.

The first year I did it I won third place at my pool, the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center, and I won second place my second year, which was last year. I can’t win first place at my pool because the best female swimmer in the city, Anna Jardine, swims at my pool. But that’s okay. There’s a dinner party at the end of the summer for all the winners and for everyone who swam 25 miles, and it’s a lot of fun.

I would at least like to beat my own personal best, but I could only swim two days last week and I know I’m going to have to miss more days between now and August 7th. Plus, I am definitely slowing down. Last night I swam as hard as I could and I swam 236 laps (224 is two miles). When I gave it my all last year I’d manage 240 – 244 laps, and once 250 but that was a fluke and I think they gave us an extra minute or two. So, we shall see.

A wedding I passed by while taking a break during the hackathon last weekend.

My rug is coming back from being cleaned today. Backstory: I sprayed it with Febreze and had a horrible allergic reaction, endless coughing, red and swollen eyes. I found an interesting post about Febreze on a site that also had a page listing the best plants for cleaning the air. I went through their list and researched it against another site which listed which plants are toxic to cats. So here are the best plants for cleaning the air that are also safe for cats:

Boston Fern
Areca Palm
Bamboo Palm or Reed Palm
Ficus alii
Lady Palm
Mums
Spider Plant

I found a cheap spider plant at Home Depot yesterday. I’m also going to look for a Boston Fern and an Areca Palm, and that should do it for me.

A child must have dropped their stuffed animal. Someone came along and put it up in a tree, where it would be safe, and hopefully where the parents will spot it.