For Mother’s Day, N organized a surprise visit to a local farm for a strawberry picking outing. The Ukrainian woman who is staying with us was in stitches. “I got to film it!” she kept exclaiming. “I’ve got to show it back home! American not only work for free in the fields. They pay to do it! Cultural differences!”

On the positive side, we finally tasted strawberries that I’m no way reminded us of plastic.

We have guests staying over, so yesterday I watched several episodes of a reality TV show where teams of regular people compete in physical activities, such as climbing, obstacle courses, jumping, etc.

The show routinely pits all-male teams against all-female ones. Every single time, women lose most abjectly. They don’t just lose, they are creamed. It’s painful to watch.

Anybody can predict this will happen because there are male and female sports for a reason. But everybody on the show behaves like this competition makes sense and enacts surprise every time women lose by a trillion points. I even had to explain to Klara why the result is predetermined. And that at her age, girls’ teams do often win against boys’ teams, which will end by 8th grade. And that this is OK because different bodies are made for different reasons.

I had to tell a colleague I can’t go with him to a writing retreat because I’m excluded based on my race. I felt ashamed when I said it. Not for myself but because neither he nor anybody else will refuse to go to an event where colleagues and friends are excluded for racist reasons. That it’s OK to keep people out because of their skin color, and that everybody has accepted it, is an absolute shame. But the people guilty don’t feel it.