No cat hat for me, but we women marchers are still closely knit

So, I've seen the pictures on Facebook of people — friends, even — who are knitting hats with cat ears on them. They're planning to wear them in the Women's March on Washington (the day after the Trump inauguration) as a protest against He Who Shall Not Be Named.

But you know what? I don't want to have to explain to my granddaughter what some people mean when they talk about another word — the p-word — for cat, and what that has to do with our future president. I just don't.

When Donald Trump was elected, as I watched the results on TV with growing horror, one of my first thoughts was, "Sofi, I am so sorry." Now, like just about everyone I know, I'm trying to put that behind me. Trying to show my granddaughter that all is not lost. That she and the other young girls and women of the world still have a future.

And although I personally will not be wearing a hat with cat ears on it, I will still be marching.

I'm going to march in my home state of Minnesota, where a few young women with little kids and jobs, or gigs, or whatever else passes for jobs these days are trying to get as many people as possible to turn out in what could very likely be bitter cold to show Donald Trump that he does not have a mandate. That he and his new administration need to listen to everyone, not just the 25 percent who voted for him.

I've been going to the organizing meetings — something I have never done before — and watching as volunteers who have never in their lives been stirred to political action try to get parade permits, event insurance (who knew?), permission to use a parking lot where we can gather for the half-mile march to the State Capitol steps.

It's not easy for any group of people to agree completely on anything. At one of our meetings, two old-school feminists showed up and insisted that "the men have to march in the back."

That's the whole point of the Women's March.

So far, we have more than 10,000 people on Facebook who either say they'll come, or say that they're interested. But dinking around on Facebook — as we who saw the not-exactly-overwhelming power of Pantsuit Nation are sadly aware — is not the same as actually doing something.

So what I'm hoping is that when I'm out there in the cold with my very, very warmest winter hat on, the one with the earflaps, there will be a whole heck of a lot of people out there, too.

In whatever kind of headgear they want.

Mary Losure is a children's book writer in St. Paul. Her most recent book, "Isaac the Alchemist: Secrets of Isaac Newton, Reveal'd," will be out in February from Candlewick Press.