Fun in the City for the Bumpkin

We got to the hotel yesterday weary but happy.  The room was lovely, if not unusual. The shower is glass but no door closes; it's a half door of glass. The other wall of glass faces the bed and you can see through to the floor to ceiling room windows. We are on the fifteenth floor and look directly into apartments.

So naturally, before I used the toilet, I closed the curtain on the bed side so the apartments can't see me there. I'm sitting there, ruminating, (where do you ruminate?), When I look up. And I see into an apartment across the way. It Dawn's on me that vision works both ways. I had inadvertantly left three inches of curtain open.

After securing the curtains, it was time for a shower since two days on a train had taken away my daisy freshness. I place the shampoo and conditioner so I know where they are -- why don't they make the labels big enough to read without reading glasses? I'm seeing the overly designed hand held shower nozzel, which looks like a shiny vertical microphone

 I turn on the water. A mountain waterfall drops out of the ceiling directly on to my head. Well, ok, I was going to wash my hair anyway. When it came time for the naughty bits, I push the button for the hand held. 

It's certainly nice to know that the cleaning crew here has a sense of humor. Before I can grab it, there is a huge stream of water directed at the door that isn't there. I figure I'll mop up when I'm done. Good thing these are thirsty towels because there was a half inch of water outside of the shower.

We can't do the architectural boat tour because it's all booked even though I have a paid for ticket. We did go to the Museum of Contemporary Art and we're delighted with"The Octopus Eats Itself" which is a reference to an octopus escaping danger. You will
 Have to wait for photos since using this tablet is hard for me. Also, I don't know how to get my photos from my phone camera to here.

We had such a fabulous breakfast that neither Maria nor I were interested in lunch. It's 4 pm and the sun is over the yardarm so I think I will explore the hotel while Maria naps. Ciao for now.

Wind River

I went to see the movie, Wind River, last night. It was in the 'big' theatre at the Amherst Cinema. (I think it holds 250 people. The other theatres are 50 people -- office spaces, really.)

I really like the intimate setting but the one drawback is that the people presence is intensified. Two seats away from me there was a 16 year old who was crunching his popcorn so loudly that I wondered how his mother could hear anything. 

Behind me, there was someone rustling their popcorn bag so much that I wanted to turn around and say, "Can you be quiet?!" While it's nice that the Cinema doesn't use those not-so-ecologically friendly waxed buckets, those buckets are much quieter than a small paper bag. Perhaps I should have availed myself of a glass of wine.

But on to the movie: it's R rated due to violence; there is no sex. At the beginning, you see a young girl running through snow in Wyoming and you suspect there will be no good end to this. And you are right. She is found dead by a hunter who works for Fish and Wildlife. A big part of his job is to hunt predators who are killing farmers' sheep and cattle. 

The movie is incredibly well written -- some of the dialog moved me to tears when a father spoke of his dead daughter. But in the end, it wasn't just the murdered young woman that got to me, it was a general malaise that I see in the real world and in our society.

This is a basic disregard for human life. In this movie, it is focused on Native Americans and women in particular, but I see it as ever-pervasive in our society. And I believe it has been increasing because we have become inured to violence.

Just as I was able to de-sensitize myself by watching real surgery on TV and watching CSI when they show realistic injuries to a body, I think TV and video games (and rhetoric) have made so many more of us insensitive. Kids are growing up thinking you can punch someone repeatedly in the face and they just keep getting up. They think you can hit them with a high powered rifle in the shoulder and they will be fine in a couple of weeks. Or, they just don't care if someone they perceive as a 'bad guy' is killed.

If we were paying attention, one of the things we learned from the Viet Nam war is that the enemy were no longer referred to as people or Vietnamese or Cambodians. They were "gooks" and "geeks" and "the enemy." I'm sure there were more names, but it's harder to kill a person than it is to kill "the enemy." 

My point is, not only do we see violence and violent reactions as okay, but we think it's okay to perpetrate violence on certain classes of people. And those are people we have given names to such as terrorist. It's dangerous. Would you call #45 a terrorist because his words incite violence? What if I decided my neighbor is a terrorist due to her Muslim faith? What if I decided my Latino neighbor must be an undocumented alien and therefore a rapist?

I agree: we have no place for Nazis, terrorists, and murderers. But that does not give us license to kill or maim.

If we are to consider ourselves civilized, we must live by the rule of law. And that says 'do not react with violence when you don't like what people are saying.' That does not preclude a rebuttal or criminal charges if the hate speech incites violence. But we must not sink to the level of those we hate and fall into violence.

While it is not only our duty to stand up to these hate mongers, we have a more urgent duty to not perpetuate violence. We must ensure that that we do allow ourselves to be baited into violence.

As they say, hindsight is 20-20, but I wonder if anti-Nazi street theatre might help. For instance, people lying 'dead' in the streets. Each would have an identifier such as "Jew," "Catholic," "Gypsy," "Disabled."  There are almost too many labels for those the Nazis targeted and killed.

"All we are saying, is give peace a chance." ~ John Lennon 

And a Good Time Was Had by All

I decided to make a birthday supper for Sherylann (my step sister) and we dined like queens. Not shown is the birthday cake that Emily picked out. It looked like a giant Hostess cupcake -- chocolate ganache with a white squiggle. It was chocolate cake inside with cream between two layers. I had blueberries for dessert.

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I just got back from Emily's house in Worcester. Boy, was the Mass. Turnpike busy! On both sides! It's funny how those who live in the west near mountains want to go east to the ocean and vice versa for vacation. I sure as heck wouldn't want to be in all of that traffic after packing up and having spent a week having fun every minute of the day. Since I had no deadline, I didn't mind the 5 to 20 mph speed which was for quite a long stretch.

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My little basil plant is doing fine. The sour cream container is so you can tell the height (and whatever I had planted in there bit the dust, lol.)

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Yup, still hand quilting above. The white on the bottom is really a stark white as in copy paper, but my bloomin' energy saving bulbs give everything a yellow cast.

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At 9:30 p.m., it's 66.6 F. Ha ha ha ha! That's my employee number: 666. When I retire, they will be getting rid of the devil, lol.

Since I have the oven on (baking chicken and low carbohydrate blueberry muffins), I guess that's the reason it's 80 F. in the kitchen. Phew! I had to turn the window fan to blowing outward because the dryer vent is right below it. And, yes, I am drying a load of clothes.

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Out of the blue, I wondered today: why do guys have Adam's apples?

Listen to what Heather Whipps from Live Science wrote:

"Girls and boys start out with similarly sized thyroid cartilage, but this changes when they hit puberty. The boys' Adam's apples become noticeably bigger and their voices change as their testosterone levels increase.

But does it do anything? Not really. Like the cartilage in your ears or nose, it's just kind of there. Some men with especially prominent bumps even have them surgically shaved, with no ill effects. [Like Caitlyn Jenner.]

Unfortunately, the Adam's apple's main purpose may be embarrassing men at the office, during presidential debates, or while lying to their wives. Besides bobbing around when swallowing, the apple can "jump" uncontrollably when you're nervous . Gulp!"

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Listen, I really do love my grand kitties. However, at 5:30 a.m. when Jackson says, "Brrrrp!" and jumps on me -- not so much. He couldn't have jumped into the space between Emily and me? I was sharing her bed because that's the room with the air conditioning.

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While Emily and I were waiting for the lobsters to steam, she said, "Should we get lobster crackers?" And I said, "No!!" thinking that I didn't want to add any more carbohydrates to the meal. We had tossed rolls and potato salad into the cart. It was only later at dinner that I realized she had meant nut crackers to crack the lobster shells. I really think that's how wars are started.

(I have been informed that there are no lobster crackers, but there are oyster crackers. So I didn't think it was out of the realm of possibility.)

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Wow, I can't tell you how good a warm blueberry muffin with Kerrygold butter is! I can pretend that I picked the blueberries next door, sneaking under the cheesecloth and baking in the summer sun. The bees are happily humming and the birds are chirping their morning songs. 

It's summertime and the living is easy.  Peace.