Not the FLOWERS?!

Remember Monty Python's News for Parrots [on youtube]? They'd briefly report some disaster with the reassurance, "No parrots were involved".*

The Girlettes were worried this morning that FLOWERS are being harmed, when Linda Sue posted one of her Orphans rallying for Ukraine. (They are not heartless, they just do not register human foolish behavior.)
"Not the FLOWERS!?!"

It reminded me of my favorite Doonesbury cartoon (by Garry Trudeau), from the Vietnam War.
I must have read it when it came out––October 30, 1972–– and never forgot it.

 

         That's Zonker Harris in the starred ^ helmet, remember?

* Sadly, there are pet parrots in Ukraine... Here's a report of a vet in Poland helping parrot refugees.

Have a good day anyway!

At the bus stop with Moomin mug from bink

Sunday snapshot

The Housewares work area was almost a blank canvas before I started working there in the fall.
No more! Toys are starting to appear.
So far my only playmate there is "Sandr", the coworker who lit the Hannukah candles for us. He put up the carrot car and the rope swing.

Jester in Furniture has also filled his bulletin board with little things. It's funny to me when people DON'T decorate their area,
especially given that we work in a stream of things. I'd expect people to pluck out ones they like.

I guess it's like how some people respond to the Girlettes, and some don't.
When I went for my first Covid vaccine four springs ago, the public health nurse liked Penny Cooper and happily included her.
She even gave Penny a little band-aid and a sticker after her shot:

The Toys are a little wary of Marz. She knows them, but doesn't always want them in her life. Recently she told me she'd put all the toys in her apartment in the closet.

Still, she knows me, and she made me a birthday card with a Bear spirit:

 

Inside it says that I am. . .

"The Most Minor Prophet,
the Prophet of Toys (bears, dolls, etc.)"

Decorating the Fence

Yesterday I hung (with twist ties) the dozen "Don't Be Afraid" prints on the fence next to the thrift store (below). 
Okay, but they looked kinda paltry, and I texted the photo to Emster, saying "I need to make 100 to cover the fence."

(I hate this fence--the city put it up to keep people OUT of the pocket park four years ago, when people were camping there... because they had no homes.)

Em replied, "Let's cover the fence on your birthday!"
Yes, yay! I'll print up a ton, and she'll help hang them after work on Wednesday. She'll make stuff to hang too. (I hope.)

When she worked at the store, we used to do what she called "tschoch drops" together--leaving little apotropaic toy-constructions in the alleys: Alley Protectors.

Reading about the power of Laughtivism from Serbian resistance trainer Popvic, I came across an article I liked that's worth sharing:

"Overcoming Despair and Apathy to Win Democracy", by George Lakey, Ivan Marovic, at The Commons Social Change Library.

__________

Ramadan started yesterday.

Book's Amina is fasting--she is very observant. She showed me her new portable prayer "rug"--just a sheet of plastic, like the material of a disposable raincoat, with a rug pattern on it.
She was showing me how she can't fold up on her knees properly, to pray--injured knee!--by kneeling down partway on plastic rug on the breakroom floor.  This young woman in hijab and long dress and Star Wars hoodie!

If I remember, I say "Ramadan mubarak" to Muslim customers, but sometimes I just say "Happy Ramadan" in my lazy American way.

_______________

ELONIA MUMP

Yesterday I referred to "Mump" in a text to a pal, and she texted me this back:

There's a STORY IDEA: Melania is the true mastermind of the Trump presidencies. 

Would we be surprised?
She is such a cipher, I have no idea what her deal is.

My pal also said there are reports from KGB agents that Trump was turned 40+ years ago.
I thought that was some loony conspiracy theory--though psychologically it would explain a lot.

But The Hill published an opinion piece assessing the allegations, saying they could be credible:

"Three KGB agents, . . .
including former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, Alnur Mussayev, who recently claimed in a Facebook post that Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987, when the 40-year-old real-estate mogul first visited Moscow.

"None of these former KGB operatives has provided evidence, but the fact that three KGB agents located in different places and speaking at different times agree on the story suggests this possibility should not be dismissed out of hand. 

"...Lending credence to the allegations is the fact that kompromat on [Russian control of] Trump would easily, simply and convincingly explain the president’s animus toward NATO, Europe and Ukraine, his admiration of Vladimir Putin and his endorsement of authoritarian rule.

"One could even invoke 'Occam’s razor,' the philosophical principle that claims that simple explanations should be preferred to complex ones."

--thehill.com/opinion/international/5162890-assessing-new-allegations-that-trump-was-recruited-by-the-kgb

This interests me because I've always wondered,
How did an American of the Cold War generation come to fawn on a Russian dictator?

It's especially weird, I think, to my generation of Americans to see Trump so eager to advance Putin's aims. I mean, we born after WWII were programed to distrust Russians, not to bow like spaniels before them.
For millenials, it might be like seeing a US president kowtow to the Taliban.

_________________

bink is coming soon for our Sunday coffee and banana pancakes.
Sugar-free, they're best when the bananas are very overripe--sugary!––and today they are. And I have walnuts and frozen blueberries for them too.

I cook them in MY MOST FAVORITE POSSESSION.
(Toys aren't possessions, so they aren't in the running.)
My MFP is... the nonstick, ceramic-lined (non toxic) Green-brand pan bink gave me for Xmas. It is dreamy to wash--just rinses off.

Ok--take good care of yourselves, now.
Ciao!

How to Be Absurd

What is this, 1939?

An inept leader appeases a bully who claims that
 neighboring countries rightfully belong to his nation.

Said bully invades neighbor in Eastern Europe.

British and European leaders pledge support
for its ally, the invaded country.

Eggs are in short supply.
___________________

Even the eggs? Oh, that's not worrying at all.

I actually take hope that Mump's increasingly bad behavior will snap people out of apathy and complacency.
Displays such as the shameful treatment of President Zelensky of Ukraine yesterday should motivate us to take action.

Don't Go Alone: Take a Toy

But what can toys do in times of trouble? They are only little.

Thumb their noses!

Example:
Toys protested government corruption in Siberia in 2012.
When authorities said the protest was unsanctioned, the toys applied for a permit.

They were denied––for not being Russian citizens.

Helpfully, city spokesman Andrei Lyapunov explained,
"As you understand, toys are not even people."

Penny Cooper says,
"Of course we are not people. Who would want to be people? That doesn't mean we're not real."

theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/15/toys-protest-not-citizens-russia

We are pondering our next step.
bink and I intended to make a zine after the Mumps got started, but couldn't find an angle, right off. 
"Lets' take a humorous approach" we decided yesterday.

Engage in Tauntery

I learned about the Toy Protest on this TED Talk:
"The Power of Laughtivism" (below). 

The speaker is Srdja Popovic, best-known of the Serbian founders of the student movement Otpor! (Resistance! in English) that used irony and mockery to help bring down dictator Slobodan Milošević in 2000.
You might like it:

"Humor reduces fear", says Popovic, and irony and mockery were Otpor's main tools.
Humor shows up the Powers That Be, and it's hard for them to fight without looking ridiculous themselves.

One of Otpor's slogans was,
We want Serbia to be a normal country.
"It was silly because just wanting things to be normal was kind of outrageous," said another Otpor leader,  Ivan Marovic.

Training others was always part of their platform.
Popovic went on to write Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World.

Popovic also cofounded the pro-democracy consulting and training Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS). < link to Wikipedia

https://canvasopedia.org

One Toy Protests

Ideally a nonviolent resistance will coalesce here in my country, but even small, solitary actions have power.
After the toys were denied a permit to protest, the group said it would look for another way.

One possibility, said the activist Sergei Andreev, is a solitary picket,  allowed under Russian law to take place without permission from local authorities.

"We will stand up one [toy] and the rest will sit on a bench not far away."

____________

Don’t go down with the ship!

Music helps us stay afloat.

 
One of my favorite rousing songs, "The Mary Ellen Carter" by Canadian Stan Rogers--about the raising of an abandoned ship.

"And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow,
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go,
Turn to, and put-out all your strength of arm, and heart, and brain,
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again!"

Oh, you think that won’t work?

Anyone who says, “I’m powerless” or “Boycotts won't make any difference” has never met a bulldog.

Passive resistance has power.

These boots were made for walkin' . . .

Tra-la, tra-la... It's a Buy Nothing Day! in the USA.

I love this Economic Blackout for a lot of reasons.
Let us liberate ourselves from whatever is hurting us!

That's a tall order, eh?
But why not?
Let those chains drop like underpants whose elastic is shot.

["Elastic was truly was terrible in the 1940's because of war demands for rubber. Ladies had exit strategies for panties that just decided to fall off."]

You could knit your own. How baggy would those be in a minute?
Below: 1940's WW2 Service Panties and Bloomers Knitting Pattern (digital repro on Etsy)

It shows up how materialistic we are as a culture, if the very idea of going a measly 24 hours without buying something has power.
Like for me until 4 months ago, going 24 hours without sugar felt almost impossible.

One day is easy.
But also, Why not sacrifice a little?
Are we so fragile? Without inner resources?
So enslaved to ease?

Let us not quietly go as grist to the Mump Mill.
(Musk + Trump = Mump)

If you want to participate and do need to (or just want to) buy something today, spend $ cash at small, local businesses.
Say, your local thrift store!
___________

Often enough, we are the ones holding the chain that binds us.

For instance, I hear people say they don't give up Facebook even though they hate Mump because they like to keep in touch with x, y, z.. [cousins in Texas, reading group members, whatever].

Well, duh. OF COURSE. That's what ties you to it.
If you give it up, you make a sacrifice. 
Like, we only do things that are easy and pleasant?

And I hear people say, "Oh, I only check it once a day".

How do they not know this:
social media is like the metaphoric ants that the physical therapist said are working all the time to repair my injured ligament.
No matter what we are doing for 5 minutes a day,
THEY are working all 1,440 minutes, 24/7.

(Also--there's still the post office.)
________________

I was surprised that Tabitha Brown, a Black business-owner, said people shouldn't boycott Target because they carry her products, and those of other Black businesses, and it would hurt them.

Justice should require no sacrifice?
Wouldn't that be nice.
During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Black Americans walked, carpooled, rode bikes for the entire year of 1956 rather than ride the bus.

But also, Ms Brown, do you really think Target is your friend, and that if you call people off them, they will be loyal to you?

Let us identify the inconsistencies in this argument.

How has loyalty to Master worked out for people in history?
________________

The point is LIBERATION.

There must be fifty ways to get yourself free.

Some of them, UPCOMING:

Today's boycott is organized by a new organization, The People's Union USA.
More on them here, in Time magazine.

After the single-day spending pause, People’s Union plans week-long boycotts against specific retailers, including...
Amazon, March 7-14
Nestlé, March 21-28
Walmart, April 7-13.

Unrelated to P.U. and irregardless of Ms Brown, some Black faith leaders are calling for a 40-day “fast” or boycott of Target to protest the corporation dropping it DEI initiatives.
The fast will  start on Ash Wednesday, Mar. 5 and run the 40 days of Lent.
[via Forbes]

"Fasting is not just about what we abstain from—it is about what we embrace."
Supporters of Black and ally-owned brands sold at Target can buy directly from those businesses.

ABOVE: “Do Not Buy Where You Will Not Be Hired”   

From the papers of Floyd McKissick, a Black attorney who worked with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Durham, North Carolina in the early 1960s.
--Via.

Stronger

Can you tell that I am chatty?
I imagine that comes through, here?
Well, anyway, I am, and even though my cold has turned into LARYNGITIS, I talked soooo much to the physical therapist, I am now practically voiceless.

He was the sort of PT I admire the most.
I suppose they all know the mechanics of the body, which is adequately admirable, but some are more forthcoming with the info, which is more so. This guy was the type who responded generously to my questions, giving me lots and lots of information. I love that!  

He spent an entire hour with me and gave me oodles of help.

He was terrific at explaining things for non-science majors.
I said I pictured tiny little knitters repairing my knee.
"That's good," he said. "I tell people it's like ants--no matter what you're doing, they're working."

He told me how he knew it was my MCL (medial collateral ligament) that was hurt and not the meniscus:
"I know this twist hurts your knee"––(it did)-- "but if it were the meniscus, you couldn't do it at all."

And, while I don't want to objectify the man, he was in possession of a most superior posterior. Walt Whitman would have approved.
"What sport do you play?" I asked.
"I never played sports," he said. "I lift weights."

I did NOT say, "Well, that's working well for you", but really, he was buff. That inspired me, it really did, that visual reminder that if you put the work in, your body will respond.
I need to put in the work to strengthen exactly that:
the glutes, which stabilize the knee.

I know some things need medication to heal, but musculoskeletal stuff?
Work it, if you can.

I was relieved to hear that my MCL injury is a relatively minor pull, and extremely common --that it will heal--is already repairing itself––and that the exercises and massage he showed me will help the strands repair themselves in proper order, and not go all sideways.(He showed me with his fingers how some of the strands are pulled out of place.)

"Without help," he said, "the fibers won't always realign in the best way. It's good you came to PT"--making me extra glad I'd been brave and called the State health insurance people yesterday.
(And then the confirmation of my new coverage came in the mail today. I'd be kicking myself if I had cancelled PT because I'd been too afraid to make that call.)

Another thing that made me happy was he said biking is exactly the thing for my injury. Yay!
"But don't start biking to work yet, where there's time and distance pressure. Bike slowly around your neighborhood for 10 minutes to start."

So I did! It's sunny and 50, and I felt giddy to be FREE after being cooped up for 6 weeks. (Even if my knee had been well, it'd been too cold to bike.)

He knew I biked because he'd asked during the intake what activities I'd given up because of my injury.

I'd told him that I don't exercise.
But as I was answering this question, I realized that statement must seem weird:
"I can't bike to work, and I can't walk around the lake, and I can't carry groceries a mile home from the store. Um, I guess that sounds like I exercise?"

"I think you mean you don't go to a gym."

Yes. It's funny how our perception can be off kilter.

I found out lots about him (because: chatty).
He went to the high school where I worked last year, and he worked at Taco Bell!
His oldest daughter is a Pisces!
He's in the National Guard and was posted as a PT to Kosovo! (Years after the war--he's young.)
He wears squishy insoles in his Converse tennies. (He'd been telling me we need cushion, and I questioned his flat-soled shoes.)

His ONLY downside, and it's neutral, not negative:
he was not someone I would tell about the dolls and bears and their knees, unlike the doctor I saw two weeks ago.
I'd trusted that she would enter into the Theater of Toys.

But truly, that's okay. A lot of (most?) people don't do toys.

Anyway, they don't care one jot:
"We only need one doctor," they said. "She was the one for us."
They want me to send her an update photo of them doing their PT exercises.

I probably will, because I want to let her know that her guess that it was the MCL was correct. It wasn't a "guess", of course!
But she'd said she couldn't be sure without an MRI. She'd been about to order one for me, when I told her not to because I wasn't sure I had insurance coverage at that point, and while I could conceivably pay for an office visit out of pocket, no way could I pay for sci-fi machinery.

Turns out, the PT didn't need that, being fluent in the language of muscle and bone, in all its intricacy.

So--now I have a regimen to follow, three more appointments (two weeks apart), and some tips on proper mechanics for getting down on the floor:
use a gardener's mat for kneeling, don't torque your knee, go straight down; squatting down is best, but my knee it still "too irritatable" to do squats.

Because everything is political these days, I apply all this metaphorically to staying strong in these Days of Destruction:
do your daily exercises-- watch your mechanics.

Small motions lead to strong posteriors, allowing us to do the HEAVY LIFTING, to stabilize us and keep us balanced.

And--my favorite:
Cushion yourself!

Humor is a great cushion--like goose-down!
I would not normally care about an image like this--not the sports nor the aggression––but I 100-percent relish how other countries are pushing back against our horrible bullying.
And it made me smile.
We have Canada geese at the lakes here, and while they look like pillows, they are fierce. I would not mess with them.
Muscle and pluck forever! says Walt Whitman.

I lifted this ^ illustration off a Canadian woman's blog, "My Life So Far". Thanks, MLSF!
She notes that these geese are called cobra chickens.
LOL--yes! They hiss and snake their necks and they bite. (They are also very poopy.) 

"You're never as weak as you think" (Unless you haven't moved for weeks, then maybe)

I. Make the Call

I dread dealing with bureaucracy. No one much likes it, right? But some people like my sister just shrug and get on with it. I am not one of those people. I've paid actual money rather than phone an agency.

But I was motivated this morning:
I got a bill for $342.45 for the [20-min] doctor visit for my knee.
I dread phone calls so much, I considered paying it, but I go to physical therapy tomorrow, and I can't afford to get billed for that too.

I even thought about cancelling PT, but I have grown weak. It's been six weeks I haven't been able to move vigorously. I want to get going!

So I called to find out why my State health insurance hasn’t kicked in yet.
And found out—it has!
They'll cover that doctor visit, and everything coming up. 
Because I earn under $20k a year, I don't even have a co-pay (I think).

Thank you, good humans!

This all changes next year when I turn 65 and have to enroll in Medi-care/-aid/-whatever. If it still exists... *
Will we have a US federal government in 2026?
This is not a rhetorical question.
_____________________

II. Show Up

It was so great how COVID-19 vaccines were handled in 2021.
No insurance needed--not here, anyway--you just [made an appointment and] showed up.
Was that national?

Below: Ass't Man and me, having gotten our first vaccines in 2021. Four springs ago! 

AM said his beard interfered with wearing a mask. He'd often have one hanging slack around his neck or up on the crown of his head.
Big Boss set an example by wearing one, but he didn't insist on others doing so.

Many of my male coworkers either wouldn't wear a mask at all, or wore one over their mouth alone---or even over their chin.
It seemed to be a gender thing.
Wearing masks was sissy?
While men I work with are robust in many ways, they were such tender blossoms about masks.
"Oh, they're uncomfortable."
But they will carry furniture when they have two broken fingers. [Actual example.]

The above photo was taken by a former coworker who, I just remembered, was having immigration problems. She'd been in the process of filing for citizenship when she left her abusive husband (an Anglo)--who then TURNED HER IN to the feds as fraudulent.
I hope she's okay.

Luckily all the people working at the store now are citizens--some only recently. But a lot of people in the neighborhood aren't.

In the neighborhood where I live, someone posted signs w/ cards in baggies  outlining legal rights, in English/Spanish:

"Immigrants Make Minneapolis
Know Your Rights"

On the cards: What to say to ICE (in English);
In Spanish, what to do:
Don't open the door, don't say or sign anything...

I took one to xerox and put up around the store.
The neighborhood where I live is mostly non-Hispanic white, but the Catholic Church two blocks from me that hosts the food shelf is largely Spanish-speaking. A lot of people who go there are refugees from Ecuador, which is ruled by gangs [BBC article], you know. 

III. Stand Up! Or, Sit Down

There are so many things we can do--little and big—to make a better world.

^ Above from Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Putin (2022), graphic history by Andrew S. Weiss; illus. by Brian "Box" Brown.
I just read it and learned a lot!

So many things we can do.... According to Gene Sharp,198 Things.
In his book The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973), Sharp  catalogued 198 METHODS of Non-Violent Actions.
(They don't include online tactics, because 1973.)

These “nonviolent weapons” are in three categories:

• nonviolent protest and persuasion--marches & mockery!
  Dictators don't like being laughed at.
  
  
• noncooperation (social, economic, and political)--ways of refusing to play--like boycotts
  
  
• nonviolent intervention--civil disobedience, exposing wrong-doers, etc.

 > > > Here's an easy one we in the US could do this Friday:
join the FEBRUARY 28 Economic Blackout

"For our entire lives, they have told us we have no choice ... that we have to accept these insane prices, the corporate greed, the billionaire tax breaks, all while we struggle to just to get by,"
said  John Schwarz, founder of the unaffiliated grassroots organization The People's Union USA.

"February 28, the 24-hour economic blackout: no Amazon, no Walmart, no fast food, no gas, not a single unnecessary dollar spent ...
If you must spend, ONLY support small, local businesses.
For one day, we are going to finally turn the tables."

I don’t agree with all of People’s Union’s platform, but I agree people should pull together, and a one-day boycott is a great place to start. So, on Friday I won't get a falafel sandwich at NY Gyro (below).
I'm getting to love this basic restaurant in the corner where I transfer to an express bus (to & from the U):
it goes right to my apartment building, but it runs infrequently.
If I have to wait long, I've been eating here.

A couple really nice Middle Eastern guys run it.
Once I only had 10 minutes before my bus came:
Was there time to get a chicken gyro to go, I asked, or should I order something faster?

"You should eat what you like," the guy said. "I will make it for you."

I don't want to hurt them economically so I'll make sure to eat there an extra time that's not 2/28. Or, better, leave a $9 tip, the cost of a gyros.

IV. Know Your Salutes

Here's a boycott that didn't happen--the US did not boycott the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, even after Hitler enacted the Nuremberg Race Laws.

Perhaps Jesse Owens winning four gold medals was even more powerful than a boycott would have been?

Eighty years later, President Obama said:

“It wasn’t just Jesse. It was other African Americans athletes in the middle of Nazi Germany under the gaze of Adolf Hitler that put a lie to notions of racial superiority ––whooped ’em–– and taught them a thing or two about democracy and taught them a thing or two about the American character.”

--"The 1936 Berlin Olympics and the Controversy of U.S. Participation"

Hm, though. "The American character" is currently up for review...
Here, Jesse Owens on the podium demonstrates what "Not-a-Nazi Salute" looks like. [via NewsMuseum]

___________
* Health Care, Again

Oh--here:
The House will vote this week on the GOP's budget proposal, which includes massive cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, to pay for even more tax cuts for the rich. --Robert Reich [via Michael at OCA]

Fellow Americans, call your representatives now and tell them to reject it:
(202) 224-3121
Or…
Find your senator.
Find your representative.

A comment on Reich's YouTube:
"They've got their supporters believing that the Sheriff of Nottingham is Robinhood."

First Sighting of the Season

Shorts sighting, that is! Man spotted on my way to work from the bus stop, a block from the thrift store. It’s 47 and sunny—warm enough to bike if not for my knee. Yesterday I saw T-shirts but no shorts.)

That’s a Somali restaurant on the corner.

" I, in perfect health except for a slight cold"

I exposed myself to a surfeit of Whitman. I read too much of and about ol' Walt yesterday and became crabby.
STOP insisting on the glory of grass, WW, of glistening sweat, of gelatinous gaps...

Reading him makes me want to sit slumped in a corner and glower and point out how UNCOMFORTABLE nature is, treacherous, and rocky underfoot.
Have you ever been camping in a rainstorm?
Have you ever inhaled days-old urine striking through cotton trousers?

Well, yes, I gather he went out and about all the time (Nature!), and talked to everyone. 

He was the sort of guy who reveled in it.
The odor of feet.
The feel of hail on your face!
Doesn't it make you feel ALIVE?!

No, it makes me want to go inside.

Really, some of his stuff is great. I love the lines of "Song of Myself" recited in Nine Days.
A little is enough. Walt is so relentless, so insistent, I want to punch him.
Back off!

He invites parody.
I couldn't write it . . . and I don't have to:
E. B. White wrote a send-up of the Classics Book Club in the style of WW, "A Classic Waits for Me".

Unlike Walt, though, he kept it short: a page long.
Here are a few lines:

"I to the classics devoted, brother of rough mechanics, beauty-parlor technicians, spot welders, radio-program directors
(It is not necessary to have a higher education to appreciate these books),
I, connoisseur of good reading, friend of connoisseurs of good reading everywhere,
I, not obligated to take any specific number of books, free to reject any volume, perfectly free to reject Montaigne, Erasmus, Milton,
I, in perfect health except for a slight cold, pressed for time, having only a few more years to live,
Now celebrate this opportunity."

_______________

"To my other favorite W.W." Walt Whitman’s poetic influence on Breaking Bad"--article in Medium

Here's an interesting connection---Whitman's poetry features in Breaking Bad--the TV show about Walter White, a man living his as his freest, most intense, truest self––as a meth making, dealing, murdering bastard.

The contradictions in the worship of freedom, of self. "If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body."

I didn't like Breaking Bad, but Marz did, and she showed me clips of the highlights.
Like the ending:

"I did it for me," Walter White says. "I liked it. I was good at it. It made me feel alive."

Oh, Walt!

UPDATE: A commenter kindly (or vengefully) informed me I misquoted Mr White:

"Hello, I am the Associate Angel of Vengeance.
Unlike my boss, I am a coward, so I limit my vengeance to correcting misquotations.
Walter White says:
I did it for me. I was good at it. I was alive.
The situation didn't act on him to make him feel aliveness; he became aliveness in action. "

Yes. I double-checked that scene on youTube.
Walt says to his wife, "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really... I was alive."
_____________

I actually do have a slight cold.
But my knee continues to improve, and since it's supposed to be almost hot–– sunny and 45º––this afternoon I will try walking with a cane to the park, half a mile away. Or at least around the block.

I bet I will see someone in shorts. (A man.)

The body exposed! The milk white legs!

Sad 'n' Cheerful Chitchat

I. Saturday morning chitchat

It's an exciting day: it's warming up!
Jumping from below zero up to the thirties... and beyond.

AND, my knee let me sleep all night without stabbing me in the brain. I’m so proud of my body for knitting itself back together.
Yay, health! 

Only: I have a small cold.
Gee whiz, come on you guys, enough already.

But, truly, it's small---I can breathe easily, and that's the main thing. The best thing!

"My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart,
the passing of blood and air through my lungs...."

BREATHE!

The lines ^  are from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself", which I only truly registered when I heard them in the movie Nine Days.
I love that scene so much, I'm going to embed it here--it stands alone.

NOTE: It's a SPOILER

This movie stays with me--it feels so much like ME.
Me, as myself. 
Sad and life affirming.
Sleepy, slow, and vital, vibrant.

II. Movies of Our Selves

Other films have felt like my life, my family, my times--the forces at work---but not about me qua me.

Some of them...

Moonstruck (1987)--My Sicilian (father's) side of the family. Still love that film. Presented as funny, but there's real hurt in there.

Thirty-two Short Films about Glenn Gould (1993) felt like a home movie from my childhood. I haven't watched this in 30 years, so I'm not sure why, besides that my mother was a pianist, and my parents loved Glenn Gould. Beauty and befuddlement.

Love, Liza (2002)-- Phillips Seymour Hoffman, as a man  blasted by the suicide of his wife, who left a note he spends the movie getting up the energy to read. Definitely a picture of me after my mother's death. Very loving.

Downfall, (2004, w/ Bruno Ganz), about the final days of the Third Reich, with Hitler in the bunker.
Weirdly, I found an uplifting message in this dark film:
IT MATTERS WHAT WE DO, what I do... even if the world falls apart around us. Do the right thing.

Paired ^ with  Blindspot: Hitler's Secretary, a documentary about a young woman who chose not to see, not to do;
and The White Rose about young people who did see, and act.

Capote (2005), another with Philip S. Hoffman––a picture of how riveting narcissism can be... and also of how slim the line is between creation and destruction.
What door did you walk out of?

> > > What are the movies of YOU?

iii. Sad 'n' Cheerful

Ha! I was just texting with Tracy about wanting to chit-chat lightly, but even if I start with the weather, I end up chatting about suicide and liberation.

LOL... "And that's okay". That is the background radiation.
I'm feeling quite cheerful.

I relate to Cornel West saying to Toni Morrison that he is a cheerful person with a sad soul. He also said, “I'm not an optimist but I'm a prisoner of hope”.

Makes sense to me--like physics:
Entropy wins, but isn't it so cool we exist?
To infinity, and beyond!

I guess Harold & Maude (1971) felt like me, myself, when I saw it at fifteen. Or, it felt like who I wanted to be: Maude.
That didn't seem possible, at fifteen--I thought we were different species; but now I see it's a matter of different life stages. Bean sprouts don't look much like beans.

Now I have flashes that I have indeed grown up into my version of a Maude. The mature stage of me.
Sad 'n' Cheerful.

 Maude in the greenhouse: " I like to watch things grow. They grow and bloom and fade and die and change into something else.
Ah, life!"

iv. Back to chitchat...  What's poppin' at the store?

Let's see. Oh, Amina set up a Black History Month book display.
She is so lovely... and so clueless about physical things. She piled the books all on top of one another.
I used to get annoyed with her, but I like her so much--and she's extremely smart, and kind and funny--now I just follow behind and rearrange. 

Many books have already sold off the display--this was yesterday's selection:

Volunteer Abby was excited about a set of Denby stoneware dishes, made in England in the 1970s.
I have some Denby mustard-yellow salad plates w/ brown rims that I love, but I don't much care for this Tulip pattern. Though I do like the sugar bowl w/ lid, below, right:

My Denby plates are chipped because I am a terrible one for BREAKING PLATES. Or, rather, I am very good at breaking them. And mugs, etc. All of them are chipped.

> > > Do you break things?

I was mentioning to the cashier that I always have to have a broom handy at work because I break something most every day--and never have dishes at home for long.

"I don't think I've ever broken any of my dishes," she said.
Granted she's only 26, but by 26 I'm sure I'd broken a lifetime's worth of crockery.

I was wondering if I'm mentally inattentive, or perhaps I have some biological lack of coordination?

I kinda think the latter:
I remember breaking things when I was little---a porcelain horse figurine I loved; my mother's Brown Betty tea pot she loved.
It doesn't feel like I'm distracted,
it feels like things are easy to break. They practically do it themselves!

It's nothing tragic, just a propensity to break things.
They're just things. There are a lot of them in this, our world.
Good thing I work in a thrift store. 😊
What else?
Four old dolls-of-the-world came in. The ones with blue shawls are Ireland.

Which reminds me, I'd come across a photo bink took of me biking in Ireland when I was twenty-five---with a boy we met named, was it Wade? Wayne?
Do you remember, bink?

[bink says: he was Wyatt!]

It's so low res--this is as big as it gets.

Back when we hopped onto a plane and headed off on our bikes with NO physical prep. "I can bike up mountains."

My knee says, those days are done and gone.
Which is fine. I could and did bike up mountains, but I distinctly didn't enjoy it. bink can attest to this.

And, that's it for today because--more cheer--Maura is coming in her car to take me to the art supply store (Blicks) for linoleum. Getting going with printmaking again.
 

Tootle-oo, you! ❤️ Take good care of your joints. And your lungs. And your tender heart.