Saturday, August 16
Aug. 17th, 2025 12:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Getting good sleep, and not being rushed into the day even though we are meeting people in the city.
The people we met up with today are: My husband's adult cousin who is roughly ten years younger than we are, her husband, their two daughters who are teens, and their teen friend who tagged along.
I will confess that this whole thing felt a bit dissociative for me, because I met this woman maybe once or twice WAY back when my husband and I were first together, so possibly 25 years ago. I don't keep up with his family much, though I hear bits and pieces about them. I wouldn't have recognized her if we were walking past her on the street.
I have never met her husband or her kids, and it's entirely possible that after today, I might not see them again for years, if ever.
Isn't that weird?
Not weird for my husband. He grew up knowing her, and has seen her here and there when he goes home to see family, and knows more or less how things are going for her.
Anyhow, we met with them at the art gallery, and they seemed to enjoy that well enough. I gather that they don't really go to art galleries, maybe haven't ever gone to one. One of the daughters has an interest in art, was asking the parents to go to a gallery, so it's nice that they did. Hopefully they can do it more often, now that the ice is broken.
Then my husband and I walked them to their parkade, and we'd be meeting them shortly for supper.
Walking back to our car, we had one of those sad encounters that just break your heart. We were crossing the street and a woman in an electric wheelchair was TRYING to get across the street...I got the impression that she had poor vision. Her chair was powered by a joystick and somehow a phone app, and she was having trouble getting it to work.
We stayed with her as she missed two green lights because she got started and her chair just stopped working. We were kind of freaking out because what do we do? Just leave her there? How could we help? It didn't seem to work to push her chair, so we...waited. She got it working and just WENT, even though it was a red light. I've never seen anything like it. She just powered on, not even looking at the traffic, and thankfully everyone just stopped and let her pass.
She proceeded to drive around the event at the square, which we were also walking past, and then we saw her come out the other side, driving her chair right down the middle of the road in front of the art gallery, and totally disregarding the cars around her. Sometimes her chair would stop working in the middle of the road, then it would jerk ahead and away she went. I don't even know if she could see that she was on the road.
I was thinking, what happens if her chair just stops and she's stranded somewhere? She looked very disheveled, and I don't know that she had anyone looking out for her..anyone who would know where she was or if she made it back to anywhere.
Well, that leaves me feeling quite badly about the world we live in, with no way to make things better.
We kind of carried on with our day.
I picked up a book from a person on Marketplace, the "other" art of Dr.Seuss.
We poked our heads into an art supply store where I got some fine tipped brushes and a new paint color.
Then we went to meet the cousins for supper at a place we often go. This family is vegan, so that worked well. They apparently had researched ahead of time where they wanted to eat, and came up with one of our regular places.
The seemed to enjoy their meal, which is nice. We chatted more about our lives, and they do seem like really nice people.
REALLY NICE PEOPLE.
They are living some kind of weird, story book lives in some ways, though I know they are human and things aren't always perfect.
They met in high school and got married very young. They are possibly each other's first serious relationship.
They both went to school and have good careers, she is a nurse and he is an electrical foreman. The one daughter is into dancing, and the other likes art.
They have been together for 21 years, seem very happy, have a very nice house that their parents helped them buy right away when they got married, and it now has a pool in the yard. They live in the city where they went to school and their parents live there too, not that far from them. They haven't traveled much, but are very happy where they are.
They were in our area visiting friends from their city that moved here last year. Those people are their best friends from school, who have remained their best friends their whole lives.
They have owned several golden retrievers.
I wonder if they would be a useful family for demographic study, or as a marketing test family for products.
I didn't even know people were still like this.
Well, anyhow, afterwards they went back to spend another night with their friends, and we went onward to the book store, and then home.
We watched an okay, ho hum movie called "Operation Fortune" that you'd expect to be a bit more edgy and fun, because it is a Guy Ritchie movie, but it felt "made for television" somehow, even though it had a great cast and it looked very professional. It just lacked the grittiness and sense of connection to the characters that his early movies have.
So, a decent day overall, and thankfully I did not feel overwhelmed by trying to be social with people that I don't really have a connection with.
Getting good sleep, and not being rushed into the day even though we are meeting people in the city.
The people we met up with today are: My husband's adult cousin who is roughly ten years younger than we are, her husband, their two daughters who are teens, and their teen friend who tagged along.
I will confess that this whole thing felt a bit dissociative for me, because I met this woman maybe once or twice WAY back when my husband and I were first together, so possibly 25 years ago. I don't keep up with his family much, though I hear bits and pieces about them. I wouldn't have recognized her if we were walking past her on the street.
I have never met her husband or her kids, and it's entirely possible that after today, I might not see them again for years, if ever.
Isn't that weird?
Not weird for my husband. He grew up knowing her, and has seen her here and there when he goes home to see family, and knows more or less how things are going for her.
Anyhow, we met with them at the art gallery, and they seemed to enjoy that well enough. I gather that they don't really go to art galleries, maybe haven't ever gone to one. One of the daughters has an interest in art, was asking the parents to go to a gallery, so it's nice that they did. Hopefully they can do it more often, now that the ice is broken.
Then my husband and I walked them to their parkade, and we'd be meeting them shortly for supper.
Walking back to our car, we had one of those sad encounters that just break your heart. We were crossing the street and a woman in an electric wheelchair was TRYING to get across the street...I got the impression that she had poor vision. Her chair was powered by a joystick and somehow a phone app, and she was having trouble getting it to work.
We stayed with her as she missed two green lights because she got started and her chair just stopped working. We were kind of freaking out because what do we do? Just leave her there? How could we help? It didn't seem to work to push her chair, so we...waited. She got it working and just WENT, even though it was a red light. I've never seen anything like it. She just powered on, not even looking at the traffic, and thankfully everyone just stopped and let her pass.
She proceeded to drive around the event at the square, which we were also walking past, and then we saw her come out the other side, driving her chair right down the middle of the road in front of the art gallery, and totally disregarding the cars around her. Sometimes her chair would stop working in the middle of the road, then it would jerk ahead and away she went. I don't even know if she could see that she was on the road.
I was thinking, what happens if her chair just stops and she's stranded somewhere? She looked very disheveled, and I don't know that she had anyone looking out for her..anyone who would know where she was or if she made it back to anywhere.
Well, that leaves me feeling quite badly about the world we live in, with no way to make things better.
We kind of carried on with our day.
I picked up a book from a person on Marketplace, the "other" art of Dr.Seuss.
We poked our heads into an art supply store where I got some fine tipped brushes and a new paint color.
Then we went to meet the cousins for supper at a place we often go. This family is vegan, so that worked well. They apparently had researched ahead of time where they wanted to eat, and came up with one of our regular places.
The seemed to enjoy their meal, which is nice. We chatted more about our lives, and they do seem like really nice people.
REALLY NICE PEOPLE.
They are living some kind of weird, story book lives in some ways, though I know they are human and things aren't always perfect.
They met in high school and got married very young. They are possibly each other's first serious relationship.
They both went to school and have good careers, she is a nurse and he is an electrical foreman. The one daughter is into dancing, and the other likes art.
They have been together for 21 years, seem very happy, have a very nice house that their parents helped them buy right away when they got married, and it now has a pool in the yard. They live in the city where they went to school and their parents live there too, not that far from them. They haven't traveled much, but are very happy where they are.
They were in our area visiting friends from their city that moved here last year. Those people are their best friends from school, who have remained their best friends their whole lives.
They have owned several golden retrievers.
I wonder if they would be a useful family for demographic study, or as a marketing test family for products.
I didn't even know people were still like this.
Well, anyhow, afterwards they went back to spend another night with their friends, and we went onward to the book store, and then home.
We watched an okay, ho hum movie called "Operation Fortune" that you'd expect to be a bit more edgy and fun, because it is a Guy Ritchie movie, but it felt "made for television" somehow, even though it had a great cast and it looked very professional. It just lacked the grittiness and sense of connection to the characters that his early movies have.
So, a decent day overall, and thankfully I did not feel overwhelmed by trying to be social with people that I don't really have a connection with.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-17 08:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-18 03:05 am (UTC)If the extended family picnic does not happen this summer, I'm content; one can Zelig one's way through conversation, and certainly one does what one must to be gracious, but listening to Christian Nationalists and Quiverfulls air their opinions as universally ideal is tedious at best. It rather makes one want to do something purposely offensive, and one has already done enough anti-Maple MAGA pontificating this summer.
(I made a Maple MAGA angry by suggesting that the only type of people who would be interested in co-opting Lawrence Welk shows are Bible-believing (in the Protestant sense) tradwives and far-right MAGAs. Oof! I went out to have a drinkee and a larf with an old pal after that.)
no subject
Date: 2025-08-18 08:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 07:47 am (UTC)I laughed when I saw the two new paintings installed in the White House. At first, I thought they were fangirl illustrations that Trump Boy liked. Paint straight out of the tube!
no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 07:51 am (UTC)It's the portrait he deserves.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-20 10:09 pm (UTC)Whenever I hear someone refer to "President Trump", and they're not a news reporter, I know there's likely a peculiar worship there of cadmium, chrome yellow and ultramarine blue.