This past weekend was SC Pride for 2021 – the annual march was Friday night, Festival on Saturday, and recovery yesterday. Although Pretty and I weren’t able to participate in the festivities, we were thrilled to feel the excitement in the downtown area as it came alive with the electricity of Pride! Our gratitude to all those who did take advantage of the weekend’s celebration of our LGBTQ+ community – nothing better than a good march to empower and inspire the marchers.
Six years ago today as I walked away from the 2015 Pride March and Festival I stopped to take this iconic image of lesbians celebrating on Sumter Street. Clearly inspired, obviously empowered. This remains one of my favorite photos to this day.
Finally, another favorite from the 2014 Pride celebration:
The girls (and guys!) who march and/or ride for equal rights truly do rock.
Happy Pride! Onward.
*****************
Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned.
Apparently bully cats are like bully ex-presidents: they keep on turning up.
Bully Cat races past me on my morning walk today
When I was 10 minutes from home on my walk this morning, I spotted Bully Cat a short distance away. We were both surprised, startled, and stared at one another. I made a quick decision to snap his picture, but he seemed to recognize me from our earlier encounters in our driveway this week and took off. Hence, the blurry image. However, when he was a safe distance away from me and my cell phone camera, he stopped and gave me this look.
Bully Cat 100% recognized me
Warmer weather the past couple of nights saw Pretty’s puddy tat Lilibets in her familiar surroundings of our carport with her equally familiar place on the top step of our steps leading to the kitchen door from the carport when she’s ready for her two square Fancy Feast meals daily. For more than a month she has staked that place to make sure I don’t forget about her when I feed our three dogs who are, thankfully, all inside.
I wasn’t sure this morning if Pretty’s Lilibets was with us because she hadn’t been visible like she normally would be when I exited the house for my walk. I also didn’t see her on my way home when I walked past Neighbor John’s house, but I did see John leaving for work. I called out to wish him a good morning and he gave me a friendly wave. Neighbor John and I are now clearly best friends.
I checked the flower bed at the house across the street from John’s (the house of the two lesbians according to Pretty who knows every lesbian within miles) but no sign of our cat.
I saw no evidence of Lilibets under either one of our antique vehicles when I walked up the driveway so maybe she had vanished again. But no, she appeared mysteriously on the top step waiting for breakfast to be served when she heard the dogs barking for their meal. I gave her fresh water and her delicious Fancy Feast meal mixed with a few dry pellets. She actually purred and allowed me to pet her today. Wow. Incredible progress from the cat who chose to ignore me when I appeared in John’s driveway. Fickle.
I watched Lilibets eat from the kitchen door for a few minutes and then went in the back yard to water flowers for a little while. Still no rain in the forecast. Felt like summer. Sigh. Flowers on their last legs or, er, petals.
I went back to the kitchen door to check on Lilibet’s progress and lo and behold, what do you think I saw???!!!
The evil Bully Cat was eating our cat’s food and had scared away our puddy tat who was nowhere to be seen.
I went nuclear, hollering obscenities, rushing toward the Bully Cat with all the ferocity my 75 year old white-haired self could muster. You better run, you feline son of a you-know-what. You better hope I don’t catch up with you – I will make you wish you had picked another driveway to rob, etc.
The Bully Cat did run…all the way across the street where he stopped long enough to look back at me with a mocking glance. Then he disappeared.
After much cajoling, reassurances, and replenishing the food bowl Lilibets returned to the top step and finally felt a resurgence of her appetite. I stood guard while she polished off most of her food followed by sips of water. She and I had a common enemy now. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, if I remember that quote correctly. Evidently Pretty’s cat and I are buddies.
***************
Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned.
Yesterday I was in the unfortunate position of needing postage to mail my cousin Melissa’s birthday card – the card I already know will be late – when, alas, the postage stamps I’d ordered from the usps hadn’t arrived in the mail. At various times during the past 20 years Pretty has offered her stamps in the unlikely event I should ever run out. I routinely rejected her offer but I was in a bind yesterday and had forgotten why I refused her generosity in the past so last night Pretty found her stamp collection in a small retail shop bag she had carefully kept in the bowels of her office.
I rummaged through the bag and a flashback hit me. Pretty doesn’t buy forever stamps because that would be too easy. Instead I found an assortment of stamps ranging from 2 cents to 33 cents. Seriously, Pretty? I couldn’t call this a stamp “collection” but it was a collection of stamps. I managed to come up with enough postage to mail Melissa’s card; usps now says a card from South Carolina to Texas could take until her next birthday to get there. Regardless, thanks to Pretty for saving the day.
But greater thanks to her for this nugget of writing that was copied on a sheet of regular 8 x 11 white paper, folded in half and oddly mixed in with the stamps. I felt these words about racism from the American author and poet Scott Woods speaking directly to me – I wish I had written them.
“The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that. Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites at other people’s expense, whether whites know /like it or not. Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person who likes Black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you. Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on. So while I agree with people who say no one is born racist, it remains a powerful system that we’re immediately born into. It’s like being born into air: you take it in as soon as you breathe. It’s not a cold that you can get over. There is no anti-racist certification class. It’s a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it. I know it’s hard work, but it’s the price you pay for owning everything.”
Sometimes I’m a storyteller. Sometimes I’m a word collector much like Pretty’s stamp “collection” which saved those words for me, for all of us.
****************
Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned.
Pretty and I are fortunate to celebrate international day of the girl every week when we care for our granddaughter Ella who turned 2 years old on October 1st., but we were thrilled to find out earlier this year Pretty Too and Number One Son are expecting another little girl in January! Ella announced the news to everyone last week…
Pretty Too shared this picture of our quite grown up two year old who is more than poetry in motion – she is a force of nature – and language. Movement, words. Every new experience requires exploration and discovery. Frankly, my dears, her energy exhausts this grandmother who was 73 years old when she was born and two years older today, but Ella insists I keep up with each game we play in her imagination informed by the adventures of Deema and Sally on YouTube videos.
The world Ella and her little sister Molly will inherit from Pretty and me will afford them opportunities to learn in an environment richer in technology with access to a wealth of answers to questions we didn’t know how to ask, but how will historians frame those answers. Who will narrate the journey of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the Equal Rights Amendment failure in the 1970s and beyond, the Gay Nineties, Black Lives Matter, Love is Love, Time’s Up, a woman’s right to choose…will these historians represent the truth and consequences of denying climate change, the power of divisiveness and income inequality, the reality of hunger for the poor children not just in America but also around the world, the election of Joe Biden in 2020, the insurrection in the Capitol building on January 06, 2021. We must safeguard these truths and pass them on to our granddaughters.
The message will be clear from us. Love who you are, love others as you do yourself. Learn to identify the difference between what is right and what is wrong. When you see something that is wrong, work to change it.
When Ella began to love the music Pretty played for her on her cell phone, one of the first videos she saw was March, March from The Chicks. This is my message for the village that is entrusted with the care of all little girls everywhere.
********
Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and stay tuned.
Some dogs love to howl at the moon, some dogs stare at the moon but prefer to bark at the mailman, a few dogs never notice the moon at all. They think if they ignore it, the moon will gradually go away – kind of like rain. Dogs who could sing would make up songs like Moon, Moon, go away – come again some other day.
The United States Senate reminds me of a dog pound. You ain’t nothing but a hound dog Mitch McConnell loves to lead the rest of his pack in howling at the moon on a regular basis, but he’s also learned to sing. This week Sing Along with Mitch brought the hit song Debt Limits, Debt Limits Go Away – come again some other day. Like in early December.
But then the rest of his minority pack started barking at Mitch for losing an imaginary game of Wake, Wake Don’t Blink at Me with Chuck Schumer who can’t sing at all – can’t even carry a tune as we used to say about my Aunt Sister. Nope. Chuck and his majority pack must be saving their howling for the mailman or the boogeyman or some other man because they’ve 100% lost their voices when it comes to howling at the moon. They can’t even whimper on their own. Whatever song Mitch leads, they sing along from one rousing chorus of Proud Donald to another stanza of Catch the Falling Star of Joe Biden.
As for voting rights, infrastructure, income inequality, raising the minimum wage, institutional racism, police reform, gun control, burning bushes, floods, pandemics, vaccines against said pandemics, insurrectionists who evidently would be happier without democracy – most of us are like the dogs who choose to ignore the moon. If we ignore the moon, maybe one day it will just go away on its own.
But what if there’s really a Blue Moon from Kentucky that ain’t ever going away, then what?
And that’s the view from the cheap seats.
*********
Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and stay tuned.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
You must be logged in to post a comment.