Beowabbit

This is copied from Facebook; it makes a better LJ post, actually.

Roughly once a day these days, I read or hear about some piece of Islamophobia that I mean to mention here, but I usually don’t actually carve out the time to do it.

What I heard on NPR this morning was much smaller than most of them, merely a turn of phrase by a reporter who was probably trying to be honest, fair, and inoffensive. Discussing the upcoming GOP debate, he said that one thing that was sure to come up was “the Muslim question”. In the context of Donald Trump’s xenophobia and its political implications, those words made some sense, but given the current tenor of political discourse in this country, it was hard not to be reminded of the phrase “die Judenfrage”, and hearing “the Muslim question” in serious reporting in 2015 gave me chills.

I haven’t read news reports about tonight’s debate yet, but some of what Trump says to defend his hideous, un-American plan to discriminate against people based solely on their religion starts with the assumption that the U.S. government’s policy of sending American citizens of Japanese ancestry in much of the country to internment camps during WWII was justified! I thought that the general consensus since, oh, I dunno, 1960 or maybe 1970 was that it was an appalling unconstitutional blot on American history that must never be allowed to happen again.

It’s bizarre that an America with an African American president and same-sex marriage legal nationwide (neither of which I was 100% sure would be possible in my lifetime 20 or 30 years ago) has had its Overton window dragged so far in the direction of racism and bigotry.

A friend of mine pointed me at this article about an event which is more typical of the things get my blood boiling these days than the three clumsy but probably not malicious words quoted above:

If You See Something, Say Something (It's Not About What You Think It Is)

There’s an apocryphal story (but with some seed of truth) that the occupying Nazis ordered the Jews of Denmark to wear yellow Stars of David, and the King of Denmark declared that all Danes should wear them and wore one himself, and the Nazis backed down. That didn’t happen, but the King of Denmark (and many ordinary Danish gentiles) did in fact oppose Nazi racism as much as they could, and I would encourage all my non-Muslim friends to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_X_of_Denmark and http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/yellowstars.asp for inspiration against the day (I hope it never comes) when all decent Americans need to pin yellow crescents to our clothing.

This is friends-only because, honestly, I don’t feel entirely safe getting it spread across the Internet with my name attached. But feel free to copy and paste publicly or privately without attribution.

Many thanks to plumtreeblossom for keeping folks back here in civilization in the loop. And many thanks to those of you who commented with well-wishes.

After a tweak to my Flexeril dosage I’m getting the relief without the scary side effect (although it still makes me a little slow and groggy — or maybe that’s not being able to use my CPAP masks, all of which still hurt too much), and I’m feeling much better. Slow steady improvement. I went in to work today, and was reasonably productive, and I have noticeably more range of motion in my neck this evening than I did this morning.

With any luck, I’ll be all better by Friday afternoon — just in time to have three wisdom teeth out!

And on that cheery note, it’s off to try to do a little bit of catching up on what’s happened here on LJ in the months since I last checked in.

plumtreeblossom and I have been watching a lot of really interesting stuff lately. ( This is kind of long, so click here to read a little more about The Imitation Game, the third Hobbit movie, Big Eyes, Crossing the Line, and the first episode of Ken Burns’ Baseball. )

On Friday, plumtreeblossom, cathijosephine, and I went to see Eddie Izzard’s Force Majeur show, which was wonderfully hilarious. Can’t possibly do it justice. (And wow, the Wang Theatre is a stunning and stunningly restored venue!)

Beforehand, plumtreeblossom and I had had dinner nearby at Empire Garden, which was the site of our first date almost eight years ago, and I had a scorpion bowl for the first time.

On Saturday, we went to Johnny D’s for brunch with vanguardcdk for a late celebration of his birthday, and then headed to the Quincy house. I was exhausted — I’d been a bit underslept all week, and I had had to sleep without my CPAP machine the previous night because some bits were being cleaned — so I had a nice long nap, which is almost unheard of for me. Then I was thoroughly refreshed, and we did a bunch of yardwork (planting and watering our cosmos, and finally managing to take soil samples — previous efforts had been stymied by the weather). We finished just in time to enjoy a brief but torrential downpour from the dry comfort of the porch, had a yummy spaghetti and meatballs dinner, and then watched Ken Burns’ documentary The Shakers, from which we both learned an awful lot.

On Sunday we did a bunch more puttering around indoors and out (I was alternately working on house stuff and PMRP website stuff). I had a nice phone call with my mother silverlibre (and left voicemail for my sister). Then around 2pm when we started to feel a little eleven-o’clockish, plumtreeblossom had a culinary inspiration and made me a grilled-cheese sandwich for lunch with Cheddar, blue cheese, cream cheese, minced garlic, and roast beef. It was spectacular! And she doesn’t even like blue cheese herself. Now it’s her turn to take a nap, and she’s dozing in her room (which has become our nap room) while I catch up with the world.

How’s your weekend been?

(Only about half the photos are in thumbnails here, so you may want to go check out the set on Flickr.)

Having a wonderful weekend with plumtreeblossom. I got to see closing night of the fabulous and very funny Theatre@First production of Twelfth Night. Congratulations to director Ari and to a wonderful cast and crew (including a bunch of excellent actors new to Theatre@First). Then after strike we went to the cast party which was delightful (and yummy, which was good, because I realized on my way out of the house to go see the show that I hadn't had dinner!).

We had to leave a bit early so we could get up this morning early enough to have dim sum with bitty and bubblebabble and a bunch of their friends while they’re in town. (We were still half an hour late to that, but we got to see people, which we wouldn’t have managed if we’d stayed up like the party people we wish we were.) Was wonderful to see them!

And then we went and saw a movie. We went to the theater knowing nothing about any of the films that were playing; one was a sequel to something whose original I had at least heard of, even if I hadn’t seen it and hadn’t realized that there was a sequel, and a couple others that I’d vaguely heard of, or whose franchises I’d vaguely heard of, but then plumtreeblossom noticed that one that was about to start had James Gandolfini in it (in his last lead before he died), so we saw Enough Said, and we loved it! The acting and directing were really good — the dialogue (especially in awkward situations) was very naturalistic, and we left the theater sort of feeling like the characters were a bunch of people we knew. Highly recommended. (And I’m not just saying that because as a middle-aged fat guy I like seeing James Gandolfini as a romantic lead. :-)

So apparently the MBTA has been having a contest to redesign the subway map. (Thanks, r_ness.) This entry is awesome. I kinda want it framed for my kitchen.

(Yes, I should be in bed sleeping and getting better, but I have to wait for my laundry to be done. Long story. Involves a cat.)

I love my wuzzle’s sleeping brain. This morning at about 4:40, she told me “Smell-Good is an artist. On Monday mornings we dehydrate him. So you can jot that down.”

(The actual quote came out in interrupted pieces because when she started talking I had earplugs in and I had to ask her to repeat the first bit a couple times before I got it, and I asked for confirmation that “dehydrate” was actually what she meant. And then, still asleep, she said some accurate stuff about the skunk smell in the neighborhood.)

Last night my beloved wuzzle took me on the Revels’ Harbor Cruise and Sing, and we had a truly fabulous time! Neither of us quite knew what we were in for; we both envisioned something like an smaller, but still concert-like, Christmas Revels performance aboard ship, but it was basically a sea-chantey singalong. It was wonderful! It really touched a chord in me (heh, heh) because I had a group of friends in college who used to get together on a fairly regular basis and sing folk songs (including some of the same sea chanteys we sang last night). It was just wonderful, and very romantic. I love being on the water. And I love my sweet honeywuzzle who knows how to make me so very happy.

(Photos to follow, BTW.)

We celebrated our seventh wuzzleversary yesterday at Canobie Lake Park.