Month: September 2016

It’s a relatively small election so I’m anticipating a very quiet day, but I will also be working the general election on November 8th. That should be INSANE, and therefore, fun. Except, Trump has threatened sending poll watchers everywhere, which is his right. I doubt he’s going to spend the money to send them anywhere near everywhere, but it would be easy enough to have them show up around the city.

That would not be fun. One of the best parts of working the polls is how positive everyone is. People feel good exercising their right to vote and there’s always a lot of good will floating around poll sites, even when things go wrong. (And I don’t blame people who get mad when things go wrong, like they’ve been dropped from the poll lists, if it happened in error.) This good will transcends party lines usually. Republicans and democrats behave similarly on election days, and are equally nice to be around and to serve.

But poll watchers from the Trump camp, I’m guessing, would be adversarial and antagonistic. I believe they could make a generally wonderful experience awful.

A shot of the yearly Tribute in Lights from my window last night.

What can I say, I’m alway curious about people on the fringe. These first two shots are of some truthers. They were very small in number this year.

This woman seems to be a different kind of truther. Her questions are reasonable, although I don’t agree with her about where the money should go.

This is the graveyard at St. Paul’s Chapel (where I volunteered during the recovery effort). People tied white ribbons all over the place. This is in front of the grave of two children who died in the 18th century. One lived a mere 15 days, the other two years and nine months.

One World Trade Center. I know not everyone loves it, I think it’s beautiful.

A marine getting ready for a performance. DAMNIT. Damnit, damnit, damnit. I completely forgot that musicians perform all day at Trinity. I’ll bet that’s what he was getting ready for. I would have loved to sit and listen to music. Ugh. I’m an idiot without a working brain.

I wish I could have captured how many motorcycles went by. They went on for miles and miles and miles. It was an impressive turnout.

A close-up of a few of the motorcyclists.

I just got back from the movie Sully. So moving. When it happened I ran over to the river to take pictures of the plane as it floated by. Here are my pictures and captions from that day, January 15, 2009. I took this one from Perry Street and the West Side Highway. Then I started walking downtown, following the plane. I didn’t want to let go. It’s hard to leave a miracle.

There are seat cushions and other debris floating all down the river.

It’s hard to see but that’s the plane sticking out of the water, this is around Battery Park City.

More rescue workers.

I think this was a diver, but I’m not positive.  By the way, it was freezing.  FREE! ZING!

Another plane shot.  I couldn’t get close.  “Move back!  This is a federal crime scene!” 

They’re waiting for a crane, I was told.

I took this walking back home.

The never ending stream of rescue workers heading downtown, very reminiscent of 9/11.

I’ve been missing for a few days, preparing for a routine medical procedure, (I’m fine) but now that I’m back!

My bedroom has become a storeroom. Here’s a shot of what it looks like now, with my old monster tv and the boxes the new tv came in. I’m saving these for a month, in case something goes wrong and I need to return the tv. Finney is checking out the box. You all know how cats are with boxes. I feel bad for not keeping it around for him to hang out in, but it’s just so BIG. It’s also full of packing materials that I need to save, so I’d have to empty all that and find a place for it if I was going to make this box available to the cats.

You can see though, how if I laid that box down for Finney that would be it for floor space. Oh God. I think I’m going to do it.

This kind of thing really pisses me off. Especially since I know it’s gotten a thousand times worse since my school days. Enough with white-washing history. We absolutely must be teach what happened. Knowing the truth helps us strive to be better.

I just read this history of the National Anthem. It is must reading.

Some recent pictures of Finney that do not capture how cute he is. He’s not very photogenic. If you don’t get him just right, he doesn’t look attractive.