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 Friday, October 7, 2022

In bed before 10, 1 cognac nightcap, awakened at 2:49 by text group text message from Peter's aunt to Peter about picking up a package from Nike today.  Out of bed unable to sleep, thinking about tomorrow's significant day (birthdays of Sarah [53] and of Lilly [13] and Kitty & Jim's 56th anniversary and about Biden's nuclear Armageddon comments last night.  Long day ahead.

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Lullaby and Good Night,  Pleasant Dreams Overtake You

Biden's comments at a New York fundraiser, reported on both Alex Wagner and Lawrence O'Donnell shows, the nation's bedtime story:  "First time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat of the use of a nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they are going . . .  I don't think there is any such thing as the ability to easily [use] a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.  We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis."

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Other middle-of-the-night thoughts:

(1) Lilly turns 13 tomorrow, at the far end of her normal life span.  Really slowing down, behavioral changes, increasingly bonding with me (without any decrease in Geri's primary bond), much staring at me while lying awake on the floor in front of my chair, spending time in my bedroom alone, following me to the bathroom on pit stops.  Yesterday with no apparent stimulus she was frightened by something and climbed up on my lap, as she is won't to do when frightened, pawing me.  Geri and I both dread her end, especially since litter-mate Olive died.

(2) On this day in 1966,  I was the officer-in-charge of a convoy of Marine motor vehicles carrying MarineAir Control Squadron 43(?), the reserve unit for which I was the "I&I" or inspector-instructor from Willow Grove, Pennsylvania to the grounds of the U. S. Military Academy, West Point, New York for a field exercise.  Kitty was getting married the next day, Saturday, 10/8/66.  I had asked to take leave to attend her wedding and was refused because we had so few officers in our detachment.  When we arrived at West Point, set up our field placement, and made radio contact with Willow Grove, I was told to return that day, 10/7/66, to take advantage of military air transport to NAS, Glenview, IL for a conference that MAW 4 headquarters that week.  So I arrived at the Chicago suburb the day after Kitty's wedding in Chicago, and someone else led the field exercise and served as OIC of the convoy back to Willow Grove.  It wasn't necessary for me to accompany the unit; the timing of my departure turned out to depend entirely on the whim of the Marine Reserve pilot who flew from Willow Grove to Glenview to get in his necessary flight hours to qualify for flight pay.  I was not pleased.  That year serving at NAS Willow Grove, fresh from Vietnam, was one of the most difficult years in my life, for a number of reasons, one of them being missing my only sibling's wedding.

(3) Three years after Kitty's wedding, on October 8, 1969, Sarah was born, changing my life forever.  Nunc dimittis servum tuum Domine ...

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Our Town

A 12-year-old boy is in critical condition after being shot on the north side of Milwaukee Thursday night, police said in a statement.

Police said the incident occurred around 7:53 p.m. in the 4300 block of North 37th Street in the Lincoln Creek neighborhood.

Police do not have anyone in custody. Anyone with information is asked to contact police at (414) 935-7360 or to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at (414) 224-Tips or P3 Tips.   

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"Great men are almost always bad men." Lord Acton

Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Mohammed bin Salman, Kim Jong-Il, Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro

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Started watching (how many times?) Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927).  What a magnificent movie!  The opening scenes of the regimented workers trudging to the underground city, in lockstep, heads down, swaying left to right, right to left as they trudge.  Magnificent.  "As deep as lay the workers' city below the earth, so high above it towered the complex known as the "Club of the Sons," with its lecture halls and libraries, its theaters and stadiums."  Almost 100 years old and 'plus ca change, plus la meme chose.'  Income inequality, wealth inequality, work inequality, power inequality, educational inequality, and leisure inequality.

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  Also while out on errands (Sarah's birthday gift, drop off at Repairers of the Breach, Blick) I started listening to my Audible edition of Annie Ernaux's Happening, about her experiences in seeking an illegal abortion in France in December, 1963-January, 1964 when it was illegal. A sobering narrative, a very short book.  I was struck by all of it but made a special mental note of: "Writing invariably raises the issue of proof.   Apart from my engagement book and my diary, I have no sure indication of what I thought and felt back then because of the abstract evanescent nature of what goes through our mind.  The only concrete evidence I have stems from the lingering sensations associated with people and things outside of me . . ."  That phrase 'abstract evanescent nature of what goes through our mind" reminded me of my aging brain and instant forgetfulness, an absent-minded professor or incipient demented?   Thoughts like darting minnows in a bait bucket, like caged squirrels.

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Tried again to do an image transfer of a van Dongen pastel from inkjet print to canvas.  Better result than the last one but not as good as the ones I've done years ago. I used glazing liquid instead of the gel I had used before.   Picked up some Golden acrylic matte medium at Blicks  on my outing.  Maybe I'll have better luck than with the glazing liquid.

Portrait de Rita 1910

I worked the transfer 'as is', with some little pieces of paper rubbed off, showing the white canvas underneath.  Painted her face with acrylic paint, then used crayon crayons for her hat, pupils,  and inner hair and a charcoal stump for the black edging,  a Sharpie for eyebrows and eyeliners, and blue colored chalk for her garment (the only color I had.)  Used 3 coats of fixative to protect it, especially all the chalk.  I like the result.

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