Living In the World, Not on It

On Tuesday, Gabriel and I went into Manhattan to see the Wall Street Occupy protests. Signs, signs everywhere Having never been a protestor before, I walked up to one of the officers on scene and asked him what the appropriate rules were for this. He was very friendly (all the officers on scene were) and ran through the basic guidelines: signs are allowed, and signs can be attached to rolled up cardboard or paper, but not to wooden or metal pieces (which is not unreasonable). People can congregate in the park itself but not stop to loiter on the sidewalks outside of the park. People were obviously allowed to use the park to sleep in, and some had been camped there since time began - or at least since the protest began - and then when the mayor stated that the park had to be emptied to clean it, the protestors scrubbed the park out forwards and backwards and the protests are still on. Yay! So Gabriel and I got in about 15:00 and at first walked around and took a lot of ...

Welcome to Saturday: 9 . What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love memes, however, and here is today's meme! Saturday 9: Mrs. Potter's Lullaby 1. Adam Duritz (writer and lead singer of Counting Crows) mentions previous girlfriends in songs. In Mrs. Potter's Lullaby he sings “There a little piece of Maria in every song I sing”. Is there a piece of an ex that will always be a part of you? Oh, look at this - I missed this question. How sad is that? OK, I would say that all people who have had an impact on my life - good, bad or indifferent - has left a little piece with me. That is a lot of people. Certainly I woul...

I'm delighted and happy to know that finally people can get married in New York no matter what gender the bride and groom, bride and bride or groom and groom (or however one wishes to phrase it) may be! Finally, a state that understands and bestowed its blessings on all couples. It has only taken far too long for this to happen. California, which appeared to be a modern and open-minded state, began granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples in June 2008 and then repealed that in November 2008, thanks to Proposition 8, which labeled marriage as a union between one man and one woman. I used to think highly of the state of California until that happened. How stupid is that? But New York has turned around and made it possible for couples - regardless of same-sex or not - to take vows, walk down the aisle, or whatever they wish in order to legalise their union. And I say, "Yahoo! for New York and same-sex couples!" I have always felt very strongly for this and it is none o...

Luis and I determined that we really want to see Cirque du Soleil's Zarkana . So even though I was up and got very little sleep last night, we were up and out of the house by 1000 heading to Hoboken to part in one of the many Park & Ride buildings that festoon the lower road (two below and parallel to Washington Avenue) to take the Path train. To give you an idea how long it has been since I've been in NYC, I had no idea that the cost of the Path train has gone up to $1.75 for a one-way ticket. I still thought it was $1.50 - duh! But the Path trains run the same as always - every fifteen minutes on the quarter-hour mark. The trains are kept quite well and there's a telly screen with no sound that is clear made for this - it had local news, weather seven-day forecasts and little tidbits that are printed and scrambled words and such. It was not at all crowded going in (I was confident that few people had any great desire to be traipsing about the hotter-than-hot confines...

I really hope you played last week’s edition of the Sunday Seven , but if you didn’t, that’s okay. Last week, I asked you to list seven things you were grateful for that week. It’s often easy to come up with a handful of things that you’re grateful for. But what if you had to come up with more than a handful? Are you really aware of how much you have to be thankful for? This week’s question requires an adjustment in your mindset depending on whether you played last week. If you answered last week’s question, then you must list seven things you didn’t list last week. If you didn’t play last week, make yourself a list of seven things, then take a few moments and make another list of seven. That second set will be harder…and that’s the point. Give me items 8-14 on your list. That’s this week’s challenge! Oh, that's not fair! You saw that comment and did this! Yikes. 1. Vacation time (more than I could possibly know what to do with) so Luis and I can travel 2. Thai foo...

And...here we go! 1. Life is very good . 2. Luis is one of the best places to people watch EVER because it is interesting to see how his mind works . 3. if I was going somewhere, the one thing I have to bring is water flavour packets and my iPod . 4. Tomorrow will be here soon enough. 5. Next year, I hope I have more to do with my time . 6. This week Luis and I found the song Darling I Do by Landon Pigg and Lucy Schwartz . 7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to seeing Cirque du Soleil's Zarkana , tomorrow my plans include going to New York City and Sunday, I want to relax in my hammock !