captainsblog | Long May They Wave

Our lawn sign came in over the weekend. The weatherweirds had been predicting severe winds and thunderstorms for Sunday afternoon, so I held off putting it out until after they passed. "They" turned out to be one particularly impressive lightning flash and accompanying boom, and maybe 20 minutes of rain. (It later rained a bit more just as we sat down to eat outside Sunday night, but no biggie- we had things to watch.)

So it's as of yesterday morning that our "we believe" joined our "I pledge" out there:

Wot it say more up close:

No reactions so far from the neighbors, good or bad. The one around the corner is still there after several weeks, and I've seen a few more pop up in the intervening days. Meanwhile, I learned a lesson about not basing your conclusions entirely on signs and symbols:

About a month ago, on the morning walkies, I saw a local flag company delivering what looked to be a huuuge new flagpole to a house around the corner. I said something to Eleanor when we got home about it. I took it as a sign of some Trumpernutter. This is around the time I discovered the truck a few doors down with the QAnon slogan on it, so that may have framed my POV.

We have since met the couple who put it up. I thought it was one house over, but it’s in front of the house that backs up to ours, which had an elderly woman living there for most of our time here. A longtime friend of her daughter bought the house from her, and has been there a few years with her boyfriend. They are absolutely lovely people. Out walking the dog yesterday morning, I saw what Eleanor had noticed the day before: their flag is at half staff, almost certainly to mark the passing of John Lewis.

Ours doesn't lend itself to half-staffing, but the feeling was definitely there.

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The week began with a quiet workday, as most of them look to be this week: one phone conference with a court yesterday, an actual court appearance in Rochester scheduled for tomorrow that I think I've resolved on papers, and no other appointments there or anywhere. So I got to devote time yesterday to making plans for Eleanor's 64th birthday, complete with Beatles accompaniment. Since going out is still a risky proposition, she asked for some in-home celebratory items:

- a Napoleon dessert from a local bakery;
- crab cakes from Wegmans;
- champagne; and
- a movie with Olympia Dukakis featured, which we've somehow never seen.

Between lunch hour and day's end, all four were scored. DeCamillo's is a lovely place, and their staff was incredibly kind to all of us in there following the mask and distancing rules. Then I set out for the bubbly, but decided to try a few odd places first for an item I've been having trouble finding: decaffeinated diet cola
has been the toilet paper shortage of the month. I haven’t been able to find it anywhere. Wegmans doesn’t even have a shelf space anymore for its own brand of the decaf diet, and they've been sold out of the Coke and Pepsi versions of it in all sizes. The Stop'n'Rob near the liquor store was also out, but I found a small stash of Decaf Diet Coke at CVS, and it was even on sale with a loyalty card. I don’t have one, so I used my sister’s phone number, as one does. The resulting receipt was taller than three of the bottles stacked on top of one another:

When I got home, it proved to be about half a foot shorter than I am, but it was close;)

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The film was about the only disappointment of the evening. Steel Magnolias should have been awesome, given a cast in which Olympia Dukakis is about the fifth female lead, behind the likes of Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts and Daryl Hannah. It's adapted from an off-Broadway production with an almost as star-studded cast, and the acting and dialogue were spot-on. The problem came in what they had to add to turn it into a Major Motion Picture: lots of stupid men, lots of noise, and lots of general annoyance. So we switched over and got through roughly the first half of Harriet that I'd been watching from my bed table while having my blood drawn two weekends ago (my "tat" from that has finally faded), and we'll finish it tonight, most likely.

The night before, we had much better luck with a film that was a COVID casualty- you can see it in a limited number of drive-ins, but they released it to Hulu, and we saw it commercial-free. Palm Springs has a time-loop concept that I feared would just be a rehash of Groundhog Day, Russian Doll or any number of sci-fi turns. Yet we wound up loving it; the performances, particularly by female lead Cristin Milioti, makes it their entirely own adaptation. Andy Samberg plays opposite her, and avoids the trap of too much sex and slapstick that haunts many Saturday Night Live alumni in their film careers, and the supporting cast is quite good, too.

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One thing I haven't seen yet is baseball, although it has returned, fanless, in exhibition form and will begin real games being played by next week. I replaced my Facebook cover photo with something more suitable:

There is even talk that the Toronto Blue Jays may play some or even all of their 30 home games of this shortened schedule in the Bisons' downtown ballpark, since Canadian officials have ruled out them coming and going from the United States of Stupid for the duration of this "season." Figures that we finally get major league baseball here and nobody can go to see it.

At least we don't have to worry about any of those cutouts starting "The Wave."