Monday, July 29, 2019

Explore, and Have Fun

My upcoming new neighborhood is much more residential than my current one. One of my favorite movie theaters is nearby, however––the nonprofit Trylon Cinema, a "microcinema" with 90 seats.

Volunteers work the tickets and concessions counter, so last night when I went to a movie, I signed up to volunteer. 
"There's a two-year waiting period," the manager told me.
So, who knows. It's not like I need more to do, but I want to get connected to my new area.

Meanwhile, Sparkle and Bounce got right on it, setting up their own stand. They're from Las Vegas––they know all about the entertainment industry.
 .  .  .  "GAMERA WANT DOT."  
 
 The Trylon puts together series of old films--this summer, all around the theme of the 50th Moon Landing. I was there to see the 1989 documentary For All Mankind--unnarrated footage from and voices of lunar astronauts.

This clip starts at my favorite part--an astronaut says gravely, 
"It's a fundamental truth of our nature: Man must explore".
Another astronaut comes on, "Make sure to have fun, too," and they go bouncing off like bunnies, singing.



Walking through the neighborhood afterward, thinking of how I'll be living there, I felt alien. I knew where I was, but I have little personal relationship to the area.  It's just a place.

I'll go on exploring with the Orphan Reds soon--that'll help. There's a lot to explore. For instance, I'll be only a few blocks from the old Hiawatha Ave. grain elevators. 

I don't know the history of the area, so I want to look into that too.
I'm moving into the Standish neighborhood---named after Myles. Why?

Oh--of course--because "The Courtship of Miles Standish" was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the larger area is named for that poet, and his works--because it's near Minnehaha Falls, named for Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha".

Wait. What? That poem is not the sweet pastoral I expected at all! 
It's a song of the grief of the hunter Hiawatha, who cannot save his young wife, Minnehaha, "Laughing Water", from death in a winter famine.

Well, there you go. Exploring already. I had no idea.


Catstronauts

I'm house/cat- sitting for a couple more weeks. I'm liking being here, and I like taking daily photos of the cats. (I send them to the home-owner.)

This morning the girl cat, Anna, was playing with my dangling shoelace.

I start my third week cashiering at the thrift store this morning. It's going well. Like every other part of the store, it's mostly un-managed, which makes it easier--and harder (like every other part of the store). I mean, it's easier because I can make my own policies, set my own prices, give people deals, etc.
In contrast, at Goodwill everything cashiers did was scrutinized, which was no fun.

BUT... it would be nice to have some good management. Someone left two kittens in a box in the vestibule last week, and the two managers on hand took NO action, made no decision--just left it up to the cashier on hand (not me).


I helped––I gave them water, put them on FB, and contacted a regular customer who lives across the alley, who I know takes in rescue cats.
She came right over with food and checked the kitties out. Very young but healthy, she declared. 

After they ate, they turned into tiny explorers--so cute! and so easy to step on. We found a donated cat carrier for them, and luckily an experienced cat owner whose cat had died recently came within a couple hours and took both of them. 

Off I go to work. 'Bye for now!

4 comments:

  1. Oh my. You're moving? Clearly I'm out of the loop. Must catch up! Those are adorable kittens and I'm glad they found a home.

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  2. You’re lucky to have that theater. (Now showing Sun Ra!) It makes me think of the long-gone Off the Wall Cinema in Cambridge, MA. Tiny, with things like carrot cake instead of candy.

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  3. Seeing those astronauts bounce on the moon...it's just so hard to believe people think that's fake. Even with all our wonderful special effects--which they lacked in the 60s--it would be hard to create that light buoyancy they bounced around with.

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  4. STEVE: Yes, after a long stretch of nothing new--big changes all of a sudden!

    MICHAEL: If I ever get to volunteer, I'll vote we carry carrot cake! The theater is great! It's right next door to Peace Coffee, which carries "artisinal" goodies and delivers roasted beans by bike...

    BINK: Just nothing about it smacks of fakeness to me... Maybe because I "drank the Kool-Aid" when I was eight and saw the moon shots on TV?
    I don't think that's all it is:
    If the Moon Landings were fake,
    they were such a longlasting and elaborate ruse--
    for instance, passing NASA ships have since photographed the American flags still standing on the moon, etc.

    It just would be *so much work* to fake it to that extent, on and on, they might as well actually just have GONE to to Moon and land there.
    Which I believe they did.

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