May You Live in Interesting Times

That is (supposedly) an old Chinese proverb.  And if it is, well, this week alone has fulfilled the "interesting" part, even if not in the way we might all want "interesting" to be.  Since today is Three on Thursday, I thought I'd share some recent things (two international, one local) that have meant that life is way more interesting than it ever needed to be.  EVER.

1.  There we all were, going along, living with the stay-at-home orders due to the Covid-19 virus.  Fortunately, it seemed that in a lot of places (including Pennsylvania), things were on the downward turn as far as the infamous curve was concerned.  Even Philadelphia is/was supposed to get to the Yellow Level of reopening starting tomorrow.  "Interesting," right?

2.  And then in Minneapolis, a black man named George Floyd was murdered by a human POS who was on the police force (along with three of his colleagues), who felt that it made him look powerful, forceful, macho and who knows what else.  And that was the last straw in a series of incredibly more frequent and awful events.  A peaceful protest here took an extremely sideways turn, resulting in looting, fires, and vandalism.  There have been/are subsequent protests, which have been mostly peaceful - well at least the protesters were peaceful - except for one with tear gas (grrrrr) and one where some white nationalists showed up in one neighborhood with bats to use against protesters.  Most places of business in the neighborhood are still boarded up and closed,  and curfew is still happening.  "Interesting" but for all the worst reasons.  Though hopefully this version of the word will lead to actual, humane change.  Here in Philadephia, one symbol of police brutality and racism has already been removed, and we have been working for that for years, so at least there a small glimmer. 

3.  Next up - this:

This is a photo that a local viewer sent to a TV station showing the approach of a derecho yesterday afternoon.  This thing was brutal.  At our house alone, we lost a tree, a huge chunk of ivy was ripped off the side of the house, and power went out briefly (some are still stuck with that last part - fortunately, in the city, it came back on within 5 minutes).  Upon closer inspection, the chunk of ivy that fell landed on top of our viburnum bush and the flowers I'd planted in the garden.  So, RIP to those.  I'm glad we'll be able to get rid the ivy (once The Tim gets the small chainsaw he ordered), but sad that the sweet-smelling bush and my flowers are gone.  Especially since everything had been doing so well this year.  But WAIT - that's not enough!  Last night we had a tornado-force storm and were told to take shelter.  Fortunately, nothing worse happened and it moved along pretty quickly.  But between the two storms, our neighborhood looks pretty darn sad.  How "interesting."

I don't know about you, but I'm ready to go back to dull and boring.