Harvard commencement

I left home about half an hour later than I should've given that it's Harvard graduation today. There are so many people out on the streets around the Yard, families and guests in their dressed-up clothing converging on Harvard Yard, queueing up to get inside. There are also lots of people in a variety of gowns striding along, making it look more like some English college town, black gowns for the undergraduates, deep red ones for graduates. Some of the red ones have black (velvet?) bands on the sleeves; I didn't see any hoods on yet (that would bring back memories indeed).

I'm reminded of how odd our weather is compared to the typical June: usually people are already sweltering, and today it is cool and overcast, with rain forecasted.

Traffic was horrible, so I got far too much time to see a demonstration outside the Yard. I found out that apprently gays are horrible, that AIDS is their punishment, that the Supreme Court is a 'fag court' (the guy carrying this sign was ever-so-impressively dragging a large US flag on the ground... I thought jerks like this would avoid that), and that 9/11 was a good thing (WTF????), etc. I don't know what group they were with, or what their justifications were. They were marching, and people were pretty much ignoring them, which I suppose is the best possible outcome.

Memories

In a burst of food enthusiasm, I just went back and made a memory category for my food writing. Some are short, barely anything more than a list. Some are much longer.

It's a bit arbitrary. I didn't include entries about growing food (herbs, lettuce, etc), nor did I include the posts over the summer about what I got each week from the farm share. Posts that mention food along with a bunch of other things mostly didn't make the cut, either.

Story reading

There were fewer people at story reading last night than I'd originally expected, but that didn't matter: there was lots of interesting stuff read.

Queue read a new poem, which got many comments.
Treacle_Well read a chapter from Winesburg, Ohio, and later read the chapter from Winnie-the-Pooh on hunting Woozles :-). I so need to reread that book (and to remember that chapters from there are wonderful read aloud). Thinking back on it, I'm surprised at some of the vocabulary, but I suppose I've unfortunately been warped by modern books that limit which words they use.
Hauntmeister read from Huckleberry Finn, an exerpt including a very interesting version of a Shakespeare soliloquy.
Majes read the third chapter of his sf novel, introducing yet more characters.
Theora read a couple of Seamus Heaney's poems.
Geeyodi read two fairy tales from a favorite fairy tale book. One was familiar to me (flowers and jewels vs snakes and toads coming out of sisters' mouths): I pulled out my copy and we compared illustration styles. The other was new to me, with a princess in a donkey skin; we all enjoyed pointing out the implausibilities of that one.
I read Nothing Ever Happens on My Block (a picture book by Ellen Raskin); an essay from Barbara Kingsolver's new book (Small Wonder, a very good read) about traveling to Japan; and four letters from a book of letters that were pretty funny.

And the snacks were appreciated, too.

Quotes of the evening:
"I like your 'nads."
"My lips are vibrating."

Road map for peace

I'm conflicted about this. Not about there being peace, though since I haven't actually read about the particulars in this plan, I don't know whether I think it's reasonable or not. No, peace is a good thing. But I have a really hard time thinking that it might happen on the Shrub's watch. I can't stand him, and can't believe anything he says (for a more articulate article on that than I'd ever manage, check out this NYT editorial). He just says whatever he wants at the time, and if that turns out to contracdict what he's said before, or objective truth, well, he's the President, so he can make his version the Truth. Or something. It frustrates me to no end; so many people just accept what they're fed, and no one ever seems to call him on it.

No one else seems to think "road map for peace" sounds like directions to some interestingly-named town in New Mexico....