Fall mums show

I was out today to the Hamilton Fall Mums show.  (Chrysanthemums).  Here’s one of the pictures I took; it was absolutely stunning, although somewhat smaller than previous years (according to the friend with whom I attended the show)  It’s breathtaking to see the displays that were on show.  The theme was “#MumsinSpace” (I never did find out why it was called that)  so there were models of the solar system, the ISS, the space shuttles and an indication of potentially terraforming Mars.  It was a fabulous day, mainly because of the company, then the weather was picture perfect, with the Escarpment covered in autumnal splendour and the lake a deep blue.  I got permission to go out today from my little “managers” who were originally saying that they’d stay home with Auntie instead of daycare… it didn’t work again, although I’ve promised that they’d have all day with Auntie tomorrow and the next day.  I said that I might not be at home when they got back from daycare, (which, of course they didn’t remember) but when they got home my niece said that she wanted to see Uncle Lar… we think that she wanted to vet my company!  😂  When I spoke with my boys today, Jerry decided to join in the conversation and was yapping while I talked to Don so we couldn’t hear each other over the barks!!  They are well, thankfully, and Don was voting today for municipal elections on Monday.  I’d already mailed my ballot a few weeks ago — I will confess that I really only paid attention to the mayoral candidates before making my selection, and I just randomly chose the councillor and school board trustee.  Don and I discussed our potential choices and we’ve agreed on who we wanted to choose.

It’s unusual for us to agree on electoral candidates, or it was, anyway.  I’d read somewhere that people start off life by supporting liberal causes and become more conservative as they age.  The thing is, though, that I’ve become more liberal as I’ve got older — I used to hold some fairly hardline social conservative positions in my late teens and early twenties, but they’ve not only softened but largely reversed in the last 20 years.  For instance, I used to support the idea of capital punishment, but I’m now strongly opposed to it.  Don was the person who made the first arguments to make me reconsider my position — he pointed out, rightly, that there are too many cases where people are unjustly imprisoned (and potentially killed) and while you can apologize and release a wrongly jailed person, you can’t resurrect one, and better a guilty man walk free than an innocent man be killed.  Besides, it’s really not a deterrent to anyone — the person is dead, true enough, but that doesn’t cause another criminal to reconsider killing.  I claim credit for getting Don to change his thinking on racial profiling, as he’s seen the inequities in treatment of people of colour.  He’d thought that it was reasonable to suspect a darker skinned person as “you never know what they’re up to” until he saw for himself that there was a definite bias in treatment — it started one day when I was stopped while driving a sedan as the police were seeking a “black man in a pickup,” and they said that I “met the description…”. After that, he took a more critical look at stories of police interactions with people of colour and concluded that it was not fairly handled. The ability to change one’s opinion in the face of new evidence is a sign of maturity, I think. 

We’ve had all kinds of pretend arguments on the politics of our preferred parties and politicians — he teases me that I’m Catholic and have to follow what the priests say; I tease him that he’s a loyalist redneck who has hayseed in his beard.  It’s not serious in the least, and we have both changed some of our positions over time.  The thing is, that we’ve both inclined more socially liberal and the trend of the current conservative movement is contrary to everything we hold sacred.  Neither of us supports the idea of racial purity, nor are we supportive of anti-immigrant nor anti-science nor the bullying that seems to mark the current right wing.  It’s disappointing on many levels.  I’ve made it clear, I think, that I don’t support hatred in any form, nor do I condone any actions that create divisions.  The municipal candidates who have espoused views of anti-vaccinations, or anti-immigration or who have tried to define crime as an immigrant issue have all been struck off our list of possible choices.  And despicably, the “freedom” convoy has fielded candidates in several cities, when IMO, they should really have faded back into the filth from which they emerged.

Before I get stuck on my soapbox, I’ll stop here and get ready for story time.  It’s hopefully short tonight, since they seemed tired, but they both ate huge amounts for dinner — she had 3.5 slices of pizza, and he had most of a large bowl of pasta marinara!  Both adult portions, consumed by a 3- and 2-year-old!  I’ve been warned to make contributions to future grocery bills if their appetites continue in this fashion!  Good night all.