Migration from clunky old Blogger to the high-tech wonder of WordPress has been completed, and the first thing you’ll notice is that the site’s uglier than yo’ momma. But the site has always been ugly, so no worries. More about that at the bottom of the page.
As a test drive, here are some odds and ends and observations — spare items from my notebook …
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I’ve been reading The Future Remembered: The 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and Its Legacy, by Paula Becker. The subject would be of little interest to most folks, but I grew up in Seattle, and the “Century 21” World’s Fair of the future left what’s now called the Seattle Center, a cool public space I visit often.
The book is an oversized coffee table prop, not serious journalism or anything, and it only briefly mentions any of the less-than-happy bits — all the houses torn down to make way for the fair, the racist and nepotism-heavy hiring of fair workers, and the crash of a celebratory military jet on opening day, which killed two people in their north Seattle home.
It also shouldn’t be surprising, but it is, that amidst all the science exhibits, there were regularly-scheduled “Sermons from Science,” described as “God-inspired science demonstrations.” No further details of these sermons are provided in the book, and I simply can’t imagine.
Wish I could’ve seen the on-stage “conversation about the future” with Ray Bradbury and Rod Serling, and “Girls of the Galaxy,” a show so risque it was evicted from the fairgrounds. Also, says here that other than a few obscure Belgian restaurants, America’s first taste of Belgian waffles was at a very popular ’62 World’s Fair’s concession stand.
The amusement park area on the fairgrounds was later called the “Fun Forest,” a good place for a bad date riding the Wild Mouse rollercoaster or driving bumper cars. What I didn’t know is that during the World’s Fair, the rides were collectively called the GayWay, which made me snicker the first few times it’s mentioned in the book. In 1962, of course, ‘gay’ only meant happy.
Putting together a World’s Fair in what was then a pretty podunk minor league city took lots of local politicians and rich folks working together, and it’s a pity that such cooperation would be impossible in 2024.
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For 2½ years, ever since I moved back to Seattle, we’ve had regular family breakfasts at the same time on the same day in the same restaurant. The waitresses have our orders memorized, and everyone in the fam is invited.
Of everyone in the family, all I’ve ever asked about the breakfasts is, Please let me know you’re coming.
Why? Ostensibly, because I’m always the first to arrive, and need to tell the waitress how many in our party, but mostly it’s because I need to be mentally prepared. Breakfast is a very different social experience, if my very loud brother or my stoner nephew show up. When unexpected family drops in for breakfast, always I say again: “Please let me know in advance if you’re coming.”
But a few of them love surprising me, so it never sinks in. At our last breakfast, I got us a table for five, but we were a party of nine.
It’s not gangrene, but it’s annoying, and it’s happened dozens of times, so I’ve changed the time for this week’s breakfast. It’s an hour later.
Anyone who lets me know they’re coming will have a nice breakfast with me, but anyone who drops by to say SURPRISE! won’t find any family members in the restaurant.
How big a butt-head am I? Limitless.
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Walmart is an evil place, and I hadn’t been inside one for years. But any decent grocery store is a long bus ride from home, and I’m profoundly lazy, and there’s a Walmart just down the street from a restaurant I’ve been eating at more often than I can afford. So it’s embarrassing to admit it, but I was shopping at Walmart a few days ago.
And what did my wondering ears have to hear? A very long, very fake-sincere recorded announcement over the public address, about how rough the recent hurricanes have been on “our Walmart family and Walmart shoppers.” At one point the recorded voice said, “Our heart is broken” over the damage from the hurricanes, and I stopped shopping, started laughing, and repeated it out loud to the macaroni and cheese: “Walmart’s heart is broken!”
The recording ran for several minutes, building up to a plug for some monstrosity called The Walmart Foundation, “working together to spark change through our philanthropic priorities,” and won’t you please make a donation at the register?
No, I frickin’ won’t. I would sooner stub my toe on purpose than give a nickel to The Walmart Foundation, so they can issue a self-serving press release bragging about how much The Walmart Foundation has donated, when it’s actually suckers and fools at the cash register who’ve done all the donating.
I’m not much wilder about Red Cross than Walmart, but they got a little green from me. …
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Since I abhor reading other sites’ “behind the scenes” posts, I’ll talk about such things only at the bottom of my posts, and in the comments if/when y’all have complaints.
So far, I couldn’t be happier with a British company called Lyrical Host, which is were these pixels and bits now reside. I went with Lyrical because they have more good reviews than bad online, because they’re reasonably priced, because they quickly and helpfully answered my inquiries (mind-blowing — with Google’s Blogger, the former host, contact with any employee is impossible), and especially because Lyrical Host is not an American company. With so much of America’s essence up for election in a few weeks, it seems prudent to have the site hosted beyond the US government’s instant, easy reach.
There are obviously a hundred things to fix and tweak on this new version of the site, and please let me know if you spot a 101st. Things should look incrementally better day by day, as I learn the new ropes.
My first goal is to make sure ‘comments’ are working, cuz I’ve missed you folks! Then my second goal is getting the top of the page less cluttered, so it’s not two yards of scrolling to reach the post.
10/19/2024
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