Josie goes to a mosque

Marie died today.

Civil War Reenactment: Battle for the Shenandoah Valley

I got a little taste of my home state of Virginia the other day, during the Civil War Reenactment in Woodbury. It was WICKED hot.





I forgot to mention in my last post that at the Litchfield Jazz Festival I had noticed a couple in their 50s or 60s that looked SO in love. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling, and I kind of had to hold myself back from approaching them just to tell them how cute they were. Luckily though, I had a chance to talk to the woman, who I had previously taken a photo of at a social gathering just before the festival.

It turns out this woman, Lucy Anne Hurston, was the niece and biographer of Zora Neale Hurston, the author of "Their Eyes Were Watching God," a book I absolutely LOVED and was assigned to read by my high school AP English teacher, Mrs. Robison, an AWESOME teacher who I found out about a year ago had passed away after a battle to breast cancer. I smiled a little when I thought of her, because it was proof that she still lived on.

So, every once in a while I'm able to have a mind-blowing conversation with complete strangers. It's a rare treat that Lucy unsuspectingly brought to me. I got to hear about the love story of her and her husband, a little about Zora and the book, and about Lucy's sociological research about this country's prison system, and our culture's relationship with the idea of redemption.

And even though afterwards I had to walk through the mud and driving rain to my car, it was a great day. I live for days like that.

moving.

So in the past few weeks I've moved from Waterbury to Southington, and since the actual move I've been working on painting the walls and getting stuff in order. And by "stuff in order" I mean filling up the three entire power strips underneath my desk.

In the meantime, this is what I've been up to at work:

Way to go, tough guy.

Sometimes, when people ask me how my job is, I tell them you see the best in people and you see the worst in people, but usually it's the best.

Today was unusual.

It never ceases to amaze me how some of the most "highfalutin'" people (as my grandpa would have said) have the most barbaric ways of dealing with people.

I saw a man, who at one point was voted to the level of state legislature, (who, by the way, resigned from that position after getting ARRESTED on a charge of THREATENING, to which he pled GUILTY) point his finger in a reporter's face as he was screaming at her like he was a baseball coach spitting tobacco juice in the face of an equally volatile umpire. And even though the reporter handled it extremely well and was polite about it, I knew exactly how she felt, because who can ever feel good after being completely disrespected like that?

It just absolutely disgusts me at how some people find pleasure in putting other people down like that.

I spoke with the reporter afterwards, and she kept her cool pretty well, but I know that the damage isn't even really made during the personal attack to yourself, but mostly at the blow to your optimism about people in general. For someone who was able to convince so many people to trust him enough to vote him into office to act like a complete baby, short of stomping his feet and banging his fists, as if it's perfectly acceptable behavior.....that just blows my mind.

Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

Did you know that the above is the ACTUAL name of the smallest state in the country?





And here are some random photos I shot in a past few weeks:

Hmmm, what to do when the zombie apocalypse comes..

Yesterday I went to a farmer's market in Thomaston where I ran into some people from a farm whose owner I had made a deal with last year: When the zombie apocalypse comes, and all infrastructure fails, I will ride my bicycle the 20 miles or so to his farm, where shelter and food will be aplenty.

The first year I worked at the Republican-American I did a photo story on a couple different CSA farms. (Community Supported Agriculture.. NOT Confederate States of America) It was a good excuse to be outside and enjoy the earth.