California Vacation - Day 05 (San Francisco)

 

26 years ago, I scattered my late wife's ashes in a spot under the Golden Gate Bridge, right behind Fort Point.  Due to 9/11, this spot is no longer accessible to the public.  But I try to get as close as possible each time I visit this city.  Today's visit would be special, as I don't see myself coming back to this city for a while.

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When I got up this morning, I planned to drop by Fort Point and then visit the Swan Oyster Depot for lunch.  My plans were to visit the fort first, and then take Muni (SF's Mass Transit system) to the Oyster Depot for lunch.  These plans were blown to pieces early in the day, when a lady asked if she could share my table at the buffet.

This lady and I start chatting, and it was as if we had been related to each other in a prior life.  We chatted from 9:30 am to 2:00 pm without stopping.  She never picked up on the fact that I am not a cisgender woman, as I code shifted my conversation to refer to my life with my late wife as if she were my late husband.  We talked about many of the things that only women could experience, such as "Boob Sweat" and struggles with one's bra.  We talked about our late spouses.  And we talked about what we liked about the opposite sex.  (I can translate well in a pinch.)  So, when her friend called her, I took this as a good opportunity to make my way to Fort Point via trolley car and bus.

Getting to Fort Point from Pier 27 is relatively easy.  One takes the historic trolley to Fisherman's Wharf, then walks a couple of blocks to catch the 28 bus to the Golden Gate Bridge.  From there, it's a walk of 0.8 miles (all downhill) to the shoreline and then to the Fort.  Once I paid my respects to my late wife (for which this might be the last time), I decided to make it back to the bus station for my return to the ship.  What was an "easy" 0.8 mile downhill walk was an arduous 200 foot uphill trek back (over the same 0.8 miles) to the bus stop.  By the time I reached the bus stop, I felt that I needed a shower.  Only one problem - it would have to be quick, because I had a 5:00 pm reservation at the ship's steakhouse and I would likely be a few minutes late.

When I arrived at the ship, I proceeded to my room, then stripped, showered, dressed (in fresh clothing), and reapplied my makeup before going downstairs to dine.  I chose both the sea scallops (with salmon roe) and the French Onion Soup for appetizers before trying the veal chop.  Although the veal chop was good for what it was, I found that it was not the cut of veal that I like to eat because of the texture of the meat.  (Give me a good queen cut of prime rib from Peter Luger any day....)  However, I don't have any regrets in trying this cut of veal, as I try to try out new things to eat whenever I can.

After dinner, I realized that I needed to rest, and I fell out for an hour or so.  Shortly after waking up for a while, I exchanged a series of messages with RQS before calling it an early night.

I find myself more interested in travel than before

 

When I was married, my late wife and I would take yearly vacations and not go too far from home.  The only places more than a day's drive away that we visited were California and Nova Scotia.  I think that had she lived (and our marriage had survived), we would have found a way to travel more.  However, that's one thing among many things that is impossible to know.

After my wife died, I had a good income and I found myself traveling to widows/widowers gatherings across the country, organized by AOL chat room hosts.  For the most part, I was looking to meet friends, while others were looking to find new mates.  That pattern continues today with me attending meetups.  But I digress....

Over the years, I found myself flying out to places such as Biloxi, MS; San Jose, CA; and Pigeon Forge, TN.  Yet, I only found myself traveling out of the country on the two cruises I took and on the trips I took to Niagara Falls and Toronto.  I never put my desire to travel into high gear, and visited places that were truly far and wide.  Without someone with whom to share my experiences, I feel that I might have been afraid to take the risk of leaving my comfort zone.

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When the Twin Towers were attacked on 9/11/01, two of my colleagues from the bank were caught outside the US.  One was North of the border visiting Montreal and the other was vacationing in Salzburg, Austria. They were stuck outside the US until our government figured out what to do. I could only imagine what they were thinking, not being able to come home when they planned to do so.  As for me, I was one of many people tasked with getting our bank up and running after losing our data center in that disaster.  Although I was safe at home, travel seemed a bit scary.  Yet, within 6 months, I went to another widows/widowers gathering in Las Vegas, NV.

It wasn't until my former cruise partner (FCP) suggested it in the 2010's that I took my third cruise.  And I found that I enjoyed the experience, as it was comfortable and allowed me to leave my comfort zone a bit, because I started traveling as Marian.  Yes, I got some strange looks.  But it forced me to learn how to overcome my fears and be the person I am today.

Although my upcoming Norwegian Fjord cruise will be done as Mario, I figure that it is time to get out of my comfort zone again (albeit, just a little) and experience overseas travel.  Who knows?  It could become addicting....

A Trump supporter posted a reply on Mario's Facebook page.

 

The other day, I posted an image similar to this with the phrase:

Lock him up!
Lock him up!
Lock him up!

And she responded, replying that Biden should be the one locked up.  Regardless of how one feels about Trump and Biden, I am disgusted by both parties' inability to discipline troublesome members when they break the law. I was one who said that Bill Clinton should have been impeached for committing perjury in regard to having sex with Monica Lewinsky.  I was also in favor of going after Bush #43 for unwarranted searches (actually, unwarranted, secret wiretaps) after 9/11.  Yet, I would have given him a hall pass on that if Congress had given him an express OK.  So when the GOP refused to discipline Trump, I was appalled.

Being a member of the LGBT community, I feel at risk by the laws being passed in our most conservative states.  The radical right would rather us not exist, and wants to deny us the medical treatment we need when it is called for, as well as denying us our basic civil rights.  Trump gave the radical right a hall pass to pass laws that would disenfranchise us in exchange for them looking the other way while he cut deals with unsavory characters and with foreign powers.  

The radical right wants to use our existence as if it were a waving red cape at a bull in a bullfight.  To preserve their power, the right's leaders are making us their focus of hatred.  Considering that my acquaintance likely uses Fox "News" as her only news source, I can't help but believe that a reasonably sane person can be corrupted by a steady diet of misinformation that reinforces her existing beliefs.  

I don't believe that our current president is guilty of a crime.  However, I do believe that the son is guilty of a crime for which he had a plea bargain deal, and should have been allowed to cop the plea.  Instead, we will have a trial where justice is not served.  The verdict passed on the son may (or may not) be just, and the trial will be used by the political right to smear our president.  So I closed out the conversational thread by saying that if there is evidence, the father should be tainted.  But if not, the political right should stop stirring up the base with falsehoods.

It saddens me that we no longer have the "fairness doctrine" to preserve objectivity in news reporting.  If this were in effect today, we wouldn't have a nation as polarized as we are now.

By the time you read this, the unbelievable may have happened.

If it weren't for the historical plaque and the bench, one might not realize that this well maintained hillside was the site of an event that defined a generation - Woodstock.  Over 500,000 people gathered on farm land owned by Max Yasgur to enjoy music in conditions marginally better than WW1 soldiers "enjoyed" in their trenches. Although the crowd is long gone, this is still a site that Baby Boomers should visit at least once - especially when music is being performed in the "Shed" at the bottom of this hill.

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Each generation has an event that helps define the times in which it lived.  For my parents' generation, Pearl Harbor day would set the path that people of this generation would follow for the rest of their lives.  For my generation, the JFK assassination, the Vietnam War, and Woodstock would define a path for our lives. For our children's generation, 9/11 would be the day that they would lose the collective innocence which presumed that we would be safe in our homeland.  However, 2020 (with a spillover into 2021) will likely set the path for a generation or two to come.

Why do I think the events of the past year are so important?  To answer this question, one must understand how Trump has polarized American society.  He has divided and conquered people, using his supporters as Hitler used his - as a mob which could be used to terrorize those that do not pay him tribute and allegiance. He has hijacked a major political party and made its former elite afraid of losing its remaining power to people favored by its "king". So when given the choice of doing the right thing and deposing this "king" via impeachment and conviction, they failed to do so at the beginning of 2020. Our president wasn't chastened by the rebuke from one chamber of our country's legislature.  Instead he was emboldened.  If he didn't make one mistake, he would have likely won reelection in November.

Of course, his mistake was not taking the coming pandemic seriously.  He focused on being elected, and not doing his job when real work was called from a country's leader.  He was not unique in this regard.  But I care more about what happens in America than in Brazil.  When he should have isolated America from the world, he only decided to act against a single country, China.  When he could have encouraged people to isolate themselves and follow CDC guidelines when they had to go out, he mocked the idea of wearing face masks in public to help stop the spread of the virus. So, when Election Day came around, enough people were disenchanted with this man that they voted the president out of office.

Normally, presidents voted out of office go on to lead a productive retirement.  This is not the case for our soon to be former president.  He allegedly committed enough crimes before he took office and while in office that he stood a good chance of going to prison for the rest of his life. So he allegedly orchestrated several plots to overturn the results of the election, none of which were successful.  But the last event is the one where he may have crossed the one line where even his political supporters may have said he went too far.

On January 6th, the electoral college's ballots were supposed to be opened, tallied in a joint session of congress, and the results of the presidential election announced.  However, like his German idol from the first half of the 20th century, he allegedly decided on staging a "Beer Hall Putsch" to take control of the government using emergency powers.  Luckily, the legislative branch of government was able to complete its task and announce that Biden would be sworn in as president 14 days later.

Within a couple of days, the news reports were making it clear that our president committed an act of sedition by encouraging the "protestors" who took over the capitol building, and this motivated Democratic party to demand that the president be removed from office. (Of course, 6 riot related deaths that day gave the president's critics the extra fuel they needed to act.) By the time the weekend ended, it was clear that the Vice President would be forced to invoke authority given to him under the 25th amendment to remove the president from power, or that the Democrats in the House would impeach the president for a second time.  This wasn't the end of it - the Senate did not want to remove the president by the time the weekend ended. It would only be willing to make sure that this man's trial in the Senate would almost be meaningless, as it would take place after he left office.

So with all that historical context in place, now I get to the meat of things....

There have been only 3 impeachment trials, and none of them has resulted in the removal of a president from office. In less than one day, it seems as if the traditional elite of the GOP has decided to take back their party, and may be giving people in the House and Senate the ability to vote their consciences in regard to the president.  No longer does the Senate trial look like it will be meaningless. Instead, it looks more likely that it will be held before the president was scheduled to leave office.  Although the trial may not accomplish much (he may only lose 2 remaining days of his term), it will show that we have it in us to force people in power to do the right thing - albeit, in this case, a day late and a dollar short.

Why is this important?

For the Transgender community, America has de-fanged a person who has been causing us long term harm. For America as a whole, we have shown that our system was barely strong enough to avoid falling to a wannabe dictator.  We have learned that our democratic institutions depend on the good will of our people, and that we need to take an active interest in them to see that they are always there for us.  In short, we have learned we can no longer take many things for granted.  

And what do I think would have been unbelievable?

I never thought it would be possible to have a president so bad, and that we'd have a serious chance of seeing people of good will depose him using tools given to them in the constitution.

So keep your fingers crossed.  The next few days will be a wild ride.