(Resthome interlude ~ the Fourth of July.)

I worked the Fourth of July at the resthome, and very much enjoyed it.

On the way in on the subway, people were chill, and many stared at their phones or were obviously on their way to a BBQ or something, and too, there was this (old) (skinny) (black) guy standing up in the car and holding on to a roof strap and with sunglasses on, and a blue t-shirt that said:

REALLY
REALLY
RIDICULOUSLY
GOOD
COOKING

. . .

At the home itself, there was an early afternoon piano-and-singer pop concert, followed by coffee and cookies.

There, I chatted with this one (elderly) (female) (artist) resident, who I hadn't seen in a while, but who I used to work with a lot and who is always into politics, she's a total Rachel Maddow addict.

As it turns out, though I thought she's American, she was actually born in Britain and lived there a lot of her early life; her dad was a wool merchant and a German Jew who had immigrated and naturalized there, and her mom was British British, and they lived there through the late 30s, till her dad was able to get them to the U.S.

As she said it, way back in the early 20s her dad knew Hitler for who he was, and laid the groundwork for them to emigrate.

Also, as a teenager, she remembers going in to London to Whitechapel, and there protesting against Hitler, and all the cops were all around the protesters on these big white horses.

"Big," she was like, leaning in to speak.

She also doesn't quite remember who put on the protests, but she's almost certain it was the Labour Party.

"There was just Labour and the conservatives at that time," she was like.  "Liberals weren't really around much, then."

At that same event, I also caught up with another resident, too, this one woman in her 90s who has a great sense of humor.

"Nice red shirt and blue pants," I was like, "Very appropriate for the holiday!"

"Yeah," she was like, "And my underwear's white."

Later that night, there was a cookout party on the patio and a band was playing, all the way up until a neighboring social club started their annual fireworks display.