. . . . Didn’t sleep until very late last night due to helicopters, sirens, fire trucks, protesters and rioters and looters (these last three are not in the same category) going on all night.
Surges of action, back and forth from up in Brooklyn (until the bridges were closed), and down from the north in Midtown, from the east in Union Square, and us right in the middle of it. Already by 2 AM there were multiple fires and smash-and-grabs. It's the fire -- and there was one set on the Prince Street corner a block above us -- that have us scared
. . . . Returned from walkabout checking out the neighborhood. Haven't seen so many cops on these blocks in -- well, ever -- as are on the blocks today. It seemed to be about half and half of masked vs maskless people out and about.
People filling U Hauls with their apartment goods -- moving out, when at this time of the year the U Hauls would be bringing in the possessions of all the wealthy young students moving in.
Bars, restaurants, cafés, coffee shops, yogurt shops, etc. that from last weekend through Saturday had built out and blocked off all the sidewalks and much of the streets for normal pedestrians, today retracted that in favor of boarding up their places and constructing more security.
All the stores finally boarding up. I was puzzled all along that they hadn't done it. Looks as though it was Prince Street, with all those high end, desirable types of shops from Prada to Coach, from Chanel to Guicci, from Apple to NARS, to David Yerman got trashed from Broadway on the east, to 6th Ave. on the west.
The people doing these looting its aren't part of the protests, aren't protesters at all. They are gangs who know what they are doing, at least when it came to the luxury stores. They came in vehicles, for one thing, and a lot of these vehicles have out-of-state plates, according to the journalists who were there -- who threatened and attacked too for daring to record.
These criminals are using the ongoing tragedy to expand their profession of breaking and entering and grabbing for profit. And, ya, these do look to be people of color, already dressed in the most up-to-date expensive, designer athletic gear. But they are not the same frustrated, angry, desperate people setting cop cars on fire -- aided and abetted I will bet good money by provocateurs, not to mention the cops themselves (I put protesters, rioters and looters in separate categories). The looters don't have that kind of guts of protesters, and certainly don't share The Community Strikes Back moral backbone.
I'm betting the looters will be back here tonight -- though I hope I'm wrong. [edited to add mayor de Blasio has just imposed an 11 PM curfew; his daughter was among the protesters arrested last night.] That would make 4 straight nights of no sleep -- as if that's the suffering on the level of every front line we can think of which protesters are suffering, along with the relentless erasure of justice, rights, dignity and hope. In the meantime, deathcultpsychopathchief cowers and whines in the White House bunker. The Protesters aren’t letting up in D.C. may the Lord bless and keep them*And even to protest the takeover of the US by the Biggest Looter, it takes African Americans to again put their bodies at risk to both covid-19 and arrest and beating and murder -- and we benefit. As awful as we believe things to be, we are all too comfortable, even now, in the pandemic, to do anything.
Saw some big burly types get out of a very fine ride with Texas plates, and just walk around our street looking at places. I think looting (as opposed to getting necessary supplies denied, like water and insulin) awful, but it sure as hell isn't a surprise or shock (though while it is going on, it's, well, scary). Looting, sanctioned and otherwise -- see accounts of London during the Bubonic Plague -- though then the booty tended to kill the looters too -- has always happened in plagues and wars and by now with all the disasters this nation has been going through just from climate change, the organized thieves have lots of experience of knowing when to arrive in a place of massive disruption.
Thank goodness E's latest CARE package of THC:CBD products arrived this morning! I need some soothing. Our wine delivery just arrived this afternoon too -- while a lot of liquor stores got trashed, ours thank goodness was spared. But today, as well as their steel shutters, they are boarding up over the shutters too. And sitting in the back and in the vast cellar with their shotguns -- in company with some of their male relatives. Their supply of French wine is vastly depleted because of those embargos deathcultpsychopathchief slammed on French products. So how much longer will I get wine? People are reporting that in a lot cities with the liquor stores looted and the remaining ones anywhere nearby closed and boarded up and stock removed, they can't get a drink now.
After being thrilled Wednesday at having moved back to Manhattan -- and bringing us some organic, free range meat, personally butchered by the farmer (which means I probably won't need any more for a lot of the summer, particularly as I tend to quit eating meat all together in the summer) -- yesterday afternoon P and K went back to the Family Big House on Long Island Sound.
. . . . I didn't think I'd been losing any more weight since about the middle of April when I was able to start exercising again and calmed down. I'm eating very well, resumed drinking wine in May, and despite the workouts, since I go out hardly at all, I didn't think there would be any more weight loss. El V is still losing weight, very slowly, gradually, in a very healthy manner, but I thought surely I'd hit plateau for how we're living.
But as of this morning I had to pull out a smaller sizes, packed away from back in the days when I was recovering from being truly way too thin. What's up with that? Anyway, I put on some gold, shiny earrings and a gold chain, before going out (masked -- guess I'll never wear lipstick again?). Tonight, after dinner, I'm painting my toenails. It's barely 60 today, but by the weekend it will be in the 80's. It's gonna be a long hot summer, one way and another, and I'm ready to live it through!
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* Interesting that across the country all these protests are local, since people now can't travel easily -- unlike the looters and the provocateurs to riot and looting.
