Meandering

Its been pretty quiet around here, but not at our Last Thursday art walk. We have several 'first' and 'last' Thursday/Friday art walks around here. Last Thursday on Alberta Street had some excitement last night. From news reports and my personal experience of Last Thursday it seems a bunch of people hung around after the 'walk' to enjoy dancing in the street. One intersection was reported to have had 200 people in it and traffic could not move at all. A fight broke out and police were called. They must have called for backup right away after seeing how many people were there.

One office used a tazer on one of the fighters. He put his tazer down to arrest the man. That was his first mistake... putting the tazer down. Someone picked it up and the officer pulled his gun on the would-be thief. Thats when the crowd got out of hand and started throwing bottles and things at the police and backup swarmed in with riot gear. Even undercover police were on site.

A couple of young people interviewed (they showed only 2 or 3 seconds of them talking) said the police over reacted. There have been times I've seen police activity and thought they over reacted.... but I do want to say with a mob once they get all worked up its hard to get it quiet again. I'm on the fence with this one, especially since I wasn't there. In any event, its all quiet now.

On another note... I don't use my dishwasher, mainly because its easier just to wash things off myself. Last night I decided to give the dishwasher another try. The first couple of times I used it, right after moving in, it didn't get the dishes clean and things smelled of soap. Someone suggested it might be the cheap soap I was using. I got something better ... but that apparently was not the problem. The dishes still came out smelling like soap. Besides, it took 30-45 minutes for the dishwasher to complete its cycle (without drying time) and it only takes me 15 minutes washing by hand. And there is no soap smell. I'll continue with my hands-on approach. After all I only have four dishes, bowls, and saucers (4 each). It can be a struggle just getting a full load.

I hope to get a load of laundry done today. Yes. This is what I have to write about, but getting some laundry done is always a hilite in my world.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit a friend and I'm looking forward to it. I need to get out. I've been sitting in this apt. way too long. One needs to get out among people once in a while to keep a balanced perspective.