I was thrilled and astonished by the Supreme Court ruling on LGBT employment discrimination this morning – and even more astonished to find Gorsuch writing the opinion. SCOTUSBlog’s report is worth reading. I was also pleased that the Court refused to take up the Trump administration’s challenge to California’s sanctuary laws – this is the most hopeful I’ve been about the state of the country in months.

On our most recent (I don’t want to say “last”) cruise, we made friends with quite a few people and have even stayed Facebook friends with some of them. Today, though, we actually talked with one of our “new” friends and toured the outside of each other’s houses – it was a lot of fun, and something we should do more often!

The Los Gatos Farmers’ Market has “senior time” from 8-9am; we were there this morning during senior time to pick up our pre-ordered fish and see what else might look good – the answer was “strawberries, plums, apricots, tomatoes, and corn”. The answer nearly included cherries, but that farmer didn’t open until after 9, and we were long gone by then.

This afternoon, we indulged in a little culture and history, watching the National Theater’s broadcast of the Nottingham Playhouse’s production of The Madness of George III – it was excellent. I knew George III had suffered from mental illness after the Revolution, but I didn’t know the ramifications for English politics (I did some research after watching the play to find out more). It reminded me of the current situation in the US. The National Theatre’s stream is available through Wednesday, June 17th – I recommend watching if you can. We’ll also probably watch The Madness of King George sometime since it’s free on Amazon Prime.

There doesn’t seem to be any danger of running out of things to watch!

At Torah Study this morning, Rabbi Aron mentioned that the Executive Director of the Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival would be hosting a discussion of Dough, which she described as a “silly movie”. Tonight, we watched the movie – “silly” is quite apt as a description. It’s a heartwarming and funny exploration of Islamic-Jewish relations, baking, real estate, and crime in Britain. I have watched SF and Fantasy movies which required less of a suspension of disbelief, but Diane and I both enjoyed it – if you have Amazon Prime, it’s free, and it’s only 95 minutes long.

We accompanied the movie with libations – back in the early ’90s, I brought back a liter of Bols from my first trip to Amsterdam. It has sat, unopened, from then until tonight (most of the time spent in the very back of a kitchen cabinet, forgotten from year to year). Tonight, I made an approximation of an Amsterdam Mule (I used ginger beer instead of the Bols Ginger) – it went well with the movie, though other substances easily available in Amsterdam would have fit the theme better.

We talked with our son today – he is in the middle of moving to a new apartment about a mile away from his old one. He’s schlepping most of his goods by walking them over to the new place – he said it was easier doing it this way than finding movers and he doesn’t have to worry about one of the movers having the virus. He is going to get help moving his bed, though. :-)

I’ve always been a fan of Anker cables and adapters – they’re reasonably priced, durable, and when I’ve had a problem, they’ve taken care of it immediately. But today, they sent me an advertisement which makes me wonder:

This is a 6-foot USB-to-Lightning cable – Anker sells the same cable without the gold-plating for about $35 and a previous-generation cable in white for $15. If you have the cash to waste on a cable decorated with a few cents’ worth of gold, may I suggest buying one of the less expensive models and donating the difference to a food bank?

I’m assuming Anker doesn’t really expect to sell many of these cables (they make Monster Cables look like price-performers), but there are a couple of “Verified Purchase” reviews on the product page, so I may be wrong!

Shabbat Shalom!

As usual, Thursday brought two Toastmasters meetings. The morning meeting was the Silver Tongued Cats – I’ve been Treasurer for the last two years, but I’ll be switching to the VP Public Relations role for next year; it’s a role I’ve never had, so it should be interesting. We are having an Open House next Thursday at 7:30am Pacific – all are welcome, just register here to get the Zoom link.

The other meeting was the club I’ve been mentoring, Toastrix at Citrix. I was the only speaker today; I started Level 2 of the Engaging Humor path with a speech about Quarantine Cooking (though I think I spent slightly more than half the time talking about cooking experiences in the Before Times).

Other than that, it was a quiet day (it helps that I mostly stayed off Twitter and Facebook). Onward to the weekend!