Even while in the midst of a very publicised trial about the murder of George Floyd by cops, the murders of black men by police in America continues.
This week we watched a young man be shot ‘by mistake’ by a policewoman.
On April 11, 2021, Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old African-American man, was fatally shot by police officer Kimberly Potter during a traffic stop which led to an attempted arrest for an outstanding arrest warrant in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. After a brief struggle with officers, Wright was shot, and he then drove off but crashed his vehicle into another car and hit a cement barrier. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The following day, police said that Potter meant to use her Taser but ‘accidentally’ grabbed her gun instead, striking Wright with one shot to his chest. Two days later, Potter and Brooklyn Center police chief Tim Gannon resigned from their positions. On April 14, Potter was charged with second-degree manslaughter and arrested.
The shooting sparked protests in Brooklyn Center and renewed ongoing demonstrations against police brutality in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, leading to citywide and regional curfews. Demonstrations have also spread to cities across the United States.
To put it in perspective how ‘easy’ it is to make this ‘mistake’ I give you an image of a police belt. The gun is on the right, the taser is on the left. A gun weighs approximately 30 ounces, a taser weighs approximately 10 ounces.
Then we read of a 13 year old Chicagoan named Adam Toledo being shot and killed by a Chicago police officer after Toledo had complied with an order to put his hands up. The footage shows it took 19 seconds from when the officer left his police car to when he shot the teenager.
This incident occurred on March 29 but the body cam footage was only released this week. I can see why the police did not want to release it in this already volatile time but they should not be allowed to hide their crimes from the public and cover each other’s mistakes or murders.
How is it that almost every time a white man is the shooter they manage to arrest them with no incident but when it is a black man/woman they get shot? Sometimes even when lying in their own beds.
You cannot tell me that people of colour are treated the same as white men. This is a huge issue in the USA which has deep tentacles into the police and justice system.
My weekend started started off well as yesterday I left work at 2.30 to meet Caitlin for a Mommy-Daughter dual manicure session over the mountain in Meadowridge at Nails by Jillian. We perused her site and chose our designs for nail art before we went. Jillian works out of her home so we thought that should be safer than going into a shop especially if we all wore our masks.
The traffic was a nightmare coming out of Hout Bay as a tree had fallen across the road and the cars were backed up for miles. It was my first time driving in over a year and I am always anxious behind the wheel, especially when I do not know where I am going and I also get anxious when I am late so thanks to Mr. Tree in the Wind I was struggling with both of those challenges. My GPS took me to the wrong house as there is a Caxton Way and Caxton Crescent connecting to each other and winding all about the suburb. WTF?! I stopped at the wrong house and got out to ring the bell just as Caitlin rang to ask where I was. Lost, it would appear. I tried to get back into the car but my seat belt was stuck and was so tight I could barely move my arms. Just what I need is to be fat shamed by my seatbelt while already anxious. Caitlin then sent me the location pin and I eventually found it but by then I was off the charts with anxiety.
Caitlin went first to allow me time to calm down while huffing and puffing through my double masks. Caitlin chose a pistachio green and white marbling effect for her nails. It looks so subtle, soft and gentle.
Then it was my turn and I had chosen the subtle design of a few accenting stripes and dots. I had liked a few more flashy designs but Caitlin reigned in my inner sparkly rainbow unicorn-ness and talked me into the more dignified design below. I love it and keep staring lovingly at my hands. There are other pics of my nails and her other work on her IG site if you view her profile via the image link below.
It was nice to hang out with Caitlin for a bit even though we were masked and distanced. I really miss my kiddies.
When I got home it was such a gorgeous evening I suggested to Norm that we go out for dinner. We decided to just go into the village and see what caught our eye. We came to Deus Ex Machina in Hout Bay first and there was parking outside and we decided to give them a try as we have only had pastry from there which is always divine. They do the best chocolate croissants in the Bay.
When we walked in there was an unattended podium at the entrance which said to go to the desk so we wandered in looking for said desk. No one took our temperature or our contact details nor ensured we sterilised our hands. That should have made us turn around and leave but we did not and we carried on into the patio area. There were two sides of the patio, one of which was plastered with no smoking signs so we took a table on that side. The table had definitely not been sterilised as it was sticky with the previous occupant’s meal. Norm had a packet of sterilising cloths and gave the table a wipe down. We waited ages for service and eventually Norm went to find someone and ordered drinks.
The raised area behind Norm was where they were hosting a 21 year old’s birthday party and hordes of young people who were without masks, waving smoking cigs and spilling their drinks tramped up and down the steps behind him from that area to the bar area all night.
We ordered food, Norm chose the fish and chips with minted peas. It was a large thick piece of hake and he enjoyed the crispy chips. He rated it 5 stars. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I ordered the BBQ chicken burger on a brioche bun. You could have BBQ or lemon and herb chicken. It came with a little fry basket of chips. It was so dark by this point that I could not see what I was eating and my first bite was of the cartilage which holds a butterflied breast together and it made me wretch. I was very trepidatious while eating the rest of it. It was OK but the cartilage put me off so it only gets 2 Kitten Stars. ⭐⭐
Despite the rather unhappy experience we had until then I had spotted a chocolate lava cake and we decided to see if the dessert redeemed the evening. Norm ordered tiramisu and was happy with the flavour but thought the portion was a bit stingy.
The experience was further let down by the fact that people all around us were smoking in the no smoking section, calmly ignoring the signs posted right near us as you can see in the pic below. The poor service and lack of Covid Controls mean that I score the overall night only 2 Kitten Stars ⭐⭐. We may give them another try once the plague is over but for now we will stick to visits to the pastry counter for take aways. We found this sign rather ironic.
Every weekend I like to have at least one day where we have no commitments or plans. I can have a long lie in bed with a frothy coffee and get up at my leisure. I think we all need that to recharge for the work week ahead. Today it is very hot and I will probably spend at least part of the afternoon lying by the pool and having a swim.
Last Sunday we had a day just like that where we slept late and then spent most of the day doing whatever we fancied. Norm washed the cars and worked on his family tree and I pottered about in the garden. I have a globe which Amber had given me years ago and everything I have planted in it has not survived so I removed the dirt and snipped off a piece of my air plant from the tree in the garden and I will see how that survives. Caitlin had given me some cute tins and I have no space for tins on my counters (according to Norm who questioned why I was taking the stuff Cait was getting rid of) so I decided to use them as planters. I snipped some bits off of my existing succulents and I transferred them to the new tins.
The tins are in the window sill in our pantry so hopefully they get enough sunlight as there is a covered patio on that side of the house.
After we finished our pottering about we decided to watch a film. I love both Octavia Spencer as well as Melissa McCarthy and was not in the mood for anything mentally challenging so I chose Thunder Force. It also stars Jason Bateman and I love his on-screen chemistry with Melissa so it was a win-win. It is described as ‘in a world where supervillains are commonplace, two estranged childhood best friends reunite after one devises a treatment that gives them powers to protect their city.’ Most of the humour came from my love of the actors, it really is a ridiculous premise and is a wee bit lame. I give it 3 Kitten Stars ⭐⭐⭐ just because I did have a laugh.
I finished Season 3 of my ‘after work’ relaxation series The Bold Type this week. It took me a while to get into it but in the end I really loved it. My daughter called it the new ‘Sex in the City’ (for Millennials). I blogged about it before but will now re-rate it and I give it 4.5 Kitten Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨. There are additional seasons which I hope Netflix will purchase before I forget the ones I have already seen.
I have now started watching ‘Ginny & Georgia‘. It is about a free spirited and beautiful Mom who changed her name to Georgia when she became a 15 year old runaway and then fell pregnant. She has two children by different fathers, mixed race Virginia (nicknamed Ginny) and Austin (her Harry Potter-esque young son). Georgia is one of those women who move from man to man on a whim but you like her as she is full of sass. Thanks to Georgia’s quixotic nature she has moved Ginny and Austin many times and they are both always the ‘new kid’ and have struggled to maintain any constancy in their lives. I can easily imagine myself as Georgia if my life had gone in a different direction. The storylines touch on some of the challenges that teens today have to face such as bullying, insecurity, self-harming, or peer pressure to do drugs or have sex. Even though I am not a teen full of angst I still enjoy this show (does Virgoan anxiety and melancholy count as the angst of a crone?).
The series stars Brianne Howey as Georgia, Antonia Gentry as Ginny, and the brilliant Jennifer Robertson as their new neighbour Ellen. Ellen may look familiar to you as Jennifer played ‘Jocelyn Schitt’ in Schitt’s Creek. Ellen steals her son’s weed which she and Georgia smoke while swigging wine. Ellen is my spirit animal.
Now for the weekly Covid stats.
SA has the following scores on the doors.
On a global comparison we are holding at 20th for 1,564,355 overall cases. The UK is 6th with 4,383,572 and the USA is 1st with 32,305,912.
For total deaths SA is 16th with 53,663 lives lost, the UK is 5th with 127,225 lives lost and the USA is still first with 579,942 deaths.
On the more evenly scaled comparison globally of deaths per 1 million population, SA is now 48th with 896 deaths per 1 million, the UK is 13th with 1,866 and the USA is 14th with 1,744.
On the vaccine counts for the UK 32,574,221 people have had their 1st dose and 8,931,547 have had the 2nd. In the USA the CDC reports that 127,743,096 people have had their 1st vaccine and that 80,609,818 have been ‘fully vaccinated’.
We had some great news on a personal level in that Norm has registered to get his first vaccine! This is progress except the website says his actual appointment can be anytime between May and November. Feckin typical SA disorganisation. I cannot even register yet despite my core morbidities as I only turn 60 in September.
I wonder what the future will hold for people who choose not to get the vaccine. If you need the vaccine ‘certificate’ to travel or enter some countries and even some venues, do those people become pariahs? What about socialising with them? You can still be at risk of getting the virus if you have had the vaccine so do you refuse to interact with those who choose not to be inoculated? It is a new situation we have never dealt with before.
For my music section I include a new video by Rag’n’Bone Man and P!nk, called ‘Anywhere Away from Here’. I think that the song is mournful and hauntingly beautiful.
I also include a video by one of my fave artists, Jon Batiste, this one is called ‘Tell the Truth’.
I hope that you enjoy them both as much as I do.
Until next time, stay safe and remember to check on your friends. Socially distant Kisses from the Kitten x0x0x0x0x
Kitten in the City 