GELATO at KRAKOW

 https://www.facebook.com/KrakowDeliBakerySmokehouse/

Will it rain on your July 4th parade?

Wright's Dairy Farm North Smithfield RI

 

Gunhild Carling Swedish Bagpiper & More Gunhild Carling is a Swedish jazz singer, multi-instrumentalist, and entertainer known for her high-energy performances. She plays over a dozen instruments, including the trumpet, trombone, bagpipes, harp, and recorder. Carling's shows often feature her playing multiple instruments in a single song, tap dancing, and singing. She's known as Sweden's "Queen of Swing, Jazz, and Vaudeville".

 Fly me to the Moon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n6L0x7X2x4

BLACKSTONE MA Axle the Dog: Maximum of 3 dogs over the age of 6 months per single-family residence.

This lovely boy became a member of the Blackstone Regional Animal Shelter family when he was surrendered to us. He was previously adopted off a Facebook Ad, lasted 2 seconds in his new home, and when his original family was contacted, they ghosted the adopter.

Axle is neutered, up to date on rabies, dhpp vaccines, tested for heartworm & tick-borne diseases. On top of that.... microchipped and evaluated by a third-party trainer.


This handsome boy is packed full of fun! He would be the best walking/hiking buddy, never getting pooped and pushing you to continue!
This boy may be four but is super playful, smart, and trainable!
When he went to his evaluation and our trainer loved him and actually has had him over there a couple times to run through some things in regard to training!!

If you are looking for a larger puppy but don't want to have to start from zero with potty training, Axle would be great for you!
One of Axles favorite pass time activities is fetch, he loves to fetch no matter the time of day. He will also find you if you disappear to give you the toy, just to continue the game!

When it comes to kids, Axle might be a bit overwhelming, he can be a little jumpy, however, he listens when you tell him to stop and sit!
With really young kids' Axle can be a bit much, however, would be amazing with older children that can better handle his size!
Axle would do great In a family setting with or without kids.
Axle would also do good with other dogs but just like any dog we have in and evaluated, should have a meet and greet with the potential dog they will be living with!

Axles adoption will be $475, covering the vetting expenses.

SOOO, if you think you're the purfect home for this handsome but smart fella, contact the Blackstone Valley Animal Control at 508-883-BVAC (2822) or email aco@blackstonepolice.org. Applications can be done in advance or at the time of your meet and greet. Applications can be found at blackstonepolice.org under the Animal Control tab.

Feel free to check out our Instagram and Facebook also!

Insta user: blackstone_vly._animal_control

Facebook users:
- Blackstone Valley Animal Control
- Blackstone Regional Animal Shelter

Thank you everyone!!
Blackstone Valley Animal Control
Blackstone Regional Animal Shelter

Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors: 2 Scoops 10 cents

 

At Urbanity Dance, we believe in… ◌ Staying Curious ◌ Embracing Joy ◌ Effort over Perfection ◌ Choosing Kindness ◌ Coming As You Are – Every Body Belongs!

ask@urbanitydance.org

725 Harrison Ave. #100 Boston, MA 02118 ● 1180 Washington Street #100 Boston, MA 02118 ● 111 W Concord Street Boston, MA 02118

>It’s the birthday of Helen Keller, born in Tuscumbia, Alabama (1880). As a toddler, she became sick with an illness that left her both blind and deaf. She became a difficult child, until her 20-year-old teacher, Anne Sullivan, managed to communicate the letters for “water” while running water from the pump on the little girl’s hand. It was a breakthrough, and on that day alone, Keller learned 30 words.

Keller was very bright—she went on to Radcliffe College, where she became a popular lecturer and began sharing her story and advocating for others with disabilities. She also became a radical activist along the way, joining the Socialist Party of Massachusetts in 1909, when she was 29, and then the Industrial Workers of the World. She supported Communist Russia and hung a red flag over her desk. The FBI opened a file on her. She advocated for women’s suffrage and for access to birth control. She helped found the American Civil Liberties Union.

Helen Keller died in 1968, at the age of 87.

She said, “No one has ever given me a good reason why we should obey unjust laws.”

It’s the birthday of writer and activist Grace Lee Boggs, born in Providence, Rhode Island (1915).

It’s the birthday of writer and activist Grace Lee Boggs, born in Providence, Rhode Island (1915). Her parents were immigrants from Guangdong province in China, and her father ran a Chinese restaurant in downtown Providence. She grew up in a tiny apartment above the restaurant. Her mother didn’t know how to read — she had been sold into slavery in China as a young girl, and her only escape was an arranged marriage with Grace’s father, who was 20 years her senior. Grace remembers being a young girl, crying over one thing or another, and hearing the waiters in her father’s restaurant suggest her parents should leave her outside to die since she was a girl. She said, “That’s how I learned early on about living for change.” When her family moved to New York City to open up restaurants there, they had to buy their house in Queens in the name of their Irish contractor, because Asians weren’t allowed to own land there.

She won a scholarship to Barnard College, where she studied philosophy. She went on to get her Ph.D. at Bryn Mawr College, and after she graduated, she couldn’t find a job — not only was it impossible for women of color to get jobs as academics, but even department stores told her that they didn’t hire Asians. So she headed to Chicago and was eventually offered a job at the University of Chicago Philosophy Library. She earned $10 a week and lived for free on a couch in a basement filled with rats. She wore the same clothes every day: a blue corduroy jumper, saddle oxfords, and when it was cold out, a leopard coat.

The rats were so bad that she went to check out the South Side Tenants Organization, which fought against rat-infested housing on the South Side. Through that group, she began working with the black community in Chicago, and she participated in the March on Washington. She became a radical community organizer, and a few years later, she met Jimmy Boggs, a black autoworker in Detroit. He was recently divorced, with six children. For their first date, Grace invited Jimmy over to dinner. He showed up two hours late, and he refused to eat the lamb chops she had prepared because he thought they were too fancy. She put on a Louis Armstrong record, and Boggs announced that he hated Armstrong. But by the end of the date, he asked her to marry him. She accepted without hesitation, and they were married for 40 years, until his death in 1993. She said: “My knowledge had come mostly from books. He had never been to college, although he was full of ideas. [...] He was the person in the [...] community to whom everyone came for advice [...] So when he asked me to marry him on our first date [...] I didn’t hesitate for a minute.”

Boggs continued her work as a radical activist in Detroit, and she and her husband worked together on projects and publications. Her books include Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century (1974), co-written with her husband; and most recently, The Next American Revolution (2011), published when she was 95 years old.

She said: “Do something local. Do something real, however, small. And don’t dis the political things, but understand their limitations.”

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.^®

Divine

 

Mary Poppins Original Soundtrack 1964

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1OIsKLfVuw

 

I made Oat Whole Wheat Pizzelle which we shaped in a Cone and made our own Hand Cranked Ice Cream

We live near a dairy farm. We also make our own vanilla.

If you like vanilla, you won’t find better than this recipe from my family, which makes about 2 quarts:

• 4 cups heavy cream
• 2 cups half-and-half
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 tablespoons vanilla extract
• Generous pinch of salt

Swam Outside in the Rain this Morning

 I did get cold after 45 minutes!

Allergies 365 Days a Year

Safe in the City

I prefer city streets with streetlights and sidewalks to parks and wilderness. I was molested as a child in rural areas. I feel safe in the city. I want people to hear me if I scream for help.

Rape Culture, Victim Blaming, And The Facts

What is Rape Culture?

Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women’s bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and safety.

Examples of Rape Culture

• Blaming the victim (“She asked for it!”)
• Trivializing sexual assault (“Boys will be boys!”)
• Sexually explicit jokes
• Tolerance of sexual harassment
• Inflating false rape report statistics
• Publicly scrutinizing a victim’s dress, mental state, motives, and history
• Gratuitous gendered violence in movies and television
• Defining “manhood” as dominant and sexually aggressive
• Defining “womanhood” as submissive and sexually passive
• Pressure on men to “score”
• Pressure on women to not appear “cold”
• Assuming only promiscuous women get raped
• Assuming that men don’t get raped or that only “weak” men get raped
• Refusing to take rape accusations seriously
• Teaching women to avoid getting raped

Victim Blaming

One reason people blame a victim is to distance themselves from an unpleasant occurrence and thereby confirm their own invulnerability to the risk. By labeling or accusing the victim, others can see the victim as different from themselves. People reassure themselves by thinking, "Because I am not like her, because I do not do that, this would never happen to me." We need to help people understand that this is not a helpful reaction.

Why is it Dangerous?

Victim-blaming attitudes marginalize the victim/survivor and make it harder to come forward and report the abuse. If the survivor knows that you or society blames her for the abuse, s/he will not feel safe or comfortable coming forward and talking to you.

Victim-blaming attitudes also reinforce what the abuser has been saying all along; that it is the victim’s fault this is happening. It is NOT the victim’s fault or responsibility to fix the situation; it is the abuser’s choice. By engaging in victim-blaming attitudes, society allows the abuser to perpetrate relationship abuse or sexual assault while avoiding accountability for his/her actions.

What Does Victim-Blaming Look Like?

Example of Victim-Blaming Attitude: “She must have provoked him into being abusive. They both need to change.”

Reality: This statement assumes that the victim is equally to blame for the abuse, when in reality, abuse is a conscious choice made by the abuser. Abusers have a choice in how they react to their partner’s actions. Options besides abuse include: walking away, talking in the moment, respectfully explaining why an action is frustrating, breaking up, etc. Additionally, abuse is not about individual actions that incite the abuser to hurt his partner, but rather about the abuser’s feelings of entitlement to do whatever he wants to his partner.

When friends and family remain neutral about the abuse and say that both people need to change, they are colluding with and supporting the abusive partner and making it less likely that the survivor will seek support.

How Can Men and Women Combat Rape Culture and Victim Blaming?

• Avoid using language that objectifies or degrades women
• Speak out if you hear someone else making an offensive joke or trivializing rape
• If a friend says they have been raped, take your friend seriously and be supportive
• Think critically about the media’s messages about women, men, relationships, and violence
• Be respectful of others’ physical space even in casual situations
• Let survivors know that it is not their fault
• Hold abusers accountable for their actions: do not let them make excuses like blaming the victim, alcohol, or drugs for their behavior
• Always communicate with sexual partners and do not assume consent
• Define your own manhood or womanhood. Do not let stereotypes shape your actions.
• Be an Active Bystander!

Adapted from Marshall University and Center for Relationship Abuse Awareness

Dating and Domestic Violence Facts

FACT: Regardless of their actions, no one deserves to be physically, verbally or sexually abused. In fact, putting the blame for the violence on the victim is a way to manipulate the victim and other people. Batterers will tell the victim, "You made me mad," or, "You made me jealous," or will try to shift the burden by saying, "Everyone acts like that." Most victims try to placate and please their abusive partners in order to de-escalate the violence. The batterer chooses to abuse, and bears full responsibility for the violence.

FACT: Many victims love their partners despite the abuse, blame themselves, or feel as if they have no support system or resources outside of the relationship and so they feel as if they can’t leave. Furthermore, the period immediately after leaving an abusive relationship is extremely dangerous.

FACT: Jealousy and possessiveness are signs that the person sees you as a possession. They are one of the most common early warning sign of abuse

FACT: Abuse can come in many forms, such as sexual, physical, verbal, and emotional. When a person in a relationship repeatedly scares, hurts, or puts down the other person, it is abuse. Harassment, intimidation, forced or coerced isolation from friends and family and having an independent social life, humiliation, threats of harm to you or your family or pets, threats of suicide if you leave, violating your privacy, limiting your independence and personal choices are all examples of abuse.

FACT: While the majority of victims of domestic violence are women, men may also be victims of relationship violence. Men face many of the same barriers as women that prevent them from reporting abuse, but also face a different kind of stigma since many do not believe that men can be victims of dating/domestic violence.

FACT: The majority of men and young men in our community are not violent. The use of violence is a choice. Men who use violence in their relationships choose where and when they are violent. The large majority of offenders who assault their partners control their violence with others, such as friends or work colleagues, where there is no perceived right to dominate and control.

Stating that 'All men are violent' places the blame for the violence elsewhere and prevents the perpetrator from being responsible for his violence. The majority of men and women want and can be allies to help in the fight against this kind of violence.

FACT: As many as one-third of all high school and college-age young people experience violence in an intimate or dating relationship. Physical abuse is as common among high school and college-age couples as married couples.

Sexual Assault Facts

FACT: Men, women and children of all ages, races, religions, and economic classes can be and have been victims of sexual assault. Sexual assault occurs in rural areas, small towns and larger cities. It is estimated that one in three girls and one six boys will be sexually assaulted by the age of eighteen. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, a rape or attempted rape occurs every 5 minutes in the United States.

FACT: Sexual assault is NEVER the victim’s fault. Sexual assault is a violent attack on an individual, not a spontaneous crime of sexual passion. For a victim, it is a humiliating and degrading act. No one “asks” for or deserves this type of attack.

FACT: Most sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim knows. Studies show that approximately 80%-90% of women reporting sexual assaults knew their assailant.

FACT: A sexual assault can happen anywhere and at any time. The majority of assaults occur in places ordinarily thought to be safe, such as homes, cars and offices.

FACT: Reported sexual assaults are true, with very few exceptions. According to CONNSACS, only 2% of reported rapes are false. This is the same rate of false reporting as other major crime reports.

FACT: Men can be, and are, sexually assaulted. Current statistics indicate that one in six men are sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Sexual assault of men is thought to be greatly under-reported.

FACT: Almost all sexual assaults occur between members of the same race. Interracial rape is not common, but it does occur.

FACT: Sexual assault is motivated by hostility, power and control. Sexual assaults are not motivated by sexual desire. Unlike animals, humans are capable of controlling how they choose to act on or express sexual urges.

FACT: Sexual offenders come from all educational, occupational, racial and cultural backgrounds. They are “ordinary” and “normal” individuals who sexually assault victims to assert power and control over them and inflict violence, humiliation and degradation.

FACT: Anytime someone is forced to have sex against their will, they have been sexually assaulted, regardless of whether or not they fought back or said "no". There are many reasons why a victim might not physically fight their attacker including shock, fear, threats or the size and strength of the attacker.

FACT: Survivors exhibit a spectrum of emotional responses to assault: calm, hysteria, laughter, anger, apathy, shock. Each survivor copes with the trauma of the assault in a different way.

Adapted from Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services (CONNSACS)

 

Basil and Mint

The groundhog ate my herbs last year. So this year I have 2 pots of basil high up off the ground and So far the mint is perennial, thriving after a snowy winter.

I chop fresh basil and mint onto everything and instantly my meal becomes exotic. Eggs, chili, potato salad, rice and veggies, all things are better with basil and mint.

I would love to add Rosemary Oregano and Dill and Thyme but I would need to put the pots on my 2nd floor porch. 

 

a poem by Joyce Sutphen.

The Idea of Living

 

It has its attractions,

chiefly visual: all those

 

shapes and lines, hunks

of color and light (the way

 

the gold light falls across

the lawn in early summer,

 

the iridescent blue floating

on the lake at sunset),

 

and being alive seems

to be a necessity if you want

 

to sit in the sun or rub your

toes in the sand at the beach.

 

You need to be breathing

in order to eat paella and

 

drink sangria, and making love

is quite impossible without

 

a body, unless you are one

of those, given—like gold—

to spin in airy thinness forever.

__________

“The Idea of Living” by JOYCE SUTPHEN from Modern Love & Other Myths, Red Dragonfly Press, 2015.

Kalamata Olive Tapenade

I buy the gigantic jar of Kalamata Olives at OCEAN STATE JOBLOT and reuse the jar as a coffee canister. All I do is pit them and pulse them. It lasts forever in the fridge. I spread it on my homemade sourdough rye bread.

If you want to get fancy there are recipes here.

https://thegreekfoodie.com/kalamata-olive-tapenade/

Behind the complicated details of the world stand the simplicities: God is good, the grown-up man or woman knows the answer to every question, there is such a thing as truth, and justice is as measured and faultless as a clock. Our heroes are simple: they are brave, they tell the truth, they are good swordsmen and they are never in the long run really defeated. That is why no later books satisfy us like those which were read to us in childhood—for those promised a world of great simplicity of which we knew the rules, but the later books are complicated and contradictory with experience; they are formed out of our own disappointing memories.

GRAHAM GREENE

Psychoanalysts in France, structuralists in the United States and France, conservative, liberal and left-wing thinkers in contemporary schools of linguistic philosophy agree about one thing; man became man not by the tool but by the Word. It is not walking upright and using a stick to dig for food or strike a blow that makes a human being, it is speech. And neither intelligent apes nor dolphins whispering marvels in the ocean share with us the ability to transform this direct communication into the written word, which sets up an endless chain of communication and commune between peoples and generations who will never meet.

NADINE GORDIMER