It was a busy, wonderful and horrifying weekend. Kicking it off was the sparsely attended Inauguration and the horror of hearing DJT being referred to as The President. Fortunately I did not listen to his speech as I may have climbed over the barricades at the White House and rushed the Oval Office in anger. This picture only makes me slightly less pissed off.
I had other things on my mind though — getting to the Women’s March the next day. I had a feeling it was going to be HUGE, HUGE, HUGE! When I got to Baltimore, everywhere I looked there were groups of people (mostly women but some men) wearing pink Pussy Hats, carrying guitars, chatting excitedly in cafes and bursting out of hotel lobbies. The excitement about actually doing something — even if it was “only” a march — was palpable.
The next morning we got to the Penn Station about an hour and a half before the first train. Unbelievably the line to get on the train almost circled the entire block that the station is within (and this was a pretty big block). Within 20 minutes, the line was doubling back on itself, the surrounding roads were closed and the first train had not even pulled into the station yet. Here is a pic — not a great one I admit but none of my pics that day were.
This was the road at the far back of the station -the line went up to the lights and hung a right and curled down that street and into the station where it joined the real early birds.
By about 8:30 am, it was clear we wee not getting on a train any time soo as we had not budged and the first train was gone. We finally decided to Uber in and it was the best decision. The traffic was light but as soon as we got near the back end of The Capitol throngs of people were streaming down the street toward it. On the way, even some of the statues were festooned.
The hat gives it a certain flair don’t you think?
Finally, we got to the rally point and it was insanely packed. I entered from behind the Capitol so never managed to get a good handle or view of the greater crowd but I can tell you I have never been around that many people at once — EVER! Everyone was in a good mood, energized and righteously angry. The only time it got dicey was when the march time came and went. People were getting impatient and as no one had access to the internet, updates from the organizers or could even hear anything from the stage. The crowd started chanting “lets march now” and finally, there must have been some signal because we did. We did not however follow the marching route because there was just too many of us -we filled the surrounding streets and Mall instead. Protesters were everywhere. It was awesome!!!! Here are a few more pics — there are not many as I was too short to see over people’s heads.
People were climbing all sorts of structures.
Red is the new White!!!
One of my Favs.
A teeny, tiny fraction of marchers.
Note the pink sign.
Orange is the New (Im)Peach.
Unhappy but Happy People Everywhere.
Nasty Women Represent!
Unions Represent.
I just loved the signs.
.Thanks to all the men who joined the March.
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So are you wondering about all those signs? Here is a cool story.
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Liking this guy more than ever…
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So now the Women’s March is over ...lets hope it is followed up with more marches and more critically — on the ground action. For now, although I am physically exhausted from the weekend, I’m mentally fired up and ready to go and get involved in local politics.
So in other big news.
It literally makes me ill to see him sitting there.
Seems that Trump picks are ok with some lawmakers...you know who you are!!!
Some lawmakers are not ok with it.
The page can probably be found with the Spanish language version of whitehouse.gov.
This is so wrong.
This is even more wrong….not a woman to be seen.
Understatements R Us.
Can we hope that the media is going to get off its collective duff and start actually reporting the truth?
So that's all there is from me today. Happy chatting all.