Someone had been in the bathroom just before me. It's a shared house. Three guys, one toilet, so sometimes there's a stink. And even without seeing who'd shat there before me, there was zero doubt who it was. I could swear an oath and testify in court.

Robert eats almost nothing but fried potatoes, eggs, and vegetarian sausage; he usually cooks one helping for himself in the morning and another in the evening, and his afterpoop bouquet carries hints of breakfast, greasy but familiar.

Dean cooks and eats more esoterically, so his afterpoop smells of almost anything else — onions, chili peppers, the deeper musk of meats and sauces. There's simply no mistaking either scent for the other.

It was Robert.

There's a new movie now playing, called Till, about the civil rights work of Emmett Till's mother, after her son was murdered by racist assholes in Mississippi. It might be a movie I'd be interested in, but what makes me hesitate is who's telling me I should see it.

First, my very Christian mother — who to my knowledge hasn't seen a movie in a theater since the 1960s — brought up Till, said she's going to see it, and invited me to see it with her, at a theater.

A week later, my very Christian brother Clay, who sees mostly 'Christian' movies with an occasional Marvel movie for fun, offered the same invitation. He even offered to drive.

Third in line, and most bizarre, an old semi-friend from my 20s emailed the same invitation to me. He's someone I've barely seen over the past 40 years, and all I know about his present life is that he's an elder of his church.

All this makes me pretty sure that Till is being actively promoted within Christian churches, as part of the movie's marketing plan. It will either have a come-to-Christ scene, or coming to Christ will be the underlying essence of the film.

Which removes all of my interest in ever seeing Till.

The family breakfast yesterday drew a crowd — Mom and my sister Katrina, my nephew George and his wife, and my sister's friend, Adelle. We're all old and hard of hearing, so the conversations were loud, but it was a nice time, with only one weird moment.

First, some background: My brother Clay has two adult sons, who grew up over the many years I was away, so I don't really know them. When Mom shows me pictures, I'm still not sure which nephew is which, but one of them is married to an anti-vaxxer.

They're college graduates who believe in Jesus, but don't believe in science. They have two children, about 8 and 6, who are being home-schooled because they've never had shots.

The news from yesterday is, they've decided to adopt a third child. No agency will allow anti-vaxxers to adopt, so they're planning to move their whole family to South America, establish residency, and adopt a baby there.

"They were already nuts," I said, "and now they're going to be expatriate nuts." I asked if they're going to stay in South America and raise their family there, or are they hoping to come back to America after the adoption?

Mom wouldn't answer my question. I asked four times, and she was wearing her hearing aid, yet she changed the subject every time. I'm guessing that means they're not coming back, and she can't bear to see them leave.

I can bear it. Nothing about the anti-vax wing of the family doesn't make me want to retch, and whether they live in Seattle or Guyana, I have no need to know that woman or her husband. I don't hang out with the intentionally stupid.

After breakfast, all six of us went to Hazel's nursing home for a brief visit. Mom and Katrina try to visit Hazel monthly, but this was only the fourth time I'd been there, since returning to Seattle seven months ago.

When Hazel talks, it's hard to understand what she's saying. And I don't know what to say to her. Can't really ask what's new, because nothing's new — she's been in the nursing home for 40 years. And yesterday she was watching a Hallmark movie and didn't want to turn it off, so nobody said much until the commercials.

She's my sister, and I don't know her at all any more. Haven't known her since I was a kid, and I never will, because it's impossible to know her.

Well, that was lots of bleakness, but here's a happy ending.

After breakfast with the family, and after visiting Hazel at the home, I came back to my recliner and had a lovely afternoon and evening watching old movies.

And now, the news you need,
whether you know it or not

• Adobe products used by designers will no longer include thousands of colors made by Pantone

Rich and powerful fly private jets to sushi and caviar climate gabfest

And it never stops, never stops, never stops...

• Report shows Los Angeles Sheriff's Department wastes most of its time hassling minorities

And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops...

• Spokanites have been weirded out by non-official door-to-door "voter research" volunteers

And it never stops, never stops, never stops...
Links I liked

• What we can learn from fifty years of anti-abortion propaganda

Caution: Long, and contains heavy thinking.

• The Right thinks publishers have no right not to publish the Right

• Chess against the grandmasters

Using a large database of all the recorded games played by seven grandmasters, the site's software inserts a given GM's next move at every point during your game. I've already lost badly to Naroditsky, twice, but I'm going to get that bastard next time.

• Go inside the Great Pyramids of Giza

It's cool indeed, but always I've wondered… where are the haphazard, disappointing, and less-than-great pyramids of Giza?

• White Noise Generator

• Hanford turns its nuclear past into a tourist destination

• Alien hand syndrome

• Pyroflatulence

♦ ♦ ♦

♫♬ Mix tape of my mind ♫

• "Back in the Closet Again" by Lavender Country

• "Forever Young" by Rod Stewart

• "Proud Mary" by Creedence

♦ ♦ ♦

The End

• Patrick Haggerty

• Paul Morantz

• Roz Wyman

11/6/2022
Tip 'o the hat to Linden Arden, ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Captain Hampockets, CaptCreate's Log, John the Basket, LiarTownUSA, Meme City, National Zero, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anyone else whose work I've stolen without saying thanks.
Extra special thanks to Becky Jo, Name Withheld, Dave S, Wynn Bruce, and always Stephanie...