“What Happened” last night

Around 6:15 pm September 27, 2017. At the Greenlight independent Bookstore in Brooklyn. Got to meet and speak with  Hillary Rodham Clinton and get a signed copy of her new book. 

Meeting Hillary Clinton

Me, all smiles after meeting HRC and making her laugh. She was so gracious, dignified and warm.

She was very gracious and spoke with all who came. I blurted out a few sentences that I can’t fully recall, as I felt quite overwhelmed seeing her again. She always looks very well-coiffed, elegant, soft, feminine and delicate in person and does not photograph as well as she looks in person.

But best of all, she cracked up and guffawed loudly when I said I’d started the page Donald Trump SHUT UP nearly 7 years back because I couldn’t stand his idiotic rants. That while I’d adored her since the ’90s, I found him utterly repulsive from even back then.

We got lucky to get in early in the line. That’s Huma standing behind me in white, while I’m speaking to HRC – in the 2nd pic. The bookstore staff did a great job to accommodate everyone despite the long lines and keep things running smoothly. Right in front of us in the queue was a tiny 4-year old girl – Grace Payton-Lafferty – dressed up in a white pantsuit and a string of pearls who stole hearts and ended up being featured in several media outlets, including a tweet by Ms. Clinton herself. When I saw little Grace in the line – where we’d been waiting for an hour and a half, I told her that I hoped in 25 years I’d see her running for office. She is too young now to understand a lot perhaps, but one of the most heartening aspects was to see how inspiring Hillary has been to little girls, raised by rational parents, many who lined up outside the bookstore to get their own signed copies of “It takes a village.” Since Grace was right ahead of us we saw Hillary herself light up, stand up and and hug the little girl.

I remembered how seeing Indira Gandhi as a little girl I’d immediately thought that a woman could hold any position she wanted to. (We won’t get into what I found out about Indira later – nothing that male politicians haven’t done themselves.) But Hillary was more qualified, capable, kind-hearted and deserving than IG, and a self-made woman from a middle-class family instead of being born into a political dynasty like IG. And yet, in this topsy-turvy world the highest post in America was denied to her, despite being ahead by more than 3 million votes. Do you think that instead of Donald & Bernie, if it was trashy Donna Trump (pic) or hysterical Bernadine Sanders (pic) running, they’d EVER have been even taken seriously, let alone get a following??!! 

What a different state we’d have been in today if even a fraction of the votes wasted on 3rd parties or by abstainers had gone to HRC (or if Huma had dumped her sick hubby a long time back so a last-minute Comey investigation/announcement was avoided…. I’m not even getting into Trumpers, BernieorBusters, etc. For that you can read my detailed houghts from last spring here – https://gipsygeek.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/the-real-revolution-hillary-clinton-elizabeth-warren/ )

Instead of this intelligent, articulate overqualified and literary woman with incredible strength, resilience and pragmatism, we now have the most disgusting, vapid, stunted “peesident” in US history – an excuse of a “man,” a scourge on the planet. 

I would rather see HRC in the White House than in a bookstore…I saw her earlier up close during her victory in the NYC primaries last spring, but this time I was able to speak to her. The woman who should have been the President. The woman who should have been the President of the United States had sanity, rationality and fairness prevailed.
#HillaryClinton #WhatHappened

Hillary Clinton 1992

Hillary Rodham Clinton: The woman who should have been President

i colori brillanti di Burano

Out in the Venetian Lagoon, around 4 miles north of Venezia,  lies the tiny island of Burano or rather the archipelago of four islands connected by bridges, with a population of just over 2,500 people.

While the nearby island of Murano is known for its centuries’ old glass-making craft, Burano boasts a reputation for lace-making. But the more fascinating feature of this little Italian island is the vivid vibrant colors of its brightly painted houses. 

The buoyant, brilliant colors of Burano seem straight out of a surrealist painter’s dream. Certainly, every proverbial crayon in the box has had a chance to shine here!

Here are a few from many photos I took during my last trip there a short while back. These are untouched and unfiltered and only two have been mildly rotated to straighten them. Like most places in Italy, Burano is yet another effortlessly photogenic one.

The hues of Fall will soon descend in the northern hemisphere as another September seeps in today. Here’re some more colors to warm up the cooler seasons.

(Click on any photo to start the slideshow but please do not download. These are for viewing purposes only. If you need to use a photo please email me at gipsygeek at gmail dot com for permission.)