Great news, a Hotel sanctuary and more from the bus

 

 After breakfast meeting

Black marker on Moleskin paper

5 x 9 inches

Barbara Muir © 2011

(My oatmeal this morning was cold, not hot,

but even so, eating breakfast in the

room is one of my favorite pleasures of

hotel life.  I love the china, the tiny jars of

jam, the thick, old hotel silver, the breakfast

wheeled in on a cart table with an ironed

white tablecloth.  So we eat beans for the

next month for a meal of cold oatmeal,

I still think it's worth it.)

After last night's somewhat taxing trip from Toronto
on what was supposed to be a first class train, and
quickly turned into a quite uncomfortable bus (but
not the yellow school bus some of us were afraid
would be provided), I am relaxing today.

Sally Chupick who recently opened the Gallery at
the Porch Door just outside of Kingston, Ontario,
Canada was featured in the local Kingston paper,
The Whig Standard. I think Sally's a media natural
because she's so warm and kind, pretty and talented.
So she better get ready.  My name is mentioned in the article
along with all the other terrific artists she's showcasing.
Sally is the kind of person who loves people. That
makes her the ideal gallery curator.

More from the bus
After we were switched to the bus yesterday for a
long, long ride without rest stops, beverages,
anything -- I settled down to talk with my seat
mate Mike.  We talked about many things, the
legal system, politics (we shied away from that
one quickly), and finally got around to 'what do you
do?'

This lead to a conversation so engrossing that I
hardly noticed the horribly uncomfortable seat.
You know I am dead against nuclear power.  My
normal reaction to anyone raising the topic is decidedly negative.
But the atmosphere on the bus was so genial, people
were so tired, dispirited and disappointed, that
when I found out Mike worked for a government
organization that manages (among other forms of
energy) nuclear power, we delicately negotiated
an open, thorough discussion on all forms of
energy. We discussed the trouble with our over consuming
public, with storage of nuclear waste, and he told me about
exciting new developments in energy creation (not nukes).  And
when we got off the bus in Montreal we were friends.

I haven't changed my mind about nuclear power one bit,
but I am thankful to Mike for the information he gave
me on several other (clean) sources of energy.  When
Steven and I went to the hotel I said I've just met the
first person working with nuclear power that I like.
 I hear your reaction.  You're saying the poor girl is sick, and
maybe I was a bit more vulnerable, but I have to
say if peace and understanding is our objective, maybe
that's not such a bad thing. I do believe that there can be
no change without understanding.

Have a listening-to-other-points-of-view day.