Who makes your signs?

 

'

May 30th 2026

Although the incision is long, running from the lower part of my skull to a point between my shoulder blades, it doesn’t really hurt anymore. The pain that’s left is from the muscles being disrupted during the surgery, creating spasms. Flexeril works pretty well for that but you have to take it three times a day and the pain breaks through when it wears off.

Today was an Impeach, Convict, Remove demonstration at Trump Tower. One hour standing still holding a sign seemed manageable.  It was 60 degrees and sunny when I left Brooklyn, fine for a long-sleeved shirt and sandals, but by the time I got to midtown it was extremely windy, and the people waiting to start the action were trying to stay warm.  The police are used to us by now so just one community affairs officer wandered over to talk to Jamie, mostly about his 12 hour shift and all the security preparations for the Salute to Israel parade tomorrow. After complaining for a while he asked “how long are you going to be here?” Assured that it was just an hour, he wandered off.

Although some of our people are over at  Delaney Hall in NJ trying to defend the hunger striking detainees from being moved, facing violence, tear gas, and an LRAD (a military grade sonic weapon), we still had a good turnout at Trump Tower, covering most of the block standing side by side with our signs.  The vast majority of the reactions were supportive, with people giving thumbs ups or raising a fist in the air. Everything from City buses to guys on scooters were honking in support.  

We were halfway done when a young white man in a blue dress shirt suddenly appeared and got in the face of the tall man standing next to me.  “Who makes your signs?” He yelled as though professionally printed signs make our protest less authentic. In fact, printing signs and banners is one of Ride and Resist’s main expenses, covered by donations and merchandise sales. “It’s only old people out here!” The guy yelled, having gotten no response to his sign question. The guy next to me continued to ignore him, so he moved on to me. “You people are all unemployed!” He yelled at me, which didn’t make sense since it was a Saturday afternoon, and also because many people in the group are obviously old enough to be retirees. But also, what difference does it make? And if we are being paid by Soros, as they often assert, wouldn’t that make us employed by him?  There is no use in trying to make these guys make sense, so I just concentrated on the people across the street until he suddenly seemed to realize that screaming at a small woman in a neck brace was maybe not the best visual and backed up, where he was quickly intercepted by Jamie and Matthew in marshal mode.

Towards the end I was approached by one of the RAR stalwarts, who told me she had a tumor in almost the same place as mine, which struck me as a really unlikely coincidence since these tumors are very rare, on the order of .5 per 100,000 people.  She met with a surgeon, but is hesitant because she is quite a bit older than I am, and afraid of waking up paralyzed. I was too, but Dr M made me feel confident enough to do it, so I offered to send her his information. Her tumor is different than mine- its calcified and not growing, so not doing the surgery is much more of an option than it was for me, but it is putting pressure on her spinal cord.

I can tell I am out of practice at being out in the world because I got on the R train and slept all the way to Sunset Park where we have to switch to a shuttle bus all weekend. Then I got home, ate lunch, and woke up at 6pm in a pile of napping cats.