Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: My Story Part 131

Thursday, August 23, 2012

My Story Part 131 – Staycation


Ebenezer Avery House - Fort Griswold

Fort Griswold - Water Battery

Last Wednesday, two friends and I went down to Mystic Aquarium for the day. I took the library’s aquarium pass out for the day and we all piled into my car and headed down to the shore. Unfortunately, when we got there, there were about a hundred people in line and we decided not to fight the crowd. So we went next door to “Ole Mystic Village” and wandered around the stores looking at the high priced tourist merchandise. We quickly got bored with that and I suggested going over to Fort Griswold state park in Groton. Afterward we went over to Niantic for a late lunch and a little place called “The Dock.” It was what you would call a “clam shack.” It was a little shack about 20 feet by 15 feet with a tent covered eating area overlooking the harbor.

One of my friends has just transitioned and this was the first time she had been out someplace besides shopping and dining out. When I was first going out I use to just limit my trips to LGBT friendly places, we used the phrase “Trannytized” meaning other trans-people had going there before and it was a safe place to visit. The support group actually had a list of places on our website of trans-friendly places, but we dropped the list when someone visited one of the places and got harassed and they blamed us for listing the place, so we took the list down.

Before I transitioned I didn’t like to go into places that I hadn’t gone to before and after I transitioned that didn’t change. I use to joke that I had a pick-up truck rule; the more pick-up trucks parked at a bar the less likely I would go in and a gun rack in the back window counted as three pick-up trucks (I know, there are a lot of people out there who are open minded out there and own pick-up trucks. But there are a lot of pick-up truck owners who are conservative.).

Overtime I started to realize that almost everywhere was safe and I started to go to museums and other public places. One of the first places that I went was to visit the Mystic Aquarium in 2007. Another touristy place that I visited was the mansions in Newport RI in 2008. Then last year I went to Old Sturbridge Village

On my list of Staycations that I want to visit are the Essex Steam Train and the Mystic Seaport. Also the Naugatuck Railroad fall foliage trip and a tour of the Connecticut wineries.

2 comments:

Unknown8/27/12, 9:52 AM
Have you ever been to the antique radio museum in the Windsor area?
ReplyDelete
Replies
Diana_CT8/27/12, 10:03 AM
No, but I have been to the ARRL museum a long, long time ago.

Have you been there, how was it?
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers