The Show and Torture

During our walk, Susan mentioned the pool closing party next month and said tickets were being sold for the last time on the eighteenth, yesterday.  Went to the clubhouse after breakfast, saw a few neighbors at their Stitch and Bitch meeting (they're all knitters, quilters, sewers, etc.), chatted and found out that yesterday was...
...yes, the nineteenth.  However, Jack D., activities chair, happened to come in and said, yeah, yeah, you can come, but this time I hope your check doesn't bounce...
...he's a card.
Before I left, talked with Howard R., who had been president of our board of trustees for many years.  He's a sharp guy and he and Diana are one of the few couples that come from the Philly area rather than north Jersey; they used to go to Atlantic City every year as kids.  We discussed the woeful economic times in A.C. and agreed there's a broader situation: the whole country seems to be slipping into something different from what we had always known. No empire lasts forever and ours, we believe, is going down.
Picked Aline up and we went to The Grapevine for lunch.  They've improved, I think, and we were satisfied.  To Wal-Mart after, where we both got this and that; dropped her off about 3:30, then picked her up again at seven.
Last night was tech rehearsal, so was a bit chaotic, but the show is shaping up very well (good thing, as we open the day after tomorrow).  Also, we're now in the venue where we're having the show, always a relief.  Set looks great and is at an angle, i.e., diagonally across a corner, an imaginative innovation.  We rehearsed several songs and went over the first act. Tonight: dress (I want to work up a great costume) and a full run.
WIDER:  Following is one of the best treatises about torture I've read.  What kind of filth are we bathing in when we pass this off as excusable for ANY reason?  It's disgusting and shameful.
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/16/patriots_dont_break_laws_why_excusing_torture_is_an_american_catastrophe/