Civility and the Yellow Quilt

Okay, civility is in no way tied to the yellow quilt - I just want to clear that up from the get go. The yellow quilt has nothing at all to do with civility or the lack thereof, but both these things have been in the forefront of my mind for some time.
I am reading P.M. Forni's The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude after dabbling in his earlier work Choosing Civility and finding it somewhat lacking. Perhaps it's part of the aging process, but I find myself growing increasingly weary of the horrendous lack of manners and civility in the people I encounter daily and in the world in general. Manners really are the social lubricant: they make every person-to-person encounter pleasant regardless of whether or not you like or agree with the other.
I work at an animal clinic and meet new people everyday and I am flabbergasted at the lack of consideration, restraint, and manners prevalent in people of all types and ages. I've seen a man in his 60s sit in the waiting room with his pinky up his nose, and another man the same age take out a pair of nail clippers and trim his nails. Just the other day a man in his twenties came in to have his dog neutered and he said in a loud voice, "can you tell me again why it's good to have my dog's b*lls cut off?" Hoping he was simply ignorant and not a jackass, I replied, "you mean have him neutered?" He laughed, and said yes. Luckily, there was no one else in the waiting room, which wasn't the case the next day when he came to pick his pup up. The place was crowded with women of all ages (sometimes that's just the way it is - women tend to bring pets in and pick them up more often than men). When this man's dog was brought to him, the puppy was so happy and wriggling around tail wagging and this guy shouts out, "What are you doing? You just had your b*lls cut off!" Turns out he was a jackass and not ignorant.
And this behaviour isn't limited to men.
And this little rant doesn't even touch on basic manners - saying please and thank you, holding a door open for the person behind, lining up at the back of the line instead of sneaking or pushing in front of others. Ah, the list goes on and on. What to do? What to say when encountering this jackassery? I'm hoping P.M. Forni will enlighten me.

On to the yellow quilt. Well, I guess I sort of lied when I said I'd show you peeks at how the back was coming along. I haven't put the back together, although I do plan to do so today, but I have finished one big part of it. Like my mum before me, I brought my daughter up to believe in some of the unseen things and she and I both have had many experiences with unseen things including the human energy field and the sharing of energy between a couple or a group of people. It's really quite amazing sometimes the lives we lead on an energetic level and how unaware we can be of them. I have taken Reiki classes and have experienced energy coming from my hands and from the hands of others, and this is a fairly commonly-held belief - that energy comes from our hands - and one that has been around for thousands of years. So I included this in the back of the quilt in the form of applique:

The fabric I used for the hands is a lovely batik and I thought it was perfect. The concentric rectangles tie into the spirals in the other background fabric which also relate to chakras/energy and the idea that energy at the chakra points spins like a tornado.

You can barely see it in the photo below, but I hand-stitched around the inside of each hand in gold embroidery thread. I found this difficult thread to work with as it kept bunching up. For the second hand I switched to gold metallic machine thread which worked much better. I also used this thread to sew in a three stars.

I embroidered on two spirals and this was the first time I have ever tried doing so. I like the way the second one (upper right) turned out, but the first one's okay too. This is the first one,

And this is the second

And finally, I added a spider and web. This after learning on the quilt embellishers' online group that they represent good fortune/luck. Plus I like spiders. I know that's quirky, I know most people don't like spiders, but really, they're great. They eat up all the other bugs that I don't want in my home and I appreciate that.

So, today I'll sew this piece onto some large strips of the pink backing fabric and put the whole thing together in readiness for quilting. I'm thinking that I will quilt most of it just following the blocks on the front, except for where the hands are and there I will quilt the hands so it shows through on the front. We'll see.

Until then, keep your foot on the dogs!