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General : Happy Holiday!
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From: juds  (Original Message)Sent: 7/4/2008 4:27 PM
Happy 4th of July to all the Yanks!  You know, the doodle dandy type. 
 
I am spending the holiday doing as little as possible, trying to get as close to doing absolutely nothing at all.  So far, so good.  I have managed to stay in my jammies.  I have fed and medicated the cats according to their needs.  I've not yet fed myself because I cannot decide between a healthy (for this easily distracted, when it comes to food, diabetic) breakfast and one of french toast, which I do actually make in a quite healthy version, but gosh, all that yummy custardy stuff.  Even after I make that crucial decision, I think that fresh jammies will take me through hours and hours, at least until it is time to go out to the patio and spend the remainder of the day reading, watching the birds and eating the first decent cherries of the season, washed down with plenty of Diet Rite.
 
I don't know about the rest of you, but I have been struggling, mightily with what it means for me to be a citizen, of my community, my country and the world. 
 
On this American holiday that celebrates independence, to be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure what independence means any more.  The people from whom we wrenched our independence are now our best friends.  As a country, we have more enemies in the world than we can count.  How the heck did we allow this to happen?  What kind of miserable, apathetic so-and-so's are we that we allow, even facilitate having our leaders make the kind of decisions that have brought us to this sorry condition?  Large questions, even greater answers are needed to help me understand. 
 
You know, I try to be a good citizen, member of my society.  I inform myself about the issues and circumstances and cast the best vote that I can.  I don't litter.  I recycle, I reduce and reuse.  I avoid using chemicals on my lawn, and mow with a person-powered mower.  I live in a modest home and have fairly modest needs.  I don't make huge demands on the environment or the economy.  Well, except for my Saturday mornings coffee meets with my friends.
 
I am a good, faithful, competent and honest employee, and even though I haven't been working as much as my boss would like, yesterday, when I went to the store to pick up my paycheck, she called me 'baby'.  Not much, I guess, and probably a bit too familiar of a name for most places of business, but very appropriate for the relationship that I have with her.  I can frequently be a considerable pain in the behind to her because of my insistance in doing the best thing for our customers (which too often does not follow the truly dumb stuff that our corporate doofuses want us to do, instead of giving good customer service, but that is a different story), but she still likes me.  A lot.  And, for that I am very grateful.  It is nice to be able to have differences of opinion in your work and avoid having it affect the relationship.  Very civil, don't you think.
 
I have good family and friend relationships.  I am generous and supportive.  I volunteer whenever I am able.  I really try to live low on the food chain, as it were.  Closer to the earth, small footprint, all that jazz.  And, I know that most people do all the same things, have the same issues and are doing the best that they can in their situations and circumstances.  With all of that effort, how is it that we are still going to hades in a berry basket?  Or hand basket or whatever the heck it is.
 
In the U.S., we are in the midst of what is surely going to be a messy and unkind presidential election.  It seems that there hasn't ever been any other kind, although it would be nice if some candidate or candidates broke tradition and stuck to the issues and left personal attacks out of the process.  We have an African-American candidate this time, and have already seen the emergence of all the 'closet' bigots, making it extremely difficult to listen to some the political talkers and pundits.  I have been shocked and hurt by some of the racist and prejudicial comments, remarks and statements that I have heard from people that I never suspected would harbor such sentiments, much less actually speak them.  Stunning and heartbreaking for this to happen.  I'm not sure that civility ever was a component of politics, but my little pacifest heart certainly yearns for it.  Civility seems to have "left the building" in most aspects of our daily, public lives anyway.  How the heck did we allow that to happen?
 
Well, I don't know where all that came from...I only wanted to pop on here and wish everyone a nice holiday. 
 
Anyway, I had better get some food into me before I create too much havoc with my blood glucose level.  I think that the french toast is a clear winner, although it is not going to be brunch instead of breakfast.  Hmmm...I wonder I am supposed to be calling it freedom toast?
 
So, go out, or stay in, and have a nice weekend.  Spend time with the people you like (at can at least bear to be with for a few hours!!!).  Have some good food and drink.  Put on sunscreen and bug repellant.  Enjoy the fireworks, if you have them, and try not to singe your fingers with your sparklers.  Here are a couple of images that I made for you.
 


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