How we spent the 4th

 It was a nice long weekend here. We got some work done in the yard and garden, spent extra time with Marco on the porch, took George for nice walks around the neighborhood, and grilled out on Sunday. Later that night lots of our neighbors blew up fireworks, and for the first time it made George nervous. We stayed inside with him, watching tv with the volume up a bit. Downton Abbey has come to Netflix so we've been watching a few episodes every night recently.

Our 4th of July feast from the grill. Hotdogs, sausages, sweet corn (grilled in the husk), tomatoes and cucumbers from my garden, and potatoes grilled with rosemary, parsley, sea salt, and olive oil. Obviously this was enough food for two or three meals!

The ornamental pomegranate is blooming. Isn't that a lovely shade of orange? The miniature roses are finishing up a second flush of blooms, too.

We've finally harvested a couple of German Queen tomatoes.  They're meaty with a full tomato flavor and very few seeds. Definitely a variety to consider again for next year!

The Mr. Stripey tomatoes are starting to ripen. We haven't tasted this one, yet. It won't be long.

And before this month is out, we'll be eating our own cantaloupes. I'm ridiculously excited about it!
 

I hope you've all had a good weekend, too!

It's the 4th of July!

Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays of the entire year. Not that I'm all that patriotic, mind you. I do love my country, despite our many problems and faults, but I'll never be a flag waving, "love it or leave it" faux patriot. I say "faux" because denying our many big and troubling issues and our sins of the past doesn't do a damn thing to move our country forward. Real patriots, in my opinion, want to make the USA better even if that takes facing hard truths and a lot of hard work. Still.....

"America the Beautiful" gets me every time. Right in the feels.

If you're in the USA, what are your plans on this 4th of July? With the pandemic going on and lots of people staying home I imagine it will be a little different for some this year.

I went to the farm stand yesterday to pick up tomatoes, sweet corn, and various other vegetables. While I shopped I heard plenty of people talking about how they were "headed to the lake" or "headed to the beach" with their families for the next week. One man bought 6 cantaloupes, 3 watermelons, and a giant bag of green peanuts for boiling and I heard him telling someone that his whole extended family was already down at the lake at Santee and he was picking up last minute supplies before joining them. So obviously some people aren't too worried about the pandemic! I understand that big family vacations this time of year are part of the local culture, but damn. You'd think people could skip one year in the interest of keeping everyone safe!

Full disclose, though: I'm a little envious. When I was a kid, my mom's family rented a beach cottage at Cherry Grove beach for a week every July 4th. My grandma and granddaddy, mom and dad, aunt and uncle, and me and my two first cousins on that side would all be there. My granddad would bring sacks of produce from his garden, and would spend most of his time sitting in the shade just outside the cottage. He didn't much care for the actual beach (it was half a block away, within sight of the house) and he refused to ever get in the ocean. When asked why he wouldn't dip his toes in the water, at least, you know what he'd say? "With all these drunks sitting on the beach drinking beer the water is probably half piss!" Hahahaha!  Actually, he probably wasn't too far wrong. In those days, adults could sit on the beach with a cooler full of beer and no one bothered them about it. The adults in my family certainly did, and when we were at the beach even grandma might be caught sipping a little something in the evening when the sun went down. Playing in the ocean was my very favorite thing to do when we were there, piss be damned. My second favorite part of vacation was playing video games in the arcade that was right on the beach in those days. Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and my personal favorite, Centipede! This would have been in the 80s. You could buy footlong hot dogs and ice cream in the arcade if you got hungry, and there was a wooden walkway leading out the back straight onto the beach. My cousins and I spent hours there while the adults did whatever it was they did. I remember how sweet it was to fall asleep at night on cool cotton sheets with a sea breeze coming in the open windows after a long day of sun and sand and salt water. Those beach vacations around the 4th of July are some of the best memories I have of growing up. Days gone by. I thought of all that yesterday when I overheard the man talking about his family's lake house vacation.

Getting back to 2020, I'll be firing up the grill tonight after Gregg gets off work. Grilling out is essential for a proper July 4th in our house. Last night someone at a small business just down the road from our neighborhood fired off a solid 20 minutes of fireworks just after sunset. They were beautiful--we had a decent view from our back porch--and we're hoping they'll have even more tonight since today's the actual holiday. Years ago we'd sometimes buy fireworks to set off (they're legal and very available here), but they're too expensive to even be thought of these days. Plus, they scare Ginger which is almost enough to put us off them altogether. Last night I turned on the tv kind of loud for her to drown out the sound of them, and combined with her recent hearing loss, she didn't seem to notice them much. So that's good! Maybe tonight we'll get another free firework show!

So I'm off to mix up marinades for the meat and veggies I'll be grilling later, and then I'm debating about taking a friend up on her offer of going to her house to swim. She has a nice pool and we can easily keep a safe distance from each other. Gregg is working until 7 tonight so it's going to be a long, hot afternoon at home by myself if I don't go. And I haven't seen this friend in months and I miss her. So that should be a fun way to kill a couple of hours.

Happy Independence Day! Be safe, be well, and have fun.

For those who feel discouraged this Fourth of July

My friend Lunaea Weatherstone shared this on Facebook today, and I asked her permission to share it here with you all. I think it's worth reading for those of us in America (and our friends abroad) who are dismayed at the way things are going in this country under the Trump administration, and for those of us who feel conflicted about celebrating our nation's birthday tomorrow. 

*stepping carefully up onto the soapbox*

Dear friends, I’m seeing a lot of people here saying that it’s a farce to celebrate the Fourth of July, given the current state of the government and its atrocities and the deplorable people who support them. It seems to me that this is exactly the wrong attitude for this holiday. Sure, the Fourth has become mostly about fireworks and weekend sales events and what’s on the grill. A day for flag-wavers and yahoos who enjoy loud noises and how many ways you can find to decorate with red-white-and-blue.

I propose that those of us who are feeling disgust with America look back to the original point of this holiday -- the reason for the season, if you will forgive me. This is Independence Day. The day we finally said we were mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. But what EXACTLY were we rebelling against? I realized I had only a vague idea, along the lines of “oppression bad, freedom pretty.”

So I thought I’d amble over to a history site and read the Declaration of Independence all the way through. Out loud. Everyone knows the second line (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”), but nowadays we tend to hear *record scratch* after “all men are created equal” and start arguing about slavery and other very bad things. There are flaws in this document and its intentions, for sure. Farther down, there are references to Native Americans that are painful to read, knowing what we know now.

And yet, setting those things to the side just for the moment, without disavowing their importance, I invite you to read the whole thing, aloud, and see if some of this doesn’t ring a liberty bell for us, right here, right now. I’ve pulled a few relevant bits, and just for fun, I changed the villain’s name. 😎

****

The history of [President Trump] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. …

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

… He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither…

…He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people …

… cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us…

…In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A [president] whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

…And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

****
So let’s do that tomorrow. Let’s make July 4, 2018, our renewal of that mutual pledge to each other. Let’s be mindful of what the real America is. What it should be, what it can be. What it was meant to be. And let’s take it back. 🎆🎇🇺🇸️🧙‍♀️🧙‍♂️

Thank you for your kind attention.

*stepping carefully off the soapbox*

Declaration of Independence--Full text

Book club, medical stuff, and the longest week ever...

This week has seemed really, really long. It's hard to believe it's only Thursday.

Sunday was my last day off from work and my smaller book club met up at my house to discuss The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I had to confess: I didn't finish reading this book. Since I can't very well review of a book I read less than half of, here's a quick summary from Goodreads:




The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it, no paper notices plastered on lampposts and billboards. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.

Within these nocturnal black-and-white striped tents awaits an utterly unique, a feast for the senses, where one can get lost in a maze of clouds, meander through a lush garden made of ice, stare in wonderment as the tattooed contortionist folds herself into a small glass box, and become deliciously tipsy from the scents of caramel and cinnamon that waft through the air.

Welcome to Le Cirque des Rêves.

Beyond the smoke and mirrors, however, a fierce competition is under way--a contest between two young illusionists, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood to compete in a "game" to which they have been irrevocably bound by their mercurial masters. Unbeknownst to the players, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will.

As the circus travels around the world, the feats of magic gain fantastical new heights with every stop. The game is well under way and the lives of all those involved--the eccentric circus owner, the elusive contortionist, the mystical fortune-teller, and a pair of red-headed twins born backstage among them--are swept up in a wake of spells and charms.

But when Celia discovers that Marco is her adversary, they begin to think of the game not as a competition but as a wonderful collaboration. With no knowledge of how the game must end, they innocently tumble headfirst into love. A deep, passionate, and magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

Their masters still pull the strings, however, and this unforeseen occurrence forces them to intervene with dangerous consequences, leaving the lives of everyone from the performers to the patrons hanging in the balance.

Both playful and seductive, The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern's spell-casting debut, is a mesmerizing love story for the ages. 

Each chapter of The Night Circus reads like a short, interesting little vignette, so the book is easy to pick up and put down. Which is good, because since going off my anti-anxiety medication a few weeks ago I seem to have the attention span of a gnat. I've gone from easily reading a book or two a week to never finishing anything. I just can't seem to concentrate for long periods of time right now. I surely hope that this is just a temporary side effect--I don't like it at all.

Luckily for me, Marla and one other person didn't finish the book either. Our discussion was somewhat limited since only two people did finish, but we all had fun just the same. I didn't have the time or the energy for a big production this month, so everything was kind of simple. In keeping with the theme of a circus, we had circus-type snacks and beverages: corn dogs, popcorn, peanuts, salted caramel cupcakes (purchased at a fancy bakery by one of our group), cotton candy brought by Marla, and I had cooler iced down and filled with assorted hard apple ciders and hard root beers. There were five of us again, but a sixth member is coming on board next month. And lucky for me, I've already read (and love) the next book so even if my weirdo brain chemicals haven't settled down by then I'll still be prepared. (July's selection is one of my all-time favorites, Neil Gaiman's American Gods).

Then on Monday morning Gregg had his 6 month checkup with the oncologist. He was really nervous about it, more so than usual because his yearly CT scan was two weeks ago, in time for the doctor to go over any results with him. I'm thrilled to report that the scan was clear, all of his blood work was perfect, and once again my good man was pronounced perfectly healthy! What a relief that was to both of us! And once December arrives this year, Gregg will hit his 5 year mark of being cancer free and will go to only having yearly check ups with the oncologist--and barring any future problems he won't have to have any more CT scans now that he's reached this milestone!

This Christmas is going to be especially joyous. I've told Gregg that we're going to have a big, blow-out celebration this year to make up for that December 5 years ago when he got his earth-shattering diagnosis of stage 3 lung cancer on the 19th of the month--one week before Christmas. I'm sure there's no need to describe how awful that holiday was for us, or how wonderful this one 5 years later is going to be!

The week got off to a great start, and I shouldn't complain about anything. So I won't. I was going to write about my ridiculous (as usual) annual review at work, and how a couple of great coworkers (the few that there are at my awful job) have given notice and are moving on to better jobs, and how sad and apprehensive that makes me, and how I had to go back to the dentist on Tuesday for a permanent filling in the tooth that had the root canal, and so on and so forth, but suffice it to say that this has been a looooong week, and it's only Thursday. Thursday!

There's a light at the end of the tunnel, though. I have to work all weekend, but I have Monday (the Independence Day holiday) and Tuesday off. Gregg will be off on Monday too, so we'll have a little cookout and feast at home. There won't be any fireworks, though, at least not purchased by us. Our Ginger hates the sound of them and will sit in the laundry room, her face to the wall, the whole time they're going off around the neighborhood. We certainly won't be adding to her fear by buying and setting any off, but we have neighbors down the street that usually put on a decent show that we can watch from our front steps.

So as the weekend (slowly) approaches, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish my fellow Americans a very happy Fourth of July. Stay safe on the roads this weekend, and have fun! I'll catch up with you all next week.

Independence Day

Although there are a lot of things about this country I would change if I could, it's still home and I love it. Happy Birthday USA!

Happy Independence Day!

Today is yet another holiday that I won't get to celebrate thanks to my job. I work today from 1pm until 10, so there will be no cookouts and fireworks for me.

I'm not bitter. Much.

For those celebrating, please eat a hotdog and drink a beer for me! And be safe while enjoying the festivities!

Happy birthday America!