Even though the ship may go down, the journey goes on. ~ Margaret Mead Yesterday's Entries 2000: Rosie vs. the Giants
TODAY's FOOD Breakfast:
Special K and Toast CURRENTLY READING A Walk in the Woods (I'm still reading at Clinton's book, but I'll just post when/if I finish it rather than keep it on here every day!) TODAY on TV Jeopardy, of course!
Check a Sheila Video
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GLASS HALF EMPTY 15 July 2004 I’m a glass half full kinda person going through a glass half empty kinda day. I wish I could say "I am upset because....." and give you a concrete reason. Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe it’s wanting to watch Sheila sailing over the grass again instead of dragging me along trying to get free. Maybe it’s starting a new feature article for the newspaper (a job I alternately love and hate...I like having done it; I go through the tortures of the damned trying to figure out who I want to interview and hoping I get all of the questions right). Maybe it’s the endless transcription. Maybe it’s all sorts of things. In truth, it’s nothing specific; it just is. I went to Woodland this afternoon to pick up a new vacuum cleaner to replace the one that died two days ago. I also splurged and got a new lampshade for the lamp in the family room, which has been tattered for years. I shoulda been jazzed to have new toys to play with. Maybe my problem is I listen to talk radio when I drive around town. Maybe I should go back to Beethoven. Or John Denver. Or Steve. On the way to the mall, I was listening to people calling in ranting and raving against gay marriage. The moderator of the talk show was against the Constitutional amendment, but caller after caller talked about "unnatural" things and "preserving the sanctity of marriage." I wanted to shout at the radio. It reminds me of the days when I used to listen to Dr. Laura when I went on long trips (going down the valley from Sacramento to LA it seems that you can pick up Dr. Laura in every radio area) she’s great for shouting at the radio and great for keeping the adrenalin pumping, and thus keeping you awake. I wanted to present scenarios to the guy who said he didn’t see what the big deal is. Here’s the scenario (imaginary, but possible). Two women commit to each other and decide to raise a family. So the child(ren) will belong to both, the egg of one is fertilized and implanted in the body of the other. Then when the kid(s) are, say, about junior high age, having lived a happy life with both mothers, the birth mother dies suddenly. Her parents, who have rejected the couple, swoop down and gather up the children, who are the result of the survivor’s eggs, and take them off, forbidding the survivor from seeing her children again. Legally this could happy. Gay marriage, in addition to everything else, protects the children of gay unions, in instances of death, divorce/break-up, or inheritance. (I think that’s one aspect of gay marriage I’ve never addressed in this journal before) The gay marriage debate was still going on when I got to Target. I did some shop therapy and was able to forget the outside world for a bit. When I got back in the car, there was a public service announcement about signing up for environmental hazard alerts, before we returned to the program which was now discussing the war in Iraq. It got me to thinking about old people I know who have died recently. Thinking back over their lives and thinking of being able to look back and realize you’ve seen the invention of the telephone, the automobile, the airplane, television, moving pictures, peanut butter cups; that you’ve watched man go into space, you saw the dawn of the computer age, and that you could be very excited about the changes that have happened in your lifetime. I’ve been fortunate to witness some of those things, but I now live in an age where the skies are brown more often than they are blue. Where we have to wear sunscreen at all times because we’ve destroyed the ozone layer and melanoma is one of the fastest growing cancers. Where cancer itself is on the rise and logic tells you that it has to be at least in great part because of all the fiddling around we’ve been doing with chemical alteration of the foods we put in our body. Where vast areas of national forest that had been off limits to logging and mining would be opened up under a new plan proposed by the Bush administration. I think of how proud we have been in this country that we are the land of the free, and it saddens me to see how many people willingly give up all sorts of freedoms in the name of "combatting terrorism." It saddens me that our country is hated worldwide. We had a note from one of our favorite Brasilians yesterday -- my "Brasilian brother," Nelson. It was actually written a year and a half ago and, in typical Brasilian fashion, he just got around to mailing it. In this letter he was hoping that the war in Iraq would not start. He says "the world needs peace, understanding, compassion, flexibility, love, capacity to understand and accept differences in cultures, religion and monetary ways of living....that’s why I have always loved you Sykes. You have it all together. Unfortunately Bush doesn’t have any one." So I’m depressed about the world in which I live. I may take Sheila out to the drainage channel tomorrow after all. There’s something that lifts my spirits watching her unrestrained joy, even when she does run away from me. And I’m very happy I lived to see the invention of peanut butter cups. |
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I was playing around with a bike picture (left) today and came up with
the photo at the right. |
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For more photos, please visit My Fotolog and My FoodLog |
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Created 7/14/04
