July 6, 2022 ~ Wednesday afternoon (82 lovely degrees/sun with puffy clouds)
I’ve started this post in my head half a dozen times in the last two weeks. One day it was about something … the next day it was about something else … and today, I can’t remember anything that seemed worthy of writing about.
I’m blaming my frizzled brain cells on the Colorado heat (too many high-90 degree days w/10% humidity)/dust/intense sun … the altitude that fogged my brain … and the antibios that made me feel worse not better.
The 4th was this past weekend … on the upside I watched Yankee Doodle Dandy starring James Cagney. I’ve seen it before but it was fabulous (again) and made me want to get new tap shoes. That guy could dance! Move over Fred and Gene! Movies were movies in 1942! On the downside, my new neighborhood was like a war zone on Saturday night. Why are pop-up firework sellers able to sell illegal fireworks? We all know people will shoot them off! Annie was so terrorized (the dog that hears very little) that she was climbing onto the chaise with me at 11pm and tucking her head under my arm. If there was room in my pajamas for her to climb into, she would have! Poor baby. What are people thinking? Aren’t there enough vets out there with PTSD for others to think that maybe firing off 112 pounds of explosives might not be a good thing?
Don’t get me started on what the people of this country are thinking … banning abortion rights, enacting voter suppression laws, loosening gun regulations. God forbid any 20 year old (or anyone) should have to have a background check before purchasing an AR-15 rifle – a gun whose bullets travel three times faster than a typical hand gun. It is a semi-automatic. Not something you’d go quail hunting with unless you just wanted feathers. This destroys anything it hits – it rips apart flesh and organs rendering whomever/whatever is hit with irreparable damage. This gun’s sole purpose is for shooting PEOPLE. No one needs this gun. And yet, gun regulations are relaxing. And here we are with yet other mass shooting. Highland Park, IL isn’t too far from where I grew up … a beautiful area – north of Chicago/right on the lake, big trees, old homes, a quiet/lovely town. Sickening. There have been 314 mass shootings THIS YEAR … so far. What the hell are we waiting for?
Pro-gun advocates cite and defend the 2nd Amendment. I don’t buy it. Too bad the writers of the constitution were talking about muskets and single shot weapons … about defending their homes and families and not about the abuse and recklessness that is now associated with this ideology. No one at that time could have foretold how far things would go in this country some two hundred plus years later. I can only imagine how dismayed and disgusted they would be that their words were taken at the initial level and not including current-day common sense, intelligent thinking or codas.
SOMETHING has to change. Not much is happening to quell or stop these incidents. It’s time for us to ACT. I don’t know how – but I think voting is a good start.
If that doesn’t work … Portugal is looking better and better.
Every 4th I think I’m going to read the Declaration of Independence. And, except for a handful of years, I have not done so. But, the week isn’t over and I still think I’d like to do that.
I had someone ask me last week, if I could go back in time, what career path would I now choose? Good question. I’m one of those people who could never do just ONE thing for my lifetime … well, except for being a mom. What careers would I have done? Or maybe, what SHOULD I have done? So many options in the Land of the Free.
I always think I haven’t used my brain power as much as I should have. I pretty much messed up my body in a fall in high school – so, anything physical would have been out of the question … but my brain power hasn’t been tapped enough. I love animals … and at one time I wanted to be a vet. But, I don’t do well with body fluids (of any kind) and so, that was not to be. BUT … perhaps some sort of research would have been a good choice. At the time I was in college I didn’t know what my options were.
I would have made a good private eye … again, I have good research skills and am a stickler for detail. I’m a puzzle solver. Maybe one of those Fed code breakers would have been a good option.
For a long time I wanted to work at the UN … not as a translator but as a tour guide. I love museums and tours, old buildings, educating people. Maybe I should have been an historian. (Job options akin to having a degree in Russian poetry.)
I’ve always loved to write … and (yet) I’ve still got all those kid/pug/fairytale books in my head! I also have an eagle-eye and love the editorial process and the written word – perhaps I should have done more editorial work?
I thought journalism would be fun until I realized I wasn’t willing to put in the hours (on call for a fire alarm at 3am) or covering the local Jam Making/Canning Contest – stuff I didn’t care a whiff about.
Had I the talent, perhaps I would have been a stand-up comedienne or a country singer!
I don’t know what I would have done … I just know I loved my oil and gas job and all my years in sales. And I’d do the mom-thing all over again, if given that chance. That was so much fun!
So, yes, a thought-provoking/good question which led me back to the issue of Freedom and the 4th. We are afforded such limitless freedoms (sometimes too much) in this country. Why aren’t people (generally speaking) nicer, better, happier, more helpful, and more educated? I just don’t get it. It is one of those things I find myself pondering when I’m sitting on the porch reading or when in the shower and my mind wanders.
In the wake of recent political and national news and continued Covid infections … I hope you take the time in the next month or so to determine if you are not happy with the direction this country is taking; and if not, that you decide to take some action. That is how we change things … it is one of our basic freedoms.
And, finally … I am feeling better. It’s been six weeks since I arrived here in CO. I’ve been sicker than a dog for almost five of them. Between the air quality/pollen/altitude issues/dust/unpacking/sheer exhaustion/and heat I managed to whip up a good dual ear and sinus infection. So, aside from still not hearing anything – I am (finally) feeling more human and better/good.
Wishing you well and good thinking.