Thank you, Mark Twain -

"Loyalty to country, ALWAYS.

Loyalty to government, when it deserves it."

and George Carlin

"I do this real moron thing, and its called thinking. 

And apparently I'm not a very good American 

because I like to form my own opinions."

I have a real love/hate relationship with the 4th of July.

I used to volunteer to work in the hospital
 on the holiday 

so I could avoid 

the parade, 

the picnics,

the fireworks

and the flag draped celebrations.

The psychological trauma from the 60's - 

of branding everyone who dissented with governmental war policies as a traitor, 

along with taunts of 

"My country, love it or leave it" -

has left a bad taste in my mouth

that no amount of Bud Light or Mikes Hard lemonade

is going to take away.

And, as much as I try to distance myself from current events, 

in an attempt to keep my blood pressure down,

enough 'reality' creeps in to remind me that,

on SO many levels,

I think this country is headed in absolutely
the wrong direction.

All that being said however,

yesterday was a nearly perfect day...

the weather,

the synchronized lawn chairs routine

the music,

the classic cars,

and parties from one end of the parade route to the other.

 And, true to Camino form,

I walked both there and back...

enjoying the beauty of the homes 

within a mile of where I live -

and yet another world away!

I drew the line however at going to the Fair

for the fireworks...

there's only so much celebrating I can take -

even though I LOVED this image of it
 taken by a talented, dear friend!

Surprisingly,
for the first non-work related holiday
I've had in decades,
it was a good day!

Happy 4th, everyone!

Wage peace with your breath.
Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings
and flocks of redwing blackbirds.
Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children
and freshly mown fields.
Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.
Breathe in the fallen
and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.
Wage peace with your listening:
hearing sirens, pray loud.
Remember your tools:
flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.
Make soup.
Play music, learn the word for thank you in three languages.
Learn to knit, and make a hat.
Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.
Swim for the other side.
Wage peace.
Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious.
Have a cup of tea and rejoice.
Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Don’t wait another minute.

Mary Oliver

I KNEW it -

even if I didn't know it for sure...

ya know what I mean?

No?

Well, my neighbors homes are lovely -

yards impeccably groomed,

houses trimmed and well maintained -

all seemingly without ANY effort on their parts.

I mean, seriously, 

I never saw them working around the house on weekends
AT ALL.

Meanwhile, I schlepped and sweated -  

or didn't

and my house reflected all I did -
or didn't do.

Now that I'm retired and home during the day,

I've seen the endless array of cleaning ladies,

handymen,
lawn service staff etc

coming and going from their houses ...

just as I suspected -

they have people!

Damn...
I wish I did!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still working in the yard -
mixing up organic weed killer from Pinterest-
scanning photos -
and, ironically,
creating even MORE pictures
by participating in a July photo challenge.

So far, the prompts have been:
play:

'cause it's summer and who doesn't LOVE a road trip?

Snail eye's view:

although I was tempted to use one of these:

and
self portrait - without a face.

I loved how even the bracelets on my left arm showed up!

So much fun!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Later today,
lunch outside on a patio with a friend,
visiting a bookstore
(maybe even applying for a job there!)
and cooking in preparation for the 4th of July parade parties ...
how did I ever find time to work??

A Summer weekend in the Heartland

Quintessential Midwestern summer -

with beaches and barns,

 hot weather and hearts

filled with love of family!

All generations -

 from the 'elders',

to the in-betweeners ,

college kids 'on the cusp' of adulthood, 

breaking out on their own -

complete with girlfriends,

 and the littles -

who I don't see often enough...

How blessed I am to have a home to visit-

so different from mine -

 but as familiar as my own.

Of course, there was shopping - 

big box stores

 (shag makes a fun comeback!)

and small boutiques

 I loved the use of old wagon wheels as a rack,

 this clock - 

which would be PERFECT for Art Boys studio

(except for the price tag)

this flag made from remnants of material -

over an old chenille bedspread

 and using an old suitcase as a shelf!

And a sign -

which I think should be hung outside every church

It was terrific!

Now back to crunching numbers,

thinking about employment options,

scraping wall paper,

creating order in garden chaos

and cutting grass!

Talk about all good things coming to an end!

Don't get me wrong...

I'm committed to simplifying my life -

and getting rid of things -

and forms of things -

that no longer make sense to keep.

I just hadn't counted on how hard it is 

to shred pictures you've been hanging on to 

for 40+years!

The anxiety I have while scanning
and then shredding photos

is similar to how I felt cleaning out my mothers house 

when she went into a nursing home 

due to her dementia.

She hadn't thought or asked about her collections of

bells, 

birds, 

thimbles, 

quilts,

Toby mugs or

LPs etc 

for decades.
(yes, 'collecting' is in my DNA!)

But getting rid of them permanently, 

instead of merely storing them indefinitely at my house,

 felt like acknowledging that she never would ...

the dementia would never lift
and restore her to the woman
she had once been.

A "hard copy' of photos is the only reality 

many of us have known and trusted 

since we got our first Brownie cameras!

Digitalizing images- and accepting that 

SHOULD someone in my family care to look at them, 

they can be retrieved from the hard drive

is a tough pill to swallow.
(Not that my sons have wanted to look at them for years -
but hope springs eternal!)

On my stroll down memory lane,
I must say I'm glad I held on to
some of these handwritten gems...
anyone else remember when kids wrote thank you notes,
Valentines and
and apologies?

 do they even teach cursive anymore?

Hard to see -
but the crying man on the apology note
has a prisoner number on his chest -
24601.

I LOVED having a second grader who knew Jean Valjeans number -
(from Les Mis)
and used it appropriately...
totally mitigated whatever the infraction was -
although I don't think I told him that at the time!

So far I haven't had the heart to shred these...
that might be a bridge too far.

ps:
headed Up North for a long weekend
to celebrate more graduations -
and talk about the Camino until their eyes glaze over...

be back soon !