Whatcha doing today?

I spent the morning at the farmer's market buying strawberries and cherries. Then I helped my sister ready the house for my nephew's birthday party. We had a water fight, ate hamburgers and then they set off fireworks. I went home and laid on the couch with my husband and listened to Opeth, Black Tide and Kalmah.
This year the dog didn't freak out over the fireworks because he was cuddled with the kittens. It was a lovely day!

p.s. I did it all in high heels too!

My daughter and I attended Anime Expo at the LA convention center. It was four days where 20-30k anime fans of multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-gendered/orientations get to just be themselves.

Even if the majority of these people feel social pressure to conform in day to day life, it's nice to see them completely be themselves for a few days. Kind of a big experiment in freedom of expression.

I've spent the past couple of days under the influence of alcohol and marijuana.
As a Canadian that lives on his home soil, I lament the fact that the Liberals, who were so close to decriminalizing marijuana, stole public money, leading to a Conservative minority government and the death of that same decriminalization legislation (but not without a LOT of pressure from the US government).
C'est la vie!

(sigh)
Listened to the Declaration. Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but I liked the earlier versions. For one thing, I think Renee Montaigne pulled rank on Carl Kassel to take the "We hold these thuths" part. And red Barber is no longer posthumiously reading. And I liked how Baxter Black was STILL ticked off at the Brits. And finally the earlier music (of which I have forgot the name, sorry) was better--quiet, compelling, restrained power.

Just to let people know you can hear the NPR annual reading of the Declaration of Independence here. You can also buy a copy to listen to whenever you want in the NPR Shop.

I had a quiet day - worked on some gifts (including a chemo hat for a kid who's an FSU fan), visited with friends in the evening. It was pretty rainy in CT so the fireworks were iffy, and moreso today for the towns that do them on the Saturday.

I also heard someone give a talk in which he said that the name "Wall Street" comes from a real wall, but not a defensive one; according to him, it was actually a wall built to separate the first Jewish settlers to the New Amsterdam colony from the main body until Peter Stuyvesant received instructions on hot they should be treated. The speaker said that the board of the Dutch company that was supporting the colony, many of whom were Jewish, ordered him to remove the wall and admit the Jews with full rights of citizenship.

I guess that's appropriate for a country that was invaded in large part because of religious intolerance in the home countries of the invaders. Coming back to the Declaration of Independence, both it and the Consitution focused on governance and management of the colonies and nation. It took until the Bill of Rights for anybody to address religion in any way; pity they didn't re-emphasize that one of the inherent freedoms implied in the Declaration of Independence's opening statement was the right to practice one's beliefs as one chooses. And pity that many people don't seem to understand that if the government can't stop someone from practicing their beliefs as they will, individuals shouldn't either.

< / soapbox> Sorry if I got a bit carried away.

We woke up a little earlier than normal to go to Happy's, the local flea market. I bought four more Hawaiian shirts for $.50 each, and they might even fit if I lose 10 lbs or so.

Then we went to the movies and saw "Wanted", which I thought would be a lot worse than it actually was. Despite completely ignoring physics, or even logic, it was an entertaining movie.

Then we went to Goodwill to pick up some more cheap clothing (the wife goes through t-shirt at her job pretty quickly, so she doesn't like to pay retail for new ones that are just going to be worn out in a couple of months.)

Now we're watching stuff we Tivo'd while I continue setting up my new laptop (it's a MacBook Pro that will be dual booting into Windows XP Pro, my preferred OS, as well as OS X 10.5, which will be fun to play with.) I love getting a new toy, and enjoy the process of setting up a new computer while at the same time hate the process of setting up a new computer. Copying the documents isn't too bad, but reinstalling all the software and reconfiguring everything can be a pain. It's more joy than pain for me, and I do get the benefit of getting to start fresh, but it's time consuming and sometimes tedious.

Rob Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.

Working at the newspaper. My patriotic contribution here is the headline for a story about immigrants taking the citizenship oath in a ceremony which took place this morning: "Sworn on the Fourth of July."

God, newspaper editors are so droll.

...

While you celebrate, just remember that, to dogs, this is the National Day of Blind Fear. Which makes me curious: Who's got a good story about things dogs have done to escape fireworks or thunder?

My best ones involve Molly, the dog of some friends who was known to burst through barbed-wire fences and swim rivers to escape thunder. Her most legendary was the time she got into the UPS truck and cowered in the back for hours as he drove around doing his deliveries. He finally found her there at the end of his route.

There's not a whole lot going on at my place today. I'm just at home spending time with my husband. My family got some bad news from doctors earlier today, and I'm just letting that sink in.

Cut the grass.
Gave blood.
Read some of a book.
Surfing the web (obviously).
Going to two cookouts this afternoon/evening.
I plan to end the day by stumbling home slamhammered (been a tough week).

I got up early and worked in the yard for a couple hours until the heat got too bad to stand. Now I think I just might do a bit of blogging. Stardust has a post up asking what patriotism means to her readers, and I think it might be worth a post.

My wife is off looking at art galleries, my daughter's working till 1:30. I'll continue reading the play I'm reading. This afternoon, provided it doesn't rain, we'll go downtown (Annapolis) and watch the parade, then walk down to the dock area and eat at the restaurant we've eaten at the past two years, watch the fireworks, and go home. Having been raised in the army, I can be quite snarky about hometown parades, where everybody shuffles along. We have the advantage of being home to the Naval Academy, so their band usually leads things off and at least they know how to march.

I didn't know NPR read the declaration. I'll go dig it off the shelf and read it, then I'll probably go read another section in Howard Zinn's Voice of the people's history of the United States, just to remind myself of how much of a constant struggle it is to hang onto the hopes of the declaration and the constitution in the face of all the contradictions that have always been with us.

And I'll hope for peace.

Frank Moorman, skeptic