Happy 4th of July weekend. If the truth be known this is my least favorite holiday of the year. It isn’t that I don’t treasure our independence, the men that fought for it, and our right to be free. I do. It is that I don’t treasure a holiday that turns adults into idiots and children into managers of explosives. The emergency rooms will be filled with adults and children that held on to explosives to long or set off illegal ones that injured themselves or their son, daughters, or neighbors. The fire departments will be busy putting out fires started by the careless handling of fireworks. The roads will be filled with drunk drivers causing accidents. Loved family pets will get scared and run away never to be found again. Enough venting, let’s move on to Update Day. But first let’s welcome back the questions of the day with a special Fourth of July Edition:
Who proposed the resolution of independence on July 2, 1776?
What date did most of the patriots sign the Declaration of Independence? Hint, it wasn't July 4, 1776
Name the three former presidents that died on July 4?
What state become the first state to celebrate July 4 as a state celebration?
Where is the Declaration Of Independence stored, how many people visit it every day (within a 1000) and what happens to it at night?
As part of this week’s update tell me how you are going to celebrate the nation’s holiday. And if you would like to share an act of kindness please do so. That is in addition to the normal updates about your life, your elderly, your children, events attended or going to attend, books read or movies attended, concerns, joys, vent if you need to, and just post anything on your mind. No rules today.
I am going to celebrate the 4th with a small party at my home. Hot dogs, fruit salads, and chips. Mom and a couple of friends are coming over for lunch, a few games of Scrabble, some conversation, and then we will watch the little neighborhood parade that they have here.
As to last week? Read THE APPEAL by John Grisham. Not bad but not great. Went to the movie PUBLIC ENEMIES. Review on yesterday’s blog. Three days, two nights as a caregiver. Preparing two houses for a coming heat wave (mow lawns, water lawns, etc.). Shopping for two households. One dinner out, one lunch out. The lunch out was at new restaurant in King City called Biscuits. It was great. I Cooked a couple of meals, had one cooked for me. Rode with mom when she tried to drive. She did great. Walked with Mom when she tried the mobile wheelchair. She was a little nervous about the mobile wheelchair because of an incline to get out of the garage. Of course she did great but she did say the wheelchair scared her more than driving. Upcoming this week is a visit from my sister and THEN if everything goes to plan two weeks on my own because Mom is going back to Utah!
OK, enough about me. Your turn. Tell me about your life. Tell me all your secrets. If you are new or have been reading the blog for a while come on now introduce yourself. I mean if I can ride with a 93 year-old driver and survive you can post an introduction here and survive!
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY EVERYONE!!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
We're heading to the beach tomorrow morning for a week. YEA!!!!!
Hi Mary Z
Have a great time and know you will be missed!
Bill
HAPPY FOURTH, EVERYONE! I loved it when I had a little kid in the house. Husband would set up a tall stand in our driveway and be in charge of the lighting of the fireworks. People up and down the street had their own, so it was quite a show. Now home fireworks are outlawed in most cities here, including mine, and I no longer have a little kid. If they still had them in front yards, I'd sit outside and watch.
Not a lot to update. Mom continues as usual, except that on Tuesday she managed to elude the motion detector during the one hour in the morning when she doesn't have someone right there watching. They found her on the floor, fiddling with things she found in a drawer and giggling, happy as can be. One more disaster escaped.
I'm not sure I read The Appeal, but I remember one book about the appeal process that set my hair on end, so maybe that was it. I'm currently reading, at long last, The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I'm glad I saw the movies first, as they were brilliant but necessarily changed from the book in many areas. They were perfectly cast, ignoring the ages of the characters in the book (all pretty darned old), so my mental pictures of them come from the movies.
I haven't seen Public Enemy, and probably won't until it hits cable, if then. I adore Johnny Depp, but don't love gangster movies in general.
Hi Pat
I liked the fourth a lot better when I was younger too. In Klamath Falls we didn't live to far from a lake so we could sit on our roof and watch a really good fireworks display. We also lived across from a park where the neighborhood met to do sparklers and firecrackers.
You mom has incredible spirit. Still that she can avoid the motion detector at times has to cause you some concern.
THE APPEAL is fiction and I think he stole a lot of it from a book called A CIVIL ACTION. I think the one you read was about the two guys wrongfully convicted of murder, THE INNOCENT MAN. I still haven't either read or gone to the movies of THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
I do like gangster movies but this one I didn't like as well as some others.
Bill
I think we got the motion detector situated better today. I had bought a shelf for it and one of the staff had her husband put it up for me. It had been perched on top of my dad's portrait and when the picture moved, the motion detector got out of whack. I hope she can't elude it now, but I won't underestimate her. Not that she knows it's there.
I did read AN INNOCENT MAN, and I read A CIVIL ACTION some years ago. The one I'm thinking of, however, is yet another one, and I'm darned if I can think what it was called. It'll come to me one day and I'll post it here for you even if it has nothing to do with the blog of the day.
I absolutely loved the three RINGS movies, and now that I'm reading the books, I'll say that he got it just right, and the movies belong on the very short list of movies that are better than their books. I'm enjoying the books, but have to say there's plenty that you can just skim in them.
Hi Bill, and Happy 4th to you all here. I can't say I am all that excited about the 4th of July holidays either. I do remember it was nice if it fell on a certain day during the week so that you could get an extra day off work. And then I do remember it being a nice time when I was younger. We lived right next to a Drive-In theater. They would always set aside time for fireworks in between movies. We could set on our roof or Oil Tank and watch them. (we also watched and heard the movies :)
As for what I am doing for the holiday weekend? No plans. I did get to leave for a few days and just returned yesterday. A much needed escape and loved every minute. Since returning, I have gotten my grill my dad promised me 4 years ago and he has managed to do a few things he has never done. So no stress since returning. Maybe us leaving for a few days was a good thing.
We grilled pork chops and potatoes and will maybe just grill up something all weekend!
The millionaire that lives behind us usually always keeps us awake with some fireworks. We found most of them on our roof last year!
I have never read or gone to the movies of Lord of the Rings either! Strange.
Okay, I'm breaking this into two messages, as the "critic" says my message is too long to post, First time that's happened....
Happy 4th to everyone, be it spent at bbqs, festivals or quietly at home, depending on your preference.
Bill, they've already flooded the emergency rooms here, with
"practicing." The 4th used to be big doings when I was a kid, marching in the parade and the carnival on Main Street and the town band concert and then fireworks.
Between weather and Mom's health, we've not celebrated the 4th the last two years but, if Mom's doing okay tomorrow, we're going to load the wheelchair and take her to Greer for a late bbq supper, patriotic concert and to watch the fireworks. Sometimes, having something to look forward to improves her health, we're finding.
The week has been a repeat of the mad social whirl I live in (g). Seriously, I took last weekend for me and decluttered closets and dressers, as I changed out winter for summer and have lots of goodies for the Mission, to be delivered Monday. That feels good. I also took time to spend at the piano and to design and make a couple "quick" summer tops for myself, that have gotten lots of compliments. First time I've sat down at the sewing machine to fiddle with my own designes in a couple years, I think. Even a few minutes weeding the garden. It was a nice "mini-retreat-at-home" for me.
Monday I did paperwork, my workout, took Mom to lunch, a couple boxes to the PO, she got stamps, we packed. Tuesday Himself brought the (new-to-him) truck and hand truck to Mom's and we hauled 250# of media mail to the PO, after I finished packing it. Weds was line dance (oh joy, oh fun -- we so badly screwed up one of the numbers for next week's show, all we could do was just stop and laugh). Groceries for Mom, who wasn't up to leaving the house. Thursday we saw the retina spec for another injection. Today I packed two more media boxes, found a place to stack the five boxes Mom's taking on the truck for her neighbor, who's leaving for Mesa in the morning and couldn't get them in the car, we did a lot of sorting and a bit more packing,ran more errands and did further grocery shopping for Mom. Last night, I discovered the shawl I was making for another lady in her building was big enough for an elephant (thank God, the woman had no idea I was making it) and it has to all be torn out and the yarn used in somse other project. Hey, sometimes creastivity works, sometimes not so much (wry s).
Interesting ... a lot of the festivals and fireworks displays are not happening this year. I was really surprised to learn that there would be no "Fourth at Furman," which we've relied on since moving here (concert and bbq and fireworks and rides for the kids during the day). "Budget" everyone mutters.
Time is closing in. I realize that if I take my weekends for me, I've got 17 days to get Mom packed up and there are two doctor app'ts, a LD show and a farewell lunchion in there, which means 13 days. Which means longer days and probably working weekends? It still seems pretty unreal to me, after the last five years.
Bill, I'm so glad to hear your mom has a mobile chair! 20/20 hindsight says I should have ignored the PT folks and tried for one of the companies that "swear" they can get you Medicare funding or have looked for a used one for Mom, especially now that her power-chaired neighbors have bonded together to do the Swamp Rabbit Trail, head to Williams Hardware for lunch and Saturday night jam sessions. I can see what the geriatric doc meant, when he said it would make her more active, not less. Pity his PT folks didn't agree and said as long as I could provide transport to groceries and such, she wasn't qualified. Humpf!
Dona, I'm so glad you got a couple days off and what great news on the grill! Hopefully, you can get the men to grill as often as possible and just provide a salad and (preferalby grilled) bread. Heck, I've discovered you can cook darned near anything on the grill!
Mary Z, have a great time at the beach. I look forward to a report.
Pat, glad to hear you may have resolved the motion detector issue and glad to hear there were no nasty ramifications from your mother "escaping" surveillence, although I'm sure that's terribly worrisome.
Hi Pat
I'm glad you got the motion detector thing fixed!
THE APPEAL that I just finished had two stories in it, the appeal of a verdict of a case where a company was dumping toxic waste into a city's water system (ala A CIVIL ACTION) and the election of a Mississippi State Supreme Court judge. The right basically bought the seat.
I'm going to have to rent the LORD OF THE RINGS triology.
Bill
Hi Dona
I don't know what pleases me more, that you were able to get away for a few days and that you had a good time or that you are back because we missed you!
I love that you sat on your roof and watched the fireworks as we also sat on our roof and watch fireworks. And guess what? I had a friend, Ronnie, that was an electrical genius. He lived near a Drive-In and wired his house into the driv-in speakers. So we used to sit in his room and watch movies!
Gosh maybe being away it was a reality check for your Dad of how important you were to him and he needs to keep his promises!
I love grilled pork chops!
Have a great fourth, my sister from another mother!
Bill
Hi DR
We are going to have to slap that critic around a bit!
We always had a parade in Klamath Falls and when we lived in Pocatello, Idaho my brother and I would ride our horses in the parade! Of course we were a hit!
Sorry they have already flooded the emergency room with visitors.
I hope you get to go to the bbq and fireworks tomorrow!
WOW DR do you ever stay busy. I'm glad some of the time was spent doing things for yourself, of course your tops are going to get compliments, you are one talented lady!
Some times the best thing that happen when preparing for a show is to screwup! And I'm glad you laughed rather than stressed out over it.
And your week was filled with kindness! For you mom and others!
The main firework show we usually have here is the one at Fort Vancouver. Like yours it was cancelled this year.
Come here often the next 17 days! We will support you!
Bill
Post a Comment