Semiquincentennial

First off, I just want to say Happy Birthday to the USA! I’m glad I was born here. Compared to most of the rest of the world, my life has been full of privilege just due to the fact that I was born in this country. I am very thankful for that.

But, today I have kind of run out of steam. The last few weeks have taken a huge emotional toll and by last night I found myself lacking the enthusiasm to do much of anything. This morning I woke up at my usual time and went to Aldi, since I hadn’t had time to do it yesterday. When I came out of the store, my homeless buddy Charles was there, so I was able to give him the bag full of non-perishable food that I’ve been keeping in my car for him. As always, he thanked me and told me he loves me.

Back at the house, I put away groceries, made myself brunch and tea, and indulged in reading for a while. Eventually, though, I had to go to another grocery store for a couple of items. And I worked on my next sewing project. I hope I can keep my momentum up. This one was just adding onto a purchased dress that was way too short. I promise you, no one needs to see my sixty-seven-year-old knees. I just have one tiny bit of topstitching to do on it, but I’ll have to go out and buy some matching thread first. I didn’t have the exact shade I needed.

Once I had my lupper, I went to work on making some carrot cake muffins for tomorrow’s Sunday School brunch potluck. I rarely make them because the process produces a lot of dirty dishes. And because, obviously, I don’t get to eat them.

We are supposed to bring “patriotic” breakfast food.

Jasper wasn’t feeling well all day and decided not to go to any festivities with his friends. I had already decided I wasn’t firing up the grill, not even for this momentous semiquincentennial. It’s beastly hot outside. Fortunately, I had some brisket in the freezer waiting for just such a day as this.

We had a very quiet supper—nothing all that special. Like I said, I’ve hit some kind of wall and have to really work hard to make myself do anything right now. I heated up the brisket and made corn on the cob to add to the potato salad and chips.

We had decided not to go to the concert and firework show the city puts on, and we were glad because right around sunset it started raining. For a while it was raining very hard. Then we had a huge lightning strike right over our heads.

Now in case you haven’t gotten the picture, this is a house inhabited by three introverts. Most of the time we are in three different rooms. But when something happens, like that big lightning strike, we seek each other out to talk about it. Thankfully our power didn’t go out.

Much later this evening, we turned on the TV to watch the celebration and fireworks in Washington D.C. and to hear the president’s speech. It was very late, but man, what a show. The sheer scope of the fireworks was mind boggling.

Then I still had a kitchen to clean up.

Joy Spark: Jasper joined us to watch the fireworks and festivities this evening. He never does anything with us other than eat supper, so this was a big deal. It made me so happy.