This past Fourth of July weekend was a whirlwind of activity around my continuum care campus but in between the fun stuff I’ve been quietly grieving the loss of the country I once thought I knew and understood. So I skipped the band concert of patriotic music and a pizza party organized by a 45/47 MAGA supporter. We’re (and by we’re I mean the current administration) has been breaking presidential norms all over the place, not to mention the laws of our democracy. America, I’m tired! I’m tired of the flag waving 45/47 supporters and the greedy, spineless politicians who just voted to put the next generation into so much debt they’ll never see the light of day. And God help us if Japan, who owns a good share of our 36 trillion dollars of debt, calls in their loans. And that 36 trillion doesn’t include the 3.9 trillion the so-called Big Beautiful Bill will add over the next decade.
I’m also tired of ICE and their cruel and illegal acts being committed against our immigrant population. I’m tired of people thinking it’s perfectly okay to snatch people off the streets, out of labor & deliver rooms, etc., without due process of the law, and put them in detention centers. I’m tired of overhearing fellow residents at the next dinner table talking with glee over Alligator Alcatraz and how fat and happy those alligators will grow while at the same time being served their dinner by the son of immigrants. Did they assume the poor kid doesn’t have ears to hear their disgusting remarks? By the way, the photo up above was posted at the official website for Homeland Security. Let that sink in.
I did go to our fourth of July picnic because it’s not often we get barbecued chicken and corn of the cob and if any of us wanted to eat that day, it was sign up for the picnic or forage for your own meal out in the community. I wasn’t born yesterday so I opted to stay off the busy roads on the third—yes, holiday parties around my CCC are usually the day before the actual holiday so that most of the staff can spent it with their families. Our picnics, band concerts and other outdoor events host all residents from all three buildings and our townhouses in a fenced-in area between the Assisted Living and Memory Care buildings known as The Park. It’s a pretty place that keeps the inmates from walking away while still giving them access to be outside under a canape of trees with a lake view on one side and a wooded view opposite. A few people from my Independent Living building don’t like to go there because they see their futures and it scares them. I get that but as I tell them, seeing how kind and attentive the aids are with the residents from the Assisted Living and Memory Care buildings is comforting and helps diminish the fear of ending up down there. And after living here in IL for over three years, we all know people who've had to move into AL and MC.
On the Fourth itself the temperature was supposed to get up into 90s so an outdoors pizza party that was planned by residents from our townhouses followed by watching the firework ended up getting changed. (They have their own outdoors area to gather around a fire pit.) The pizza part got canceled and we were to meet later when the sun was setting and it wouldn’t be so hot. But when one of the 45/47 supporters (who laughed over alligators getting fat) heard that he sent out a text message that he was going to take charge of ordering pizza and we could sign up with him. There were some hurt feelings between the townhouse organizers (who originally had invited everyone in Independent Living) because they didn’t get the text invitation to join in at the IL building where the second pizza party was being planned. A day later that oversight was corrected but by then the damage had been done and a boycott began. I was one of those who skipped pizza but I did hang out with the townhouse people at the fire pit. Originally they had forty people signed up but without the pizza that got whittled down to twenty-five for fireworks. But only six people got together for pizza. The whole planned and canceled then planned again was too confusing for some.
Last winter the MAGA guy who decided to organize the second pizza party caused another turf war over the Bridge Club. At one time they had three tables that played twice a week but he caused so much trouble over rotating players—he didn’t want to play with slower players—that several couples dropped out. Then he poached off the fast players and started a second bridge group. So now we have two clubs run by two different people. Sometimes it can be a regular little soap opera around here which I’m sure is true with all places where people get to know each well. Sometimes personalities clash.
The highlight of the long weekend was Saturday when I got to play four extra Mahjong games. Two of us from Independent Living and two ladies from the townhouses played at one of their homes. Let me tell you playing Mahjong where you didn’t have to be careful not to talk too load or edit which topics you bring up was different than playing in our regularly scheduled games in our pubic bistro. We had fun! I wish I had a table suitable to set up the game to I could invite people to play extra games in my apartment in addition to the weekly games where we usually have three tables. I wish I hadn’t given my card table and chairs away when I moved. I also wish I hadn’t given a folding camp chair away. To watch fireworks I had to bring the walker I used when I broke my ribs to sit on. There have been other outdoor occasions down at the fire pit when we've require we bring our own chairs. With all the planning I did before the move, I didn’t see those needs coming. ©
Until next Wednesday.
That last graphic says it all. š
ReplyDeleteYes it does. It's all about instilling fear.
DeleteMr Teen and Mr Tween were sad because our town no longer does live fireworks. Laser designs in the sky. LOTS of people and my family went early to get their blanket in the right spot. It was HOT and I suggested not packing a picnic just buy something off the Food Trucks. So everyone got what they wanted. I didn't go because you can only use the low sand chairs, not a regular camp chair. I started watching a Masterpiece Theater show "Durrells in Corfu" A widow with 4-5 children who move from England to live in a run down mansion on an island in Greece.
ReplyDeleteThanks for blogging!!! I look forward to it every week!
I've seen the drone shows on TV and I can imagine how awesome they are in real life. And so much easier on VETs and pets and the environment.
DeleteWhere did you find the program about the widow in Greece? It sounds interesting and imagine the setting is stunning.
DeleteI think it's streaming on Amazon but I could be wrong.
DeleteThe last graphic is spot on. Sadly so.
ReplyDeleteIt's not going to end well.
DeleteIt sounds as snippy and cliquey as high school! I wouldn't have gone to the concert either. (I wore my Canada shirt as my July 4 protest). I think of all the transgressions, the one that affects me most is ICE. Not that I'm in danger or ICE or probably anyone I know -- but what they are doing is criminal, wrong, and essentially that's a concentration camp. Too many reminders to Nazi Germany and the round-ups. It will take a long time to fix this -- if we can.
ReplyDeleteThat's what worries me the most, too. They don't give a fig if ICE picks up purple star veterans who served our country well as long as he "looks" like an immigrant. No due process is a slippery slope that could effect us all eventually. Then there are the scumbags pretending to be ICE that are picking up women to rape.
DeleteIt was a hard holiday to celebrate as the Statue of Liberty must have been hanging her head at those who chose to mock our freedom. Making fun of those who were hauled away to live in a deplorable place surrounded by alligators and being proud of it. Where is the our flag still stands for freedom, have they taken that away too? And yet the saddest part of the holiday was the innocent lives lost in the flooding in Texas. I can’t imagine a parent getting that phone call that their precious child was lost in the flooding. My mom got a call like that when my brother drowned while at a camp and my aunt got a call that her son drowned while at a camp and those two incidents changed all of our lives forever. My mom was always so fearful for us when we were around the water after that, making swimming not fun anymore. When we send our kids to camp we want them to have fun and, perhaps, have life-changing experiences. Never would we dream that they would not come home. Sorry as getting a little melancholy but hearing my mom tell about my brother always brings tears. Not sure how we can ease the pain those parents are feeling but have to believe somehow, someway something good will come from this even if it’s some sort of warning system that could have saved livesš JJ
ReplyDeleteI don't remember when your brother died but I'd heard the stories in the family. I can't imagine how hard it's been for you to watch the coverage from Texas. But the thing down there could have been lessened if they'd put up the early warning sirens (Like we have tornado sirens) like was proposed the last time that area flooded. It's a known flood zone that camp was in. If I was a parent of those children I'd demand answers on the part DOSE's firing 600 people from the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration played in not getting weather predictions earlier than then did. You can't gut our national infrastructure around weather emergencies studies without there being consequences.
DeleteThe outright cruelty being displayed by those in power is astonishing to me. I keep thinking to myself that I can no longer be shocked by this administration and then I am proven wrong again and again. How long before people are herded into the gas ovens as “the final solution”? Can no one stop this!?!
ReplyDeleteDeb
I don't understand why it can't be stopped either but I guess the answers are in the Project 2025 playbook that the Heritage Foundation mapped out. Where first they got the Supreme Court in the pocket of the alt-right and the rest of what Trump is doing has been planned for a long time. They are overwhelming the lower courts and do-good groups that fight against what's going on. They hit us on all sides at once to immobilize us. Every time I think finally he's done something so awful surely the Republicans will grow some balls, it doesn't happen.
DeleteI've seen that graphic in other places and it's so true. I'm so discouraged and disgusted but don't want to give up hope. I can't wait for this administration to be out. I want the next group to make us better and finally stop the haters but I have no idea how it will be done.
ReplyDeleteWe need a major change in the House and Senate at the mid-terms to help slow down the damage 45/47 are doing.
DeleteIndeed we do, but will the voters come out and make a humane choice for the future? There's already been some backlash from people who voted for him thought only criminals, gang members, and people who snuck in recently were going to be deported. They didn't think deeply enough or listen carefully to him. He promised everything he's done...except end the two senseless wars raging.
DeleteYou are right, he did tell us what he was going to do and Project 2025 outlined exactly how he would make America "white" and male dominant again...as if it ever was in the first place. Vance is even worse and I fear him as well should something happen to 45/47.
DeleteHe doesn't have Trump's bizarre charisma (which I do NOT get) and he switched sides, so he may not have the trust of the MAGA crew. We hope.
DeleteTotally agree with you and I doubt he'd take marching orders from the Heritage Foundation like 45/47 does, more than likely he and Steven Miller's White Nationalists would line up behind him.
DeleteAt the last minute, I decided to avoid the long weekend/holiday traffic and stayed in town rather than going to visit friends in Kerrville. By the time the 5th of July arrived, the full horror of what was happening in that town, as well as in other surrounding communities that are like a second home to me, was only barely grasped. As it happens, all of my friends are safe, and their hilltop properties are intact. While most of the country was either celebrating or finding reasons not to celebrate, hill country folk were rescuing one another -- and as far as I know, no one was asked their political affiliation before they were allowed into a boat or pulled from a tree.
ReplyDeleteIt's always that way when we have disasters. People help where and when they can, setting everything else to the side.
DeleteOh, that last graphic! It's so smart and, sadly, so very, very true. I applaud you for how you balance things out, surrounded as you are by Those People. It is an Endurance and Etiquette Test every single day, I know.
ReplyDeleteI've had a lot practice living in a Red county all my life. I know I'm preaching to the choir here in my blog but I think it's important that we speak out where ever we're comfortable doing it. There is strength knowing we're not alone in our thinking. Something as go to give sooner or later. I just hope we don't have to wait until the mid-terms for that to happen.
DeleteI read your blog last night and thought about it all day. The political divide in this country is awful and my community has actually had some events to bring factions together. I don't want to be "brought together". I cannot compromise on shipping human beings to other country's slave labor camps. I cannot compromise on putting human beings in cages in a swamp. I cannot compromise on denying healthcare and food to our citizens. One side is hate, cruelty and terror. I cannot meet in the middle.
ReplyDeleteBoy, are you right! The old norms of compromise that used to guide our democracy don't work anymore when one side has lost their moral compass.
DeleteI pray for America as the country seems to be in a mess right now being a run by a want a be dictator and so many innocent people being hurt
ReplyDeleteWe can use all the prayers we can get.
DeleteSome days it is just so hard to be an American. I know how you feel. Anybody that has ever lived in Florida will tell you that just being down there in the Glades is torture. Beyond heat and mosquitos galore. I'm glad you got to play extra games. Sounds like you may end up buying another suitable table for Majong if you could find the right size to fit in your apartment. We can't lament what we gave away to move into smaller housing. I just want to believe if we give it away and need it later, the universe will provide. Probably silly thinking but otherwise I'd be living like a horder!
ReplyDeleteNot silly thinking at all. When I was making choices of things to sell or give away that I wasn't sure if I'd need again my rule of thumb is if it was common and easily replaced, let it go. I am going to keep my eye open for a folding card table I could use for a mahjong table. Checking out Salvation Army and Goodwill first. I do have the room to set one up without being crowded.
DeleteSounds like even the guards would be not like being in the Glades.
I suggest you look for a nice little secondhand card table and some folding chairs so you can gather in your apartment for some of the activities with the chosen few you know would be great Fun! It's a good Investment IMO to be able to Socialize Privately as well as in the Communal Areas and on your own terms. Something to look forward to Hosting and I'm guessing it would be a big hit with the people you enjoy the company of most. I totally 'get' what you were saying about how tiring this Fuckery all is and how cruel and lacking in any basic Humanity of Compassion some people can clearly be, even in the presence of those they despise but rely upon for Services to them. It's part of why I despised that affluent Community of the Villa McManse, they would often say ignorant racist things about The Help while they were there Working and overhearing them bash their people... as if they were invisible and couldn't hear or understand. I suppose during Slavery they would have also been the Slave Owners that did that in front of The Unpaid Slave Help... some things never really change or evolve and it's a damned shame, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteIn less than ten years it feels like we have changed from a country that had compassion and humanity to one that one where we have to fight to keep it. 45/47 gives the selfish people in our world the right to show it in public. Sending military tanks into California to round up farm workers and telling us the automation will pick the crops! How dumb do they think we are?
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