the thin line between optimism and delusion…

For the most part, I believe America to be the greatest place in the world. We definitely have our own problems, and there definitely parts of America that hold no interest for me as place of permanent dwelling, but as a whole, America is pretty great. More specifically, the South East is pretty awesome. I love the weather, the food, the people, the flowers, and the way we talk around here. But today, I wish I lived somewhere else. I wish I lived in India today. Or, tonight, although I guess it is already night in India by now. I would really like to see the lunar eclipse tonight. I should have planned my vacations better. Apparently there is a chance I’ll get to see full lunar eclipse in America in April 2014, fingers crossed.

Have I told you how Briscoe hates skateboarders? It might be one of the funnier things I’ve seen in a while. I think it is the noise that scares her. The dog needs a haircut like whoa. She’s going to get her hair did tomorrow, and I expect to have a little lamb by tomorrow night instead of the bear that is currently sleeping in my kitchen.  For some reason she has developed this ridiculous habit of spilling her food all over the floor.  It is like she picks up her bowl with her teeth and dumps it out, although I’m not sure that is actually possible.  But once the food it on the ground, she won’t eat it.  For a while, when I would come home to her spilled food, I would pick all the pieces up and put them back in the bowl.  Then I realized, wait, she’s a dog, if she wants to spill her food on the floor, she should eat the food off the flood.  So, I stopped cleaning it up, other than to turn the bowl back upright.  Sure enough, after leaving the food on the ground until late into the night, the dog finally decided she would eat it off the floor.  So, she’s started cleaning up the mess herself, but she’s still spilling the food. 

Something about summertime makes me want to lose myself in a story, preferably a long drawn out saga. Happily, HBO has provided that for me with The Game of Thrones, and even more happily, I am able to read the novels instead of waiting to see what happens in HBO time (which is painfully slow in my opinion). I enjoy the story, the show (and the novels for that matter) are quite gruesome and violent. I find reading about violent and gruesome things is easier than watching them play out on my unnecessarily large television. But I’m totally engrossed in the novels, each chapter is told from a different character’s point of view, and the author has mastered the ability to speak in each character’s voice in a way that is seemless but also adds a depth to the writing and storyline that is not immediately apparent. I would not recommend the books or the television series to everyone, there is a base element to it that not all will find endearing, crass talk of sexual encounters and horrible things happen to almost all of the characters. But even the villainous characters have redeeming qualities (well, some of them do) and the heros have flaws, and there is nothing I love more than a good story with round characters.

I spent the last two weeks of May in Washington, D.C., training for work. Let me tell you, two weeks is a LONG TIME to be in a hotel. I learned a lot, got to spend time with some old friends (sadly, the Bizzy was out of town the entire time I was there), and enjoyed some fabulous food and beautiful sights, but I was very happy to come home to my apartment and my dog. I did meet some super cool new friends though. My mom and my aunt Jan came to visit me in Charleston this past weekend, and boy did we have a good time. I wish I could tell you we did lots of productive things, but really more than anything, we simply enjoyed Charleston and each other. We wandered, we enjoyed drinks on the rooftop under the shade with a breeze, we ate phenomenal food, (as a side note, a merinague will always add to a dessert), we peered through hedges, gates and walls into the fabulous gardens and side yards of people we didn’t know but wish we did, we sweated, we watched little children play in fountains, and Kate and Jan rearranged the furniture in my apartment. We did not shop at all, other than a short trip to the grocery, and we spent most of our time outside. It was great.

Oh! So I want y’all to check out my cousin Heather’s blog – she has MS, and has an amazingly honest and refreshing perspective, including my favorite – Wheelchair Etiquette.