A few entries ago I said I'd like to get up earlier. One way to do it is to drink a lot of water before I go to bed. Then at the first flicker of consciousness in the morning I have to get up, instead of burrowing deeper and going back to sleep, and then I tend to stay up (unless I'm cold. Cold will send me back into my nice warm nest.) The danger is that sometimes it backfires, and the pressure wakes me at like 4 am, and then I can't get back to full sleep for hours.
This morning I was awakened at 6:30 when something crashed into the glass wall in the bedroom. Whatever it was, it was huge, and shook the wall. I'm surprised the glass held. (Something hit Tuesday morning too, but not as hard.) I jumped up and ran to look, expecting to find a stunned goose on the deck, but there was nothing there. Not even the dust print a bird will usually leave.
Is it possible it was another of those mysterious "bangs in my mind", that I mentioned many entries back?
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Wanted to call Daughter. Cell phone - no long distance charge. Where's cell phone? Usually in purse. Not in purse. Hmmmm. Back problems, was taking cell phone to bed because has numbers in memory. Look in bed. No cell phone. Hmmmm. Ahah! Made a 1 am run to PO Tuesday night - took cell just in case. Look in car. Not on passenger seat in car. Hmmmm. Maybe slid to side? Look between passenger seat and door. No phone. Notice that litter bag between seats is full. Empty litter bag. Cell phone falls out. Call daughter. Don't tell her Mom is losing it.
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On TV the other night, a very self-satisfied woman said "Jesus has rewarded us". She lives with her husband and two kids in a California shore-side mini-mansion, buys anything she wants whenever she wants, goes to spas, gets her nails done, spends afternoons at the beach, etc. Beauty and relaxation. Her husband works out of an office at home. The good life.
During the program, we find that her husband is under enormous stress to keep the money flowing in. Worries constantly. Works like 80-90 hour weeks, leaves his desk and phone only to sleep. Has no involvement in his children's lives. They think of him only as "that guy in the office".
"Jesus has rewarded us"? She is completely oblivious.
The statement annoyed me for a second reason - I am annoyed when people ascribe to Jesus powers that belong only to God (assuming that....etc.) And don't give me that "three in one" excuse - the picture people have in mind, when they say something like that, isn't God.
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Thoughts on the quote from John Kerry in the previous entry, "...we all wake up as Americans. And that -- that is the greatest privilege and the most remarkable good fortune ...":
I don't know about that. Americans in general seem to me to be awfully parochial and ... I'm having trouble finding the words ... conceited? What's the word that means you don't know much about anything, but think you know best about everything? What's the word that means "my way is the right way and if you think differently you're stupid"? Arrogance?
Americans are disliked or downright hated all over the world, and it doesn't seem to bother us at all. (I shouldn't say "us", I should say "them", because it does bother me.) If they think about it at all, they just say "Oh, they're just jealous." Jealous that we think we own the world's oil and can burn as much as we like? That we think we own the skies and can foul them as we like? That only we are capable of controlling certain weapons? That we can tell other countries not to cut forests, while we can destroy our own and any others we can make money from? That ... fill in the blank ... lots of choices.
One of the foundations of our government is religious freedom - but apparently ONLY if you are some brand of Christian. A major magazine surveyed immigrants about religious freedom in the United States, and that was pretty much their conclusion. Immigrants are a pretty good judge, because their eyes are clear, their minds haven't been bent yet, and they are very aware of the American effort to bend their minds.
And even though we don't have an American version of the pope, there are lots of people who are more than willing to interpret for us what God wants us to do. Right now, Bush is in a news conference on TV, telling us that "we" don't push any particular version of religion on anyone. (He actually said those exact words as I was typing the sentence!) Ummmm. Uhuh. Yeah. Sure. You are blinded by your righteousness.
American tourists in other countries are notorious. They are loud and demanding, and ignore or dismiss the local customs. Daughter and I stayed in a small B&B/hotel in a slate mining village in Wales. The guests were us, an English honeymooning couple, and three late-middle-aged American women with a teenaged daughter. We were all together for dinner and then later in the evening in the sitting room, and the American women plain embarrassed me. They asked stupid questions of the host, hostess, and honeymoon couple, loudly complained about the service (things just don't taste right, not even plain meat, and haven't you people ever heard of teaspoons? or mixing faucets?), bragged about how much more convenient everything was back home, shouted to each other down the halls, and generally made their presence loudly known.
The morning that Daughter and I were to check out, I was standing next to the office window looking at some tourist flyers, when I heard the host say to the hostess, "The English woman and her daughter will be checking out this morning."
She, "What English woman?"
He, "The little woman with the daughter."
She, "They're not English."
He, "Well, where are they from, then."
She, "I don't know, but I don't think they're English. They may be Welsh. (Looking in file) Oh, here is is. They're American (with surprise)."
He, "Are you sure? That can't be right. They're much too nice."
I stuck my head around the corner and said "Thank you."
One of the reasons I haven't traveled lately (beside inertia) is that I can't think of any country I'd want to go to these days as an American. I'd be ashamed to identify myself as such.
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