New family member

Last Sunday we found a sad looking little kitten on an adjacent property.  She was hungry, dehydrated, and starved for attention.  After some discussion, we brought her in, fed her, treated her for fleas, and she promptly decided it was time for a nap.  We were told that she had been there Saturday as well but we’re not sure when she actually was dumped there.  (Since she’s good around people we think she had experience with them before ending up alone.)  She loves sleeping on people.  Here is one of my favorite photos from her first day:

We were debating whether to keep her and made a half-hearted attempt to find her a family.  Alas, no one else wanted her and we don’t have the heart to send her to a shelter… well, okay, we kind of like having her around too.    The same can’t be said for our bigger cats just yet.  Willow’s almost warmed up to her but Rodney still has his cranky pants on about the whole thing.  Hissing… growling… it’s not pretty.  Oh well – he’ll get over it!

On an unrelated and less reflective note…

Okay, I had to write the post about the Declaration of Independence because it was really getting me thinking.  However now that it’s out of my system I can write about what got me into this chair and writing in the first place this morning…. an anouncement.  I PAID MY CAR OFF!!!  WOO HOO!  Yep I now own it outright; it’s all mine.  All 115,500 miles of it, all the dents, all the dirt on the inside, all the scratches on the outside – yep, it’s all mine!  I’ve been really working hard to get it and my credit card paid off (which is also done) so I’m riding a little bit of a high right now.  (I’m not going to look too closely at the almost $40,000 in student loan debt that I still have; I’m just going to ignore that for now )  Just wanted to share the joy!

July 4th

I’m not now and never really have been a strongly patriotic person.  Now, don’t get me wrong; I appreciate the comforts of my life in the U.S. and I appreciate the sacrificies of those in the Armed Forces and within the U.S. that have worked to make the U.S. what it is today.  It’s just that there’s so much I disagree with or am uncomfortable with in our system of government that I’ve never felt comfortable with public displays of patriotism.  To me, public displays of patriotism are shows of support for the government, not appreciation for what we have and where we’ve come.  I don’t know; maybe that’s my own bias…

 However, that’s why it’s weird that NPR stopped me in my tracks today.  I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth with the radio on and this came on – http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11703583.  Different NPR personalities were reading the Declaration of Independence.  Their website says that this is something that they’ve done for years but I hadn’t heard it before.  I stopped and listened… really listened.  It touched me in a way I didn’t expect.  It has been y…e…a…r…s since I read the Declaration and it was interesting to hear it again.  To be reminded about how our country began.  I was particularly touched by the reading by Ann Garrels, not so much by the part that she read but by what her voice elicited for me.  She frequently broadcasts from Iraq so, in some ways, she and her Iraqi co-worker (whose name escapes me at the moment) have become the voice of Iraq for me.  That confluence of the American Declaration of Independence – and it’s role as the launching point of our nation – and the conflict and uncertainty about Iraq’s future was interesting.  I went to the NPR website and listened to the reading again.  Here is what Ann Garrels read, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”  Interesting…and relevant.