Happy Birthday, America!

This week got away from me. But it's been a good one.

I thoroughly enjoyed my day off yesterday. Puttered and knitted and visited with various people and bought groceries and cooked like crazy and ate and napped (I think I napped; I'd have to check Facebook to be sure).

I am in the midst of re-knitting Beloved's chemo cap to fit the sister of my new attorney, who is battling lymphoma. There were a handful of moth (or something) holes in it, as it's been hanging out on the fallow side of my bed and elsewhere in my room for the better part of two and a half years. I frogged it back to the lowest hole and have been knitting and spit-splicing for the past several days. I'm working on the final decreases and may get them done before bedtime, or not.

When it's done and the last end is woven in, I will carefully wash it. Because Malabrigo felts if you look at it funny. And because, while I am more than happy to forward the love that went into this when I was making it for Beloved, and the love I am adding while I am reknitting it, I don't think somebody battling lymphoma necessarily needs the DNA from my saliva. Even if it's awesome.

I bought an air plant while I was out and about yesterday. I washed a fat handful of red glass vase filler thingies in the most recent load of the dishwasher, and they will be going into one of my miniature vases (for individual flowers at a place setting). The flared top of the vase is just the right size and shape to cradle the derriere of an air plant and keep it up out of the water.

Went back to Arlington for the Fourth of July parade, after an absence of several years. Picked up Fourthborn, and we sat with Willow and Firstborn, in the shade, just east of the midpoint of the parade route. Nice little walk from Lorelai to where we sat, punctuated by visits and hugs with old friends from the wards we lived in. Lots of horses. Two troupes of belly dancers. Drumlines. Definitely my favorite part, even above my love for horses. The Wheeling Elvises (or Elvii, depending on whom you ask). A friend from my single days is dating one of them. People on unicycles. People on really tall unicycles who have figured out how to high-five (really high, high-five) the crowd as they zip past. Lots of entries from the local churches. And one from the local atheists' association.

Willow, who is either a bartender or server at the place where her high school graduation party was held (the place where my kids learned to their surprise that Mom knows how to wield a cue stick), says that these folks meet once a week where she works. And that their membership takes an uptick every year after the Fourth of July parade, because of the stony silence in which they are received by the (allegedly) Christian parade-goers. (One year the city "lost" their application.) So we decided to cheer the atheists' club for their patriotism.

I do not understand how somebody can look at this miraculous Creation and not believe in the Creator. But, upon some thought, I've decided that I absolutely have to respect the thought processes of somebody who decides to behave in a decent and ethical manner with no scriptures or faith system to back him/her up.

I did refrain from hollering, "God bless America!" to them, even though I was hollering it in my heart. And I didn't look to see if we were getting any nasty looks from the other parade-goers. Maybe if more of us who profess to be Christian do a better job of behaving like one, it will give the atheists something to chew on.

Went to the fireworks here in Garland for the first time. Found a decent spot to see them, after the place I had in mind had also been had in mind by several hundred other people. I've put it in my calendar for next year, with a note for where I sat this year.

Notwithstanding the great nap I had after coming home from the parade, from which I woke with a rogue sinus, I am sleepy again, so I will bid you all a gracious good evening.