Mostly did domestic chores and stuck around home. Guess I feel obscurely guilty for leaving Pat on Saturday evening, although his physical needs were taken care of. I hate to think of him sitting alone for that long, as he's essentially helpless, but I'd never go anywhere if I didn't do it once in a while.
Other than these down thoughts, it was an okay day. The news that may be carried on NBC is that I bought light brown hair color instead of medium brown--thought I'd go for a change, I'm such a wild and reckless woman.
Enjoyed a phone talk with sister Betty in the morning and a Skype "visit" with darling daughter Ellen in the evening.
Wider: It's Memorial Day--I remember when it was called "Armistice Day"--and the papers are, of course, full of the obligatory and ritualistic pictures and stories on those who have died in wars. Oh, I stand corrected: the military who have died in wars. The millions of civilians, including helpless children, are rarely mentioned and then as kind of supporting actors in "collateral damage" roles. Naturally--"news" people are the most pathetic cliche-whores on the face of the earth--The Press of Atlantic City carried an article with an overview of old men wearing military caps and holding medals. The "reporter" then zeroed in on a man mourning his son, who was killed in some war or other. He "died for his country," he "made the ultimate sacrifice." he "fought so we could be free...." All the old lies were trotted out, all the old horrors championed, all the old carnage denied. Of course, this young man was engaged in the slaughter of other humans, in the name of--what? I never can figure that out.
As long as we accept the "hero" label, we'll never be rid of our abiding love of death and destruction.
Wider Still: I've been saying this since O.'s announcement, but Chris Floyd does it so much more clearly and forcefully in "Empire Burlesque":
"Anyone who lived through the howling, roaring exhalation of meaningless noise that was the 2008 race for the Democratic nomination and still retained some fleeting, desperate, hope against hope that Barack Obama might represent at least some modicum of substantial change surely had that last, microscopic flicker extinguished for good the instant they got the news that Obama had picked Joe Biden as his running mate."
He goes on with much more and one wonders, knowing what we know, but wish we didn't, how anybody could still believe in the tired old "change" thing. This piece needs to be read.