Half Over

August 1 -- okay, August 2 -- makes the summer half over. So far, one of the strangest and least satisfying of my 54 summers, but all in all, okay. Nothing terrible happened, I actually went on a nice vacation, I got pretty jewelry, I don't have a heart condition ... I don't know, maybe this is a kind of unease that will be with me during the summers until I retire. There's a nasty thought. Anyway, it's okay, it's just not spectacular. I'm not sure what it would have to be to be spectacular, but it's okay.

I just finished that Good Omens book, which was likewise okay. I like very much that I'm reading more this summer. At least when I wonder in September where all the time went, I'll know I read several good books. Still debating what to pick up next, but I have several at hand.

When I got up yesterday, I decided to go for a walk in the park, but as soon as I got there I needed the bathroom, of course, and theirs had been demolished to make way for a new one. I got back in the car to come home, but decided to go instead to the town's new Recreation Center, which I had heard has a walking track. (And a bathroom, I assumed.) So I got myself signed up there and walked the track for ten minutes or so. The thing is, the track is 1/16th of a mile, so it's pretty short, and just after I started walking, around 9.00, troops of adolescent boys charged into the gym (which the track overlooks, like a balcony surrounding the gym) for summer basketball camp. I could barely hear my headphones over the noise. Anyway, ten minutes was my limit, so home I went.

I went back this morning, but still could only manage about 10 minutes, even though I got there well before the basketball boys. Even so, and despite two attempted naps during the day that were aborted by ill-timed phone calls, I managed to do a 20 minute workout with one of the Walk Away the Pounds videos this afternoon. Looks like that may be my best way to go, especially since the Rec Center is closed for cleaning or something during the third week in August, and their hours during the school year won't work for me at all.

What about the gym? I'm still thinking about it. For one, I have to get into better shape just to use the gym. It's one thing to peter out after ten minutes when I'm four minutes away from home. It's another to drive ten minutes each way, sign in, put stuff in a locker, and then crawl out of there ten minutes later. And I learned last year that it was hard to work regular trips to the gym into a my work week. But I'm not giving up on it totally yet. I should be ready to investigate that option again in a week or two. For now, I've got to get up tomorrow morning and walk away some pounds before I do anything else, I think. I'll give it a shot, anyway.

In other news, K is finished with her summer class, so she's got the month of August off, too. I'd like to plan a day trip into the city with her to visit my OldFriend, hopefully the week after next.

In other, wonderful news, there was an article in the town paper today that a former student, in fact, a boy who was Junior class president when I was class advisor, is back from his second tour in Afghanistan, having served there for a total of 25 months. A wonderful, wonderful boy, an Eagle Scout, he was an intelligence officer there. When he came home, our Congressman, who, it so happens, moved here to Bizarro Town not long after he was elected, was there to greet him as well. I was very, very happy to see that this young man is home safe and sound. Nice news.

I'm late posting tonight because I was finishing the book, and now I'm tired and sleepy. Time to settle in for the night.

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1542

Eh?

[copied from dland]

An exaggeration, perhaps, since the part of my hearing aid I broke today is not one of its functional parts, only the end off the ear mold that holds the thing in place in my deaf ear, but still. It doesn't really affect my hearing unless it falls off my head, which could happen. Anyway, it gave me a good excuse to make an appointment with the audiologist, since I need a new ear mold -- my, that sounds disgusting -- at the very least, but I made the appointment for a new hearing test, too, since I'm thinking that my little device may need to be re-programmed with some new test results.

Why yes, I am fascinating today. More hearing aid news.

I got a lot done today, including a new rug, although I didn't get what I expected or what I was looking for. The old rug is a braided oval, 5' x 8', navy and various other shades. What I wanted, remember, was something I could throw in the washing machine. I saw one at Bed Bath and Beyond, but they didn't have any good colors for my room. So I went to The Christmas Tree Shoppe, which had what I wanted, but too small, and I gave up, but on my way out, right near the door, they had oval braided rugs (!) slightly smaller than what I'd had but the right color, and CHEAP! So I got that. If it lasts six months it was worth it, since it cost half as much as the one I put out with the trash today after six months, and I thought that was cheap. So, rug issue resolved.

The topic for today is folk music. I was listening to the Folk playlist in the car before and realized, first, that it's a totally crappy playlist and I need to re-do it, but my attention was drawn to a particular song, The Universal Soldier, by Buffy Sainte-Marie. This is a hard-core anti-war folk-protest song, which I had just been telling K about the other other day. The lyrics are below, or at the link there, but the essence of the song is that it is each individual soldier who is responsible for war.

I remember hearing it back in the day and thinking only "Well, there's a point of view, and an extreme one, but hey, everyone's entitled." And when I was thinking of it the other day, and especially when I was listening to it before, and Buffy's rather strident treatment of it, that I decided, at last, that it's bullshit. But it wasn't an uncommon thread during Viet Nam, that somehow all those men over there could have just said no and then there wouldn't have been a war. Thank god that sentiment is no longer displayed, not now and not during Desert Storm. Maybe it was some kind of weird backlash to the way soldiers were previously seen as larger-than-life heroes, which wasn't the case either, I would imagine. But politics aside, and I've got strong politics, anyone who thinks that soldiers in any war are gung-ho life-size G.I. Joe dolls is missing the point.

(No intent to inflame here, but I'm including the lyrics. No nasty comments, if you please; I'm disagreeing with them, remember. But it's worth a look, if only for historical purposes.)

He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years

He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you

And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way

And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls

But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.



WATCHING GOLDEN GLOBES RED CARPET :: ENTRY #1349