There's a war going on in Las Vegas, Nevada these days. About what, you might ask? A flag. A big ol' American flag. A flag on a 100-foot flag pole, measuring 30 feet by 60 feet. That's a damned big flag. At a Hummer dealership. The City Council has ordered the dealership to take it down, but apparently not because this oversized behemoth (by which I mean the flag, and not the Hummers, though that, too, would fit) goes against town ordinance restrictions on flag-pole height, though it does, but rather because the Hummer dealership failed to follow through on its promise to erect a veterans' memorial at the flagpole's base. The irony of erecting a veterans memorial at the base of an American flag surrounded by gas-guzzling Hummers seems to have escaped the good folks involved in this little conflict. As the dealership owner explained, "The building's oversized, the sign's oversized, the cars are oversized." So we need an extra-big flag to demonstrate our undying gratitude to the brave men and women dying for our oil.
On a happier note, the brave men and women serving us in Congress have finally (finally!) managed to pass legislation that will increase the national minimum wage, over the next two years, from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour. So now, working 40 hours a week every single week of the year will net you an amazing $15,000 per year. This is, truly, the land of milk and honey.
On a just plain strange note, the brand spanking new, state-of-the-art $27,000,000 Creation Museum is opening in Kentucky on Memorial Day, a natural history museum with a twist, if you will.
Cary Tennis again, 5/22/07:
"So how do you find yourself again and experience the 'last stage of grief' and stop loving him? It happens at some unspecified moment after you pound your fists on the wall and shatter some glasses and get the second car put in your name and paint the walls and plant the plants he never liked and go out with some friends who never knew you were even married to him. Somewhere along the way after doing what you have to do in your own way in your own time, not calling it healing and not scheduling it on a white board but just bulling your way through it with the uncomprehending determination that is sometimes called faith and sometimes called the instinct for survival and sometimes called a necessary belief in a nourishing fiction, you are going to be talking on the phone or eating or opening a window or just walking dully along and you are going to notice that he's not in your head anymore, he's not shadowing you, he's not pulling you down and you don't even care anymore about what happened or how he left, in fact you hardly notice he's gone except that it is notably quieter in the area of your heart."
And lastly, a few snapshots from Marcos' farewell party yesterday evening and Kristine's way too short visit a couple days ago on her way to Norway:
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