We decided that today would be a lay-low kind of day.  No big get-togethers to celebrate the start of summer.  Just putter around the house, picking up clutter, doing about six months of backed up filing (I hate filing!) and do some laundry, groom the dogs.

I find myself thinking a lot today about how many people have gone to war and sacrificed their lives.  Whether the cause was just or not, they went because our country called them to go, and they went.  I am feeling very humbled by their sacrifices.

I was very sorry to hear about the diagnosis for Ted Kennedy’s health over the past couple of days. His family has suffered so much loss and grief; it just doesn’t seem fair for so much of it to be heaped on one family! I just have to wonder sometimes if this is some kind of karmic justice against the entire family for ill-gotten wealth from the moonshine days of old. (The sins of the father shall be visited upon the son. I’ve heard that quote before, I think it is from the Bible, but don’t know exactly which chapter or verse. Sorry to disappoint all of you Bible-memorizing folks out there!)

Anyway, I am truly very sorry to hear about anyone having any kind of cancer nowadays. With all of the technological advances we have made in the past several decades, it seems to me that we should have found the cures for cancer, AIDS, Hepatitis, MS, and all the other horrible diseases that plague our existence. We have lost a few family members to cancer; it is not a pleasant journey. I wish Ted Kennedy and his family well.

Good grief!  As if the cyclone Nargis hitting Myamar wasn’t grief enough for Asia, now a huge earthquake hit China!  Seems as if Mother Nature is conducting a large scale massacre out there!  I was reading that some people think that the tragedy has been worsened emotionally because of the policy of each family only being allowed to have one child, but I am wondering if each family had been allowed MORE children, if the death toll would have been higher! 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to be callous; there is nothing more tragic in life than to outlive your children.  The point I think I’m trying to make is that the families might be grieving the loss of three or four children, instead of one.  The loss of any child is more grief than anyone should have to bear; the loss of more than one I just simply cannot even begin to imagine how deep that would be.  I have a friend who had three sons, and she lost all three of them over the span of two years, two to car accidents, and one to cancer.  It broke my heart to see the pain she suffered during those two years. 

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day!  I’ve read that this will be the 100th anniversary of Mother’s Day!  My mother doesn’t live nearby, so I’m afraid that I won’t be able to see her in person, but I sent her a card with a gift card to the Red Lobster and plan to call her on the phone to wish her a happy Mother’s Day.  I WOULD send her a “real” gift, but I have found that she never uses or displays anything I ever give her, so I have given up trying to send her something she might like.  She’s even allergic to flowers and chocolate!  So, I hope the card, gift card and phone call are “enough” to make her have a good day!

I was watching the news this afternoon, and was listening to the story about a horrible cyclone hitting a country called Myanmar.  To be honest, I have not been very diligent about keeping up with what foreign countries have been changing their names to what, so I wasn’t even sure where Myanmar was.  So I did a little bit of research and found that it is the country that used to be called Burma and it is located between India and China.  From what I understand that country is ruled by a dictator who seized power through a junta after a democratic election had elected a woman to be the country’s leader.  There has been a quiet rumble about human rights violations in the country ever since then, but it would appear that the USA has not attempted to interfere with this country’s politics – yet.

I hope that the international community pulls together some relief effort for the victims of the cyclone and that the relief supplies actually reach the victims and don’t simply get “given” to the country’s leaders and “favorites.”  Call me cynical if you will, but I think that history has shown that in dictatorships like this the leaders are the only ones who fare well in any circumstance.  I feel very sorry for the victims of both the cyclone and the regime.