So I was going to post about how I'm thankful that I finally got the hospital billing and the insurance on the same page so that I only owe $250 that I shouldn't really owe, instead of nearly a grand, and then I realized...holy shit, shouldn't I be thankful that two months after surgery, my biggest worry is an insurance screwup?
I didn't take long to fall back into a routine of taking things for granted. Yikes.
So now my list of things for which I am thankful is too long to type.
If you're reading this, you're on it. Have a safe and beautiful holiday.
Five years ago, on the 25th anniversary of Jonestown, I wrote about how it was the first news story that I actually followed: the first time I bought Time and Newsweek, the first time I read something other than the comics before going to school in the morning.
I wasn't going to write about it again, because I can't add anything to the history, and do I really need to advertise my morbid fascination with tragedy?
But this is worth reading: Town Without Pity, by Charles A. Krause, the Post reporter who was there.
There's no actual video to this, just the kick-ass music.
You know Link Wray wrote that here, right? He played for Milt Grant's band, Milt Grant being the hugely popular DJ and host of a DC teenager dance show in the late '50's. (This is before my time, of course, but I've heard stories. My dad actually danced on the show, apparently.) It was at a hop in Fredericksburg, improvising The Stroll, that Wray came up with Rumble.
I mentioned back during the summer (which seems like a few days ago, not weeks ago) that I've been making jewelry. Looking through the Giant Catalog of Beads, Gems, and Stuff You Don't Even Know What It's For But You Want It, I was reminded of the jewelry that my grandfather made when I was a kid.
He didn't string beads, he was a lapidarist. Some of the stones he bought, but some he found himself, and tumbled and set. I used to bring him rocks that I'd pick up in the yard..."Is it a diamond?" "No, it's quartz."...but he'd polish them for me anyway.
I was over at my parents' house this weekend, and my mom told me they had a box of my grandfather's jewelry stuff. I thought she was talking about pliers and jump rings, but when I slid open the drawers of the little organizer, I found stones.
Some were cut into cabochons (the sizes written on the back in pencil, in my grandfather's unmistakable handwriting.) Others were just tumbled and polished. Two had been fitted with bell caps, and I immediately put one on a chain to wear.
Unfortunately, I recognize very few of the stones. I know tiger eye, I think some are jasper, and I'd bet a paycheck that the irregular white rocks are pieces of my quartz.
The others are mysteries. I sold my Geology 100 textbook back as soon as I took the final exam, and though I recall the general idea behind the Mohs scale, I was never very adept at identification anyway. I just took everything to my grandfather, and he'd tell me what I had.
So back in July, when Olie Kolzig signed with Tampa Bay, I wrote:
"Well, whatever. It'll be interesting, first time the Caps play the Lightning...I'll know by what play brings me out of my seat where my real loyalty is.)"
Tonight was the night.
I was pleased that Kolzig got a warm reception from the fans, and more pleased that I did not hear and jeers or boos.
When Washington scored on the first shot, my completely visceral reaction?
I cringed and said a bad word.
My mom raised her eyebrows.
Then I clapped, and when Olie gave up the second shot too, I clapped, but it probably wasn't as heartfelt a clap as I would normally gave given the second goal of the game.
But it gets worse. In the second period, on a power play, Gary Roberts (who is older than I am, so I automatically love him), set up by Mark Recchi (who is also older than I am) and Martin St. Louis (who is just a kid, but I've mentioned before that he's my favorite player to never play in Washington) scored.
And I...um...was briefly out of my chair with a cheer until I realized what I had done.
I pretty much sat on my hands the rest of the night.
I'm thinking, though: it's Tampa Bay. Technically, divisional rivals, but it's hard to muster any hatred of Tampa Bay. Put a bunch of players you like on a team to which you are neutral, funny things might happen.
I'm pretty sure, if Olie had signed in, say, Pittsburgh, there would have been no divided loyalty at all.
From Thomas Jefferson's first Inaugural Address:
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.
And to get about as partisan as I get (which is kinda dumb, isn't it, since this is my blog and all): I post this with more optimism today than I did four years ago.
It was nice to see the lady in the McCain-Palin shirt and the lady with the big Obama button greeting each other warmly and talking about their kids in line at the poll. Sometimes I fear that the rhetoric is too nasty and we as a country are too polarized, but maybe in real life that is not the case.
A Girl Scout troop had a bake sale in the parking lot of our polling place. Good call, kids.
I registered to vote in high school, and I've voted in every election since, including the primaries and off years. I suppose I do take it for granted, to some extent. Today in line, there was a guy in front of me, probably in his 50's, with an accent I couldn't place. He asked me some questions about the procedure, and for reference I asked if he'd voted in the primary, because our polling place was set up differently today. No, he told me, today was the first time in his life he'd ever been able to vote for anything.