Patriotism

From “God Bless the USA” - Lee Greenwood

"And I'm proud to be an American

Where at least I know I'm free

And I won't forget the men who died

Who gave that right to me

And I gladly stand up next to you
And defend her still today

‘Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land

God bless the USA”


Meme loves this country. She asked if today I could write about patriotism and love of country. For me my “country” is a very small place. I walk out my door and down our street and that’s my country. I know I love it. Meme says I’m “just a dog”. And I say “JUST a dog”???? What does that mean? I’m not “just” anything … I am a dog and I love my country.

I’m a small white dog. I walk down the street and I meet other white dogs, black dogs, brown dogs and dogs with lots of different colored spots. They’re all the same to me and I think they feel the same way. I don’t even know the difference when Meme says “here comes a really big dog!” I think, huh? Big? Looks the same as me to me.

I don’t understand when I hear people say that “their people” were treated badly a long time ago and because of the oppression their forebears had to suffer, they’re now held back and they still feel a resentment they can’t seem to shake off.

So Meme tells me that every person who is born on this earth should have a right to be whatever and whoever they want to be. The world should be open to them. Unfortunately that’s not true in some countries, but I’ve never been to those countries and all I know is here.

Here in the United States all things are possible for all people. Look around and you see people of all colors, all nationalities, at the top of their game. If a person really wants to be somebody, wants to excel, and they study hard and work hard, they can be whatever they want. It wasn’t always like that, but it is today. Meme says no one should use the crutch of a past oppression as an excuse for not fighting for what they want today. Some may have a harder climb than others because that’s what capitalism is all about. But if you really want something and you’re willing to work for it, it’s attainable.

Last night she watched a man defend himself for saying “God damn the USA”. She thought about it all night and she can’t get it out of her mind. I know because she was tossing around more than usual.

She wonders at what point do the sins of our fathers stop being our sins of today? And there were sins; there’s no doubt about that. We must never forget and we must strive to be sure nothing like it ever happens again.

But how many generations have to bear the responsibility for things that happened hundreds of years ago? And does anyone really believe that God was damning America when evil people who hate ALL Americans decided to fly planes into the World Trade Center killing 3000 innocent Americans?

This man says that because of the deeds of a time long gone by, the chickens came home to roost that awful day when innocent Americans of every color and creed were killed.

This is a good country. The people here are good, compassionate people. Every day people reach out to help others. Yet every day on TV we hear what a terrible world we live in, we hear that everything costs too much, and not everyone can find exactly the job they want for the pay they feel they deserve. People are being eaten by sharks and alligators are walking into people’s kitchens. Planes aren’t taking off on time or not at all. Bears are attacking people and tigers are mauling their handlers. Housing prices have come down and everyone mourns the loss of their investment yet no one was heard complaining when housing prices were creeping higher and higher each and every day and investors bought up homes before they were built so they could flip them over and make a fortune. Seemed to some like it might go on forever, but nothing ever does. Meme always says “what goes up must come down”.

But you know what? In this great country we live in people who say they can’t afford gas are crowding our highways and at least here where we live we haven’t seen any fewer cars on the highway. In fact, they're adding roads because they say the roads we have just aren't enough to fit all the cars that need to get somewhere they're not. And they’re not all going to work. Families still crowd the restaurants. People stand in doorways and street corners smoking cigarettes that cost a gizillion dollars a pack. And the planes take off as fast as they land because people keep traveling all over the place. They build cruise ships bigger and grander because so many people want more fun on those ships so they make them like huge resorts just to fit more people on them.

Poppy told me there are 30 sports stadiums in the U.S. Every single day each stadium is filled with over 30,000 people paying a huge wad of money to watch a ball game and then they pay a lot of money for hot dogs from some part of a pig (Poppy wouldn't tell me what part and I don't want to know). That’s 900,000 people every single day just sitting, eating and spending their money just to watch a bunch of guys toss a ball around.

There’s a Starbucks on every corner and people are going in there to buy a cup of coffee that costs big bucks (we don’t know how much because Meme makes her coffee at home, but we hear it’s pretty expensive). It’s coffee!!!! How good can a cup of coffee be?

And there are brave soldiers all over the world who are looking out for us, fighting for us, getting wounded and sometimes dying for us just to make sure we can live free, that we can enjoy our lattes and go out to dinner and and go to ball games and drive to the mall or along the ocean. And most of all they fight so we can say whatever we please and not get shot for it.

You know what Meme wishes? She wishes that at least one politician would come along to run for office, stand up on that podium with a thousand red, white and blue flags behind them and say …………

“Look at this grand and glorious country of ours! Look how far we’ve come and what we’ve achieved. Look at the pleasures we get to enjoy that we take for granted every single day. This is a great country, strong and bold and generous and good. We are living in an amazing land where we are free to say whatever we want and be whatever we want to be. Sure sometimes we make mistakes and sometimes there are hurricanes and national disasters and sometimes we get it wrong, but at least we try. And when we mess up, there are so many people in this great country who try to make it right. Every single solitary American should step up to the plate and do his share. No one should look to anyone else for a free handout. We all have to find a compromise, bend a little and start to work together instead of split down the middle as if there's an enemy within. If we all work together as brothers and sisters to fight our real enemies instead of bickering back and forth, if we all come together and combine our strengths against something far more ugly and evil than anything we have ever known, then and only then will our proud country come back to being what we all know in our hearts it can be. United we stand, but divided we most definitely can fall.”


She wishes she didn’t have to turn the TV on every single day and hear how bad everything is and read all the horrendous things that happened because she knows in her heart that for every bad thing that happened, something good happened too.

Someone was healed, someone was saved, someone brought a new life into the world, someone was kissed for the first time, someone cheered another person up, someone helped a lost soul find their way home, someone reached out a helping hand and felt the reward of knowing they had helped another human being. And all over this country, lots of people laughed and there's really nothing better than that.

We have got to stop with the gloom and doom and feeling that somehow we’re not getting enough, stop whining that the bubble we were living in burst.

We’ll get past this faltering economy. We’ve come through far worse and we will again. Most of us living today don’t even know what true hardship is. Only those still alive who lived through the Great Depression know what “giving up” is really all about. We are proud people. We pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and move forward with hope, strength and determination.

I know I haven’t had to give up much of anything. We drive around a little less, but Meme isn’t cutting her own hair yet and I know I’m still at that stupid groomer every month. I just got a pretty new collar and there's bones in the cupboard; what more could I want? We have a TV in just about every room and a fancy doohinkie that records the TV whenever I need to go out. And Meme tells me we’re not in that upper 1% who pays most of the taxes collected by the IRS. We’ve learned to live on less and we’re still in pretty good shape. We're happy and Meme says happiness is something that comes from deep inside and no amount of money in the world can buy that. She always tells me if I'm not happy in my heart, no bone is going to cure it. I'm not sure I would go quite that far, but mum's the word.

The sky is bright blue, the sun is warm, rain still glistens on the windowpanes when the sun shines on it after it stops and every now and then we see a rainbow. Ducks waddle along our back yard and great and glorious birds glide in over the lake behind our house. The trees still rustle in the breeze and I still get to sniff the grass, chase the birds and try to stare down an Armadillo every now and then.

There’s a reason so many people from so many other countries want to come here, live here, work here and enjoy our way of life. If it was so miserable here, nobody would be trying to come into our country by whatever way they can manage. And if it was so miserable here, all the unhappy people would move to all those other countries. But they're not ... even when they threaten to, they don't. Meme says if a certain person is elected President she's moving to Barbados, but she won't ... it will be fine.

Life is good. Meme, Poppy and I are darned proud we were lucky enough to be born here and we’re very proud to be Americans.

'Til next time!

Molly

Copyright HBS 2008

Make-up, Hair, and Aging ... Less is More

Well, it's 'her' subject, not mine ... this is pretty much a non-issue for me. I should mention that Meme is at that age where she's not really old old (if you know what I mean), but she's not even close to young. As for me, I wouldn't know and I'm just going by what she tells me.


Seems that when men age they're a lot better at it. Some women even think they get sexier (whatever that means!). Sometimes they're "distinguished". But whatever they are, it's rarely bad.


Women are different. Starting somewhere around 50 (some say even earlier) it's all downhill. Sad but true. So then they start buying all these potions that are supposed to take away the years and tighten their skin and all sorts of other promises. And when one doesn't work, they try something else and on and on. What you have to really respect is that women never give up!!!! They just keep trying.


Now sometimes they actually go to the hospital and let themselves be cut up and pulled up ... sometimes even sucked out!!!!! Ouch!!!!! Luckily I'm covered with fur and will never have to consider such a painful act.


Now, Meme told me that is definitely NOT an option for her as much as she would like it. Sometimes I see her in front of the mirror pulling her face in all these weird contortions and I have to admit, she really does look better. But as soon as she lets go, her face goes back the way it was.


So she got to thinking about it (I know ... dangerous) and finally decided that as women age, less is definitely more. She was looking around at some of these ladies older than she is and says they look a little like clowns. I've never seen a clown, but I have seen the women she means. They have faces with colored spackle on them! There are a lot of these in South Florida, we don't know why they all seem to come here. And sometimes their hair is sort of blue with matching eyelids. And on top of the blue or sort of pale yellow hair they spray some sort of glue that doesn't let it move if there's a wind. Some of these women have also had their faces tightened like I was talking about before. It's almost scary!


Meme still buys the potions to make her skin smooth and has no idea whether it's working or not. She always asks me how could she know? The only way would be to stop applying them and see if the situation gets worse, but she doesn't want to take that chance.


For years she put on the spackle along with some sort of paint that makes her lashes darker but just as stubby and even worse sort of stuck together. She finally decided to skip all that nonsense and go with what she says the "good Lord gave her". She does cheat a little and puts some pink on her cheeks and her lips. She can't believe that she goes outside that way and nobody seems to notice the difference!!! And she looks way better, I think.


Now, hair is different. Hair is forever and hair can be fixed. Meme says it's a woman's crowning glory. She can cut it to make her face look thinner or fatter, she can color it so nobody knows there's any gray in there (which evidently is the kiss of death for women ... never go gray!!!). Or she can put something in there called highlights which kind of makes her light up. That's what Meme does; she says it's a more casual approach.


She said that a woman has to know when it's time to cut her hair ... past a certain age, long is not attractive anymore. And also she says the hair should always bend up, not down, once you reach that magic "certain age". One of Meme's favorite things to say is "up is up". She says it about the stock market and she says it about hair. She says you need to always draw the eye up. So now her whole focus is her hair and she works hard on it every day to make sure it looks like she didn't do anything with it. Takes her forever to make that happen!


Now Poppy doesn't do much of anything!!! I see Meme carefully picking out these nice clothes, putting them on, fixing her hair and putting that pink stuff on her cheeks. Ever since he retired, Poppy showers, brushes his teeth and combs his hair, but that's about it! He throws on shorts from Caldors (a store we don't think even exists anymore), a t-shirt and unimaginable shoes almost every day! Meme even went out and bought some really pretty colored t-shirts. She told Poppy if t-shirts are the wardrobe of the day, then she's going to color up the day!!!
Every now and then I hear Meme say to Poppy "so who am I getting all dolled up for anyway?" And I have to laugh because secretly I think she does it for herself.


But you know what? I don't care about any of it! Poppy takes me for the long walks. What do I care whether he's colorful or not or how funny his shoes are? These just aren't important things to me. I look good, that's for sure ... I know this because everybody tells me so.


So maybe she's right ... maybe less is more.


Molly


P.S. Today I'm including my Meme in my picture.

Frigid in Florida!!!

It's been quite an exciting few days around here! Meme has been busy shopping for another TV that we need like a hole in the head!!! Princess posted some ideas for diverting them from watching and I thank her, but I don't hold out a heck of a lot of hope. These two are glued!!! It's okay ... at least I can keep track of them.

Slinkiecat, thanks for your comment. I like cats. I lived with one the first 5 years of my life and Meme cried her eyes out when Sammie got terribly sick. She had to take her somewhere and when Meme came home, Sammie wasn't with her and never came back. I don't know where she's living now, but it's not here so other than the lizards on the patio I'm the only four legged animal in the house.

Sammie wasn't exactly nutty about me no matter how many times I tried to catch up with her so we could play. But I have a boy cat friend across the street who lies on his back in his driveway hoping I'll come over and sniff him all over. So I do, but it's boring so I move on pretty quick. Every now and then I chase him just to let him know that dogs rule!

Meme has a lot of opinions about global warming, whether it exists and if so whether we're responsible for it and even more important she thinks we're on the wrong track to fix it if it should even be fixed. She thinks it's a little arrogant of us to believe that we really have much control over the ebb and flow of the earth. I'll tell you one thing ... it's April 15th in South Florida and it's going to be 40 tonight!!!! Anyway ... I'm going to save that rant for another day. Somebody wrote about fire ants and luckily I've never had a run in with them, but I'll look into it.

Sunday was Meme and Poppy's anniversary and you would think this was exciting in some way. I knew something was up when she took forever fixing her face that morning. Seemed to work for her, though, and before you know it I was going out for my midday romp a little early so I just knew I was in for a boring day. Sure enough, off they went. When they got back Meme musthave taken at least 15 pictures of me with that awful flash going pop pop pop and I couldn't figure out why! It wasn't any special day for me that's for sure.

Meme's mind has been spinning again. I know!!! Very dangerous. And as usual she tells me everything. She says she refuses to let go of her positive attitude no matter how hard the TV tries to get her down and bummed about how things are going in this country.

They have this thing called "polls" which is nothing like the poles I see my boy dog friends peeing on. Anyway, the TV keeps telling Meme that most people think this country is in very bad shape. But those same polls also say that most of those same people feel comfortable and happy in their own lives. So she figured out that somehow or other these people are believing what they hear and read ... that most of the people they know are in trouble and just aren't telling them.

Pretty strange because we live in a place with restaurants everywhere, sometimes one on every corner. She feels that if everyone was in such bad shape, the restaurants would be empty. But she and Poppy have to get beepers and wait for dinner almost every time they go out. And that's not places like McDonalds (I don't think they have beepers). These restaurants have pretty pricey menus and there are all these families eating out no matter what day they go.

She says our country has gone through bad times before and we'll go through hard times again. Everything was just too good for too long, people had too much, the cost of homes was completely going haywire. Building went mad and the investors moved in and skewed the whole thing wildly by doing something they call "flipping". So it looked like whole new developments were selling out in days, but they weren't. People were just trying to make money. Eventually something has to give, has to calm the country down.

But in the meantime there are many people who have become so terribly spoiled and as a result unfortunately greedy. They expected the sky was the limit and kept reaching for it. They saw no end to theprosperity. As one very old guy who went through the Depression said the other day ... many people today haven't got a clue about what hard times are really about, they don't really know the true meaning of cutting back. It's really not their fault... for some this is all they've ever known.

So Meme says this will all correct itself over time. It's not fun to see people going through difficult times, but we always come back. This is the United States of America and she doesn't believe that Americans anywhere in this country are bitter about anything. Most people don't look to the government to bail them out. They gain strength from their families, their friends and their faith. And when their lives take a bad turn they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start over. She believes in all Americans and she believes in our country's future.

And if that's how Meme feels, that's good enough for me. 'Til next time!

Molly

Trouble's A'brewing!

Uh oh! Meme's on one of those rants I told you about. She says she's been thinking. I say that's dangerous. She watches all this TV and between you and me I'm not sure it's really good for her. Sometimes in the morning I have to jump off the bed because she's screaming at the television.

And that upsets me because it's one of my favorite times. Meme and Poppy drink their coffee and watch morning TV. I could care less about the show as I've said before, but I like when I know where these folks are ... makes me feel secure.

Anyway, here's the thing. This morning, as usual, they were watching politics. Seems some man who's pretty well known, President Clinton, was talking about a story that died out a couple of weeks ago. I think Mrs. Clinton misspoke about something.

So now he says the reason she misspoke is because it was 11:00 at night, she was exhausted and she is 60 after all, so she just messed up. And that got Meme to thinking ..... even if it was 11:00 at night when she misspoke (and it wasn't) if she's tired and confused at 11:00 at night and she's elected President, how is she going to handle that 3:00 in the morning phone call she's always talking about?

I have to say I think Meme has a point! 'Til next time.

Molly

Off to a good bark !!!

Right now Meme and Poppy are watching TV. They say it's something really important and interesting, but I can think of a lot more interesting things. I hate TV ... never saw any point to it. You can't touch the people or the dogs so what good is it?

Anyway, it was nice to get some comments from some of you from the other day! I was especially happy to hear from some of my fellow dogs. Someone said he's not a purebred ... who cares? We're dogs for goodness sake! It's the people who fuss over stuff like that ... as if it matters. Personally I make no distinction between mutts and purebreds ... one dog's butt is as good as the next is what I always say.

I have to confess a little misspeak the other day. Meme told me that when I exaggerate or even lie, it's better to just say I misspoke ... just sounds better. Anyway, I do think that for a dog I'm a pretty darned good writer, but the truth is I can't type so I have to dictate all this for Meme to type. I didn't want to make myself sound smarter than I actually am. But as one of my Aunts always says .... Hey!!! I'm a Dog!!!

Also, I'm adopted ... born from her heart Meme always says. She doesn't even know that in reality she didn't pick me ... I picked her. Yup, it's true! I was living with my littermates, my Mom and my Aunt and her litter in Daytona Beach when Meme came to visit with her friend. She picked me up and held me close and I just liked her. So I nuzzled her neck .... that's a trick we all learn from our Moms as puppies!!! Just nuzzle the neck and you've got a home for sure! Sure enough, 4 weeks later she came again and drove me home.

So far my blog has been all about me, but I told Meme I thought she wanted me to talk a little about the stuff she tells me. So we will get to that. But I thought we'd start out light and easy so you get comfy with me.

Until next time!!!
Molly

First Day

Before we even get started here, I want you to know I don't get a choice where music is concerned. So when I mention the music I'm listening to, you can pretty much figure Meme put on the Bose for me. Usually all they ever listen to is 50's music ... something about their past and all the good memories. I have no idea what they're talking about half the time, but I'm a good listener.

I'm happy today because Meme told me I can write all my stuff in this journal. Meme has a lot to say and she tends to say it to me. Like I say, most of what she jabbers about is pretty much Greek to me but she feeds me so I tilt my head and perk up my ears, try to look interested. It seems to work because she always tells me how brilliant I am.

Anyway, I'll get into more of the heavy stuff later. I thought I'd start on on a light note so you could sort of get to know me a little .. see where I'm coming from with all this.
Sometimes Meme goes on about the country and politics, sometimes about travel, often about all the friends she has and what they mean to her. Good for her!!! Not many friends coming my way, that's for sure.

I hope no one will take anything I say personally. She feels what she feels and I really think she has a respect for other peoples opinions and views. Mostly she's a glass half full kind of person and always looks at the bright side.

So do I. Life is good. I get a nice Sleep Number bed to sleep on every night, 2 balanced meals a day, plenty of walks, lots of dog beds all over the house (3 at last count) and tons of love. What's not to like? Poppy takes me for the greatest romps. He runs trying to keep up with me and I swear one of these days he'll go flat on his keister but that's sure not my responsibility. At his age he really ought to start thinking about slowing down a little.

So that's it for today! Don't know how often I'll write here ... mostly when Meme starts off on a tear and fills my ears with all this rhetoric and I just have to let it out somewhere. In the meantime, woof ... see you around!

'Til next time ...

Molly