Wednesday 23rd July

I have come to the conclusion that lounging around cross stitching isn't good for me, I felt better today being up and about.    Did my chaplaincy round at the hospital this morning.

My pal who drives the golf buggy round the hospital car park is a BIG FAN of British comedies, watches them all -  'One Foot in the Grave' 'Last of the Summer Wine' - you know the ones,  and he told me excitedly this morning that there is a new one on Sunday nights called 'Vicious'.  Anyone know it??  Said it was about two gay men..... a bit obscene.... a lot of innuendo.     I said gay men !!!  obscene!!! innuendo!!!     Told him I didn't have him down for programmes like that (he strikes me as being a rather rigid, southern Baptist)  he said no he wasn't really, but he likes this and is sorry when he falls asleep and misses bits.  

On the subject of said golf buggy we could really do with one of those at the DGH, the hospital car park here is nothing like the size of that, and really doesn't need it, but I can't see it happening.  Any more than I can see our banks providing popcorn on Fridays and donuts on Saturday mornings.

This is an incredible story.   In Shawnee 85% of children in public (or we would call 'state' schools) have free lunches, but when they are out of school for the summer they would go hungry if charitable organisations did not provide a lunch for them.   And I remember a Kiwanis' speaker telling us that during the term children are given food on Fridays to take home to tide them over the weekend.    All my life I have grown up thinking America was the richest country in the world, and I have a major problem grasping the extent of the poverty here.   The Salvation Army here, in the picture above, is providing children with the 'Back to School Basics', pens, pencils, back packs, all the things we buy our kids at the beginning of term.  An organisation in the Senior Centre runs a 'Shoes that Fit' programme which provides shoes for children who would otherwise go to school in flip flops.   We might - I am sure we do -  have poverty in some places in the European Union, but nothing like it is on the level I've seen here.   I have come to think it is because we are socialist nations, whereas 'socialism' here is a dirty word.

I have mentioned in previous blogs the generosity of Americans, and there is no doubt that those who do have money are extremely generous, because without their unstinting support the feeding programmes, the  'back to basics'  the 'shoes that fit' - all these programmes - would not be able to meet the needs of these children.

It is often bandied about here that Obama is the leader of the Free World, and it always causes me to wonder "when did that happen, and how, why"   Did Cameron, Merkel, Hollande et al all come together at some conference or other, and decide?      Although having said that, I am at the moment, reading a book about America in 1927, which was the year America became exceptional.   Another favourite expression bandied about here is  'American Exceptionalism'.

Changing the subject -

This is the latest afghan.   I shall go round it a few more times in yellow and white, and make it bigger.  And I've made a few mistakes in it, I think I'll keep it for myself instead of donating it to the Senior Centre for a raffle.   I would like to put it on my bed, but I've got a cat who walks all over the bed, and would eventually tear it up.   She recognises when the 'going to bed' routine kicks in, and jumps up to sleep beside me., it is a good thing I haven't got a man in my life, he'd be very ticked  off.  To my chagrin she situates herself on the side of the bed nearest the nightstand, so I'm always stretching over her.    I think she eventually gets tired of my snoring, she is usually curled up in her rocking chair when I wake up.

This evening I went to the movies with Pattisue and we saw 'Persecuted'.   I thought it was very good but I need to see it again a couple of times to get a better understanding of it (so I hope it comes downtown where the admission is only $2)  There was only the two of us seeing that particular film, we had the entire auditorium to ourselves, so I could jump up and down and say in a loud voice, "those are the bad guys, when did the good guys realise what was happening, why aren't the bad guys being arrested".