Hoppy Independence Day

I'm not the most patriotic person on the face of the planet, but I do enjoy fireworks.

I feel like taking a moment to reflect on the fact that even as much as our government and foreign policies suck, I am incredibly lucky to live in America. I am also incredibly lucky to be an American woman.

I am free to criticize my government without fear of going to prison or being executed.

I am free to work pretty much where I want to work, negotiate a salary to some extent, and enjoy benefits provided to me by my employer.

I am free to control my reproductive health.

I am free to read what I want to read, listen to what music I want to listen to, view whatever art I want to view, and access the internet without extreme censorship or censure.

I am also relatively free to create whatever art I want to create so long as it falls within America's legal code. I can't exactly make a display out of dead body parts that I collected myself from unwilling participants, but I could paint a bunch of dead body parts, or write about cannibalism and necrophilia if I so desired. (Sometimes I do, but the urge hasn't been as strong since I stopped taking Ambien.)

I am free to live where I want to live, and go where I want to go.

I am free to choose my own doctors and health care options.

I am free to follow my own religious path.

I am free to marry whom I choose or divorce whom I choose.

I am free to shop where I want to shop and have many, many options available to me.

I am free to own my own home and property.

I am free to spend my money where and how I choose.

I am free to dress how I want to dress.

I am free to talk to people that I want to and talk about people.

I am free to bear arms (and free to arm bears).

I am free to hold protests and petition my government to right wrongs.

I am free from having to provide housing to the military.

I am considered innocent until proven guilty, and I am free to ask for a jury of my peers to judge me should it be necessary.

All of these things, of course, are limited mainly by our fairly liberal laws, my own desire and financial means, but I'm free to be in debt up to my eyeballs, too, if I want to try to live beyond my means.

So thank you, America, for trying to live up to a 230-year-old ideal that all people are created equal and we have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Things That Make You Go, "WTF?!"

Is there seriously a market for this?

Plural Clothing

Especially this:

Mmm, Dinner!

Breaded oven-baked tilapia fillets, shrimp & bell pepper skewers & lima beans. Nom! The tilapia came out fantastic - it was tender and moist, but not wet & it held up to cooking really well. I remembered why I don't cook skewer food much - it's labor-intensive.