Happy Fifth of July.  I'm always happy when the Fourth is over, not that I'm under any illusions that the fireworks will stop.  I'm not feeling particularly patriotic, especially as I watch flag-wavers stopping buses and yelling insults and obscenities at the children inside.  Nor does the Hobby Lobby decision, yet another victory for conservative Christians and another defeat for women's rights, inspire me.  Justice Alito's majority opinion was striking for what it ignored.  While Justice Ginsburg's dissent spent the first several pages focusing on the consequences for women, Alito casually suggested that other ways of paying for contraception were available and moved on.  Potential challenges about transfusions or vaccinations were just as blithely waved away by Alito and friends, despite Scalia's own warnings about ensuing confusion and law suits in Employment Division v. Smith if any religions could opt out of laws and regulations.  In his opinion, J. Alito took pains to say that this decision was a narrow one, concerned only with the specific contraceptive devices Hobby Lobby and two other corporations objected to.  Yet by the next day, SCOTUS had sent out orders to lower courts suggesting that they consider, for example, Catholic objections to all contraception in considering further cases.

The week of the Fourth is also difficult because Kimber, our 80# German shepherd, is scared to death of fireworks and cowers under our feet or hides in a windowless bathroom for most of the week.  She refuses to go out after about 5 p.m.  Luckily, she seems to have a bladder of steel.  Last night we gave her a tranquilizer, making her look like Deputy Dawg or Droopy, but at least keeping her relatively calm.  It's 8:33 a.m. as I write this, and already there are fireworks outside.

July 3rd was the worst day I've had since I got out of my abduction brace three years ago.  Suddenly at mid-morning, I developed strong pains below the ribs, from front to back, on the left side of my body.  They hurt.  And they were also frightening, since they were only on the left side, which is where the primary kidney tumor is.  Meanwhile, the normal household calm was disrupted by the arrival of two Merry Maids.  While it's nice to have a monthly deep cleaning, it's also a little awkward to have two people bustling about.  The lawn people came, and I had an argument with the owner of the service, and Kimber was, of course, under foot as the morning was marked by numerous booms.  I took an extra Percocet and went to sleep.  When I woke up, the pains were gone, only to return in a few minutes.  Another Percocet, another nap, another temporary relief.  I couldn't eat, but that didn't stop relentless diarrhea and some nausea, the latter of which is only an infrequent problem.  And then, around 7 or 8 p.m., the pains stopped as suddenly as they had appeared.  I was fine yesterday as well.

There was some good news concerning the blog during the last week.  A colleague of one of my former colleagues sent a very nice e-mail.  He had been diagnosed with metastatic cancer, my ex-colleague had suggested he take a look at this blog, and he had read his way through all 240+ entries, no mean feat, and found it useful.  I re-connected with someone whom I'd known from K-12 in my small town class of 33, but whom I haven't seen in 51 years.  He, too, was reading the blog all the way through, "crying, laughing, and taking notes."  I'm hoping there won't be a quiz.  He lives in Seattle and asked for my address so he could send me something.  He overnighted a cold pack with two dozen oysters and two pounds of Alaskan salmon.  I couldn't eat at all on the 3rd, but yesterday, I celebrated the Fourth by downing all but one of the oysters.  Mohamed tried that one.  As there is perhaps no food I love as much as oysters and as Kansas isn't exactly the seafood capital of America, I didn't even feel guilty about scarfing down every single one of the rest of them.  That did make for a happy Fourth after all.