Monday Morning Musings

I'm stealing both title and idea from Terri as I ponder the here and now, sitting on the living room couch with our aging dog stretched out and sleeping next to me.

As indicated by the photo above, for another three weeks the Gregarious Son is in Russia, a destination that would have been most unlikely during my own law student days.  He says that some of the Russian students are going to try to help them find an American celebration. 

The Lovely Daughter is at camp in North Carolina, where I expect that they will have a small display of fireworks tonight in their little cove ringed by mountains.  

Last night we spent the evening with friends, a big group of us out on a porch on a beautiful evening.  The Quiet Husband  has been unenthusiastic about going to the fireworks tonight, so perhaps we'll just stay home.  I don't know that I've ever missed the fireworks, but perhaps last night was enough celebrating for us.

The big topic of discussion these days is the recent appearance of a flash mob of kids toward the end of a local street fair last week-end, 1,000-1,500 of them descending out of nowhere upon a small shopping  neighborhood a couple of blocks from most of our homes and generally wreaking havoc.  Most of the young people were from other places, and our city council has responded with a hasty and draconian curfew for certain areas.  Because we live in an older, inner-ring suburb, our residential and commercial districts are all interspersed among each other, with parks, libraries, and schools scattered all over the place, so public gathering places co-exist, generally peacefully, adjacent to quiet, tree-lined streets of older homes.  Our city prides itself on diversity of all kinds, so racial undertones smolder underneath concerns about businesses, pedestrian safety, and a major art festival in a couple of weeks.  How quickly careless adolescent behavior can become a complex social challenge!

Meanwhile, a pair of flickers have raised a couple of their own youngsters nearby.  The other day as I headed out for a walk, one of the young birds, innocent of feline hazards to its health, rested on the sidewalk until the insistent call of a parent atop the church two doors down encouraged a flight into a tree.  The young ones were not yet able to discern which branches would bear their weight, so there were some wobbly landings.  Last night, though, they zipped skillfully across our front yard, all grown up and ready to go.

So . . .  what's going on in your neighborhood these days?

Image here.