Reading, Writing, and Thoughts

First, I wanted to post a picture of the purple alliums that have bloomed right as the tulips have made their exit. I do like the alliums and want to buy some more bulbs in the fall to plant to expand this area to make it even more stunning. There is a sad note about this picture though is that the minitiare maple tree behind the alliums appears to have died or is dead. I am not at all sure what I am supposed to do about that.

The rose bush in the front and the minitiare rose bushes on the side are about to bloom or are in the process of blooming, so that is exciting. I will take pictures and title my next blog post "Everything's Coming Up Roses," which is one of my favorite Broadway songs and there is a story behind that. I will share in my next post.

Okay, moving on track season is still going on. We have a meet this Saturday and then the state meet. In our district meet last Thursday, the girl's team won it and the boy's team got second. Yena has the state cut for the 800 meter and 1600 meter race and before the weekend was one of the top 10 times in the state for middle school girls. Her time for the 800 meter right now is 2:36 and her 1600 meter time is 5:46. (I don't think I can run a 5:46 mile anymore.) But that's okay, I am still in pretty good shape and I am 40. However, I don't think age is an excuse. On Sunday morning, I did manage to get a long run in by myself (a half-marathon, so 13.1 miles) and didn't go too hard and still managed to do it in 1:46:30-something, so not too bad.

In other news, I finally managed to finish reading American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins that I have previously written about on here. With everything being said, I found it to be devistating and upsetting. Since college, I have read a number of books both fiction and non-fiction about immigration, the border, and everything connected to this. I have found the last four or five years there have been books that have addressed the detention centers that the last administration used and enforced the policy of separating children from their parents and families to be autrocious and cruel. I believe that I have talked about this issue in previous posts as well and don't want to get political.

However, I will never vote for Trump and to be brutallly honest the detention centers at the border is the one thing that I cannot stomach or justify in any way. More than anything else, and there are a lot of things that I am not able to stomach about his administration's policies and proposed policies. (I am not sure if the Biden administration is doing much better and don't think they are, but at least they supposedly stopped the enforcement of separating families.) I try to look at issues from all angles and also how it must be different for Americans living in border towns and seeing waves of immigrants come in and the worries about drugs, the cartels, gangs, etc. I think those worries are legitimate, but they are the reason so many people and families risk everything to try to get into this country because they know if they can't they will easily be killed by the cartels or gangs that take over their neighborhoods, have corrupted every level of security and government in their cities and nations. I have no idea how, but shouldn't we be trying to find real solutions for these bigger issues, which are only exacerbated by climate change because everything is connected. Climate change causes stress on the land and farmers can't produce as much as they need, let the cartels in because they promise work and money, this leads to violence and autrocities, so then people feel they have no choice but to leave because of intense fear and concern for their lives and of those of their families. Everything is connected!

I know that people supported these policies because somehow they thought we need to be telling people they should not and cannot come into this country illegally. However, if you are a person with a heart and have a family, children, friends, know other people and interact with people; how can you justify how we treat people coming here for a better life trying to escape danger and then getting here and having their children separated from them, spouses separated by the very nation that they are trying to get into in order to have a better life? So, if you are someone who values life, don't talk to me about your views on restrictingn abortion, restricting rights for transgendered people, or discriminating against those who are LGBTQ+ because we need to protect and promote families unless you are going to condemn and be active and loud about how we treat people and families at the border in inhumane and cruel ways.

I really didn't mean for this post to take such a serious and political turn, but it did and there you go.

I will end on a note about writing though since I finished American Dirt this morning. I have decided that I am going to spend some time reading my second novel Betty and Clark after I get it printed out on campus. I am going to continue Clark's story (or some time later) since the end of the book. If you do not know the basic scenario of Betty and Clark, I think you can find it in a previous post somewhere. Clark is a character who is close to my heart and want to see how he is doing and life has been since the ending of Betty and Clark. I won't say anything else at this point, but this is what I want to at least start this summer.