( When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. )

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It's a beautiful day to celebrate our independence, and let's not forget the pack of rabble-rousing deists (and possibly even atheists) that decided they'd Just About Had Enough Of This Shit. They dreamed up a country where everyone got to be free and have a say (though our definition of 'everyone' has, mercifully, expanded since those days), church and state were intentionally separated, and there were checks and balances to keep one branch of the government from usurping the powers of all. If you didn't read what's behind the LJ cut above, how about you go do that now; pay special attention to the crimes of the King. It's a good list of things that we should never put up with.

So happy Independence Day to all of us Americans. Let's remember what this is all about, have some good barbecue, do some rabble-rousing of our own, and enjoy the fireworks.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

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I've been meaning to update my LJ for the past, oh, week, and just haven't gotten to it. Mostly because I haven't been doing anything that interesting.

Saturday was Paranoia, which was more fun than human beings should be legally allowed to have. I made a triumphant return as Ed, the non-gender communications officer that likes standing too close to people and hugging them. And I only lost one clone, which is quite fantastic, and that was because I utterly failed at a roll. We had pizza that night, which turned out to be a bad thing, as I was utterly ill the next morning. So I didn't go to kung fu; Mike did go to tai chi and had a darn good time.

Thankfully I was feeling better by mid-morning on Sunday, so I went to the farmer's market to check it out. It was quite awesome and I got some lovely ground beef and veggies. The people from Miller Farms were there, and they were a fine, jolly bunch of aging hippies with some damn good vegetables. I can't wait to go up to the farm one weekend and visit it once Nick and Chelsea get here. I won't get to go to the market this weekend, obviously, but I'm hoping by next weekend they'll start getting artichokes in, since this is supposedly the month where they start harvesting.

There Serenity game was... unexpected. The crew pretty much exploded again, and the end result was we spent most of the game building two new characters (for John and Rich) and a new ship (for everyone). Which was not an intention of the plot, but hey, stuff happens. Looks like the game's going to go from a sort of "mission of the week, let's make money" deal to "yay, insurrection is fun!" which is just fine as far as I'm concerned.

I didn't go to kung fu on Monday, either. Because Sin did the henna in my hair, which unfortunately happened after she got off of work from closing. So I was up until about two, but at least my hair is going to look nice for Keeley's wedding. Yesterday I was a zombie because of it, though.

I would have liked to have slept more than 8 hours last night, but Loki had different ideas. There are times when declawing him sounds like a very good idea. Like Tuesday morning, when he attacked my foot, which was innocently laying under the covers and attached to a sleeping person. He drew an impressive amount of blood, and managed to get his claws into the most painful patch of skin imaginable. (I get this thing, on the side of my foot, where there are all these little blisters for no apparent reason, and then they pop and the skin gets all dry and cracked and it's just nasty and uncomfortable.) I don't think I've ever kicked anything quite so hard in my life. And then this morning, he thankfully didn't attack any part of my body (maybe he learned his lesson when I sent him flying on Tuesday) but he did wake me with the sound of him clawing the new box spring.

This is not the first time it's happened. For the most part, he and Tengu are good and stick to the scratching post, but they both seem to forget themselves every now and then. I can feel myself slowly approaching the end of my rope. It's not going to be pretty when I finally get there.

Today shall be a relaxing day, though. I finished breakfast (leftover curry) and am digesting at the moment. My plan is to head over to the pool and get a swim in, then go hang out with Siren and the crew until it's time to go over to my parents' house for the cookout.

It feels so weird to have a day off, just in the middle of the week.