Praze the red, white and blue

When I was writing a check at the dentist's office this morning, I asked the date and realized it's flag day. Used to be, you would see the flag flying all along the street on such a designated day. I didn't see a one on my way home. Even my own flag has been stuck in the closet since the bracket broke years ago. But returning from my walk just now, I noticed a parade of little flags my neighbor had planted along her flower bed. Nothing fancy. Probably not even technically correct because the little flags brush the grass. But it's the thought that counts. And the thought is this: Even in economic decline and hateful, name-calling politics, it is still our country. And after the terrible battle, Francis Scott Key noticed. The flag. It survives. Praze this mixed-up country of ours and its scrapy little flag.

Praze focus

Focus on how amazing life is. You get what you focus on
That's what my friend Marlene Lathrop posted today on Facebook and it's so true. Maybe you can't make the rain go away just by thinking about sunshine, but you can watch the drops slithering down the window and focus on the way they seem to refract the light into a rainbow of colors. You can see beyond the problems. Praze focus...and wise friends.

Praze my mess!

Glory Hallelujah! I found my white sandals! I feel like that biblical shepherd who forsook the ninety and nine (I don't have quite that many other shoes) and rejoiced in finding one lost sheep. Actually a pair of little white sheep, looking a bit smudged and dirty after being rescued from deep under my desk where they've been hiding in a mass grave of discarded and forgotten shoes. I've been looking for the white sandals even before Memorial Day, the traditional starting gun for wearing of the white. When I couldn't find them, I tried to recall when I last saw them -- sometime last summer -- and where I had been. I went through suitcases in the basement, searched under beds and sofas, and finally decided I must have thrown them out for some reason and forgotten it. I never really thought about the desk where I often retrieve whatever footwear I had on the night before when I sat down to write. Sometimes I accumulate a couple of pairs, and if not retrieved they get pushed back further and further. This morning, I hauled three pairs of assorted tennies and way in the back, under a shelf at the back wall were my missing white sandals -- where they must have been since last summer. Oh, my, I need to get out the vacuum! But first I'll find the white polish. My lost sheep has returned!

Praze Passports

Just applied to renew my passport which expires in September. In the 10 years since I got that passport I've been to China, my family's ancestral home on the Orkneys in northern Scotland, a Mediterranean cruise and a Caribbean cruise, Mexico and countless trips to Stratford Theater Festival in Canada. That passport opened the door to all of that. And the new one? Well, who knows what lies ahead. But my passport is on the way and I'm so excited to see what comes next.