Juneteenth, potato baby, jigsaw puzzle and coping

 Today's Juneteenth

And my local library ran family craft workshops to create commemorative Juneteenth signs, with extras to take home.

It's a tradition of this library dating back to a much earlier director, Ginny Baeckler, to stay open on national holidays of this kind, then only Martin Luther King day.  Because, she used to explain,  the library is a center of community learning and it's appropriate to stay open to celebrate that. I'm glad to see it continue. And I wish the person who wrote the quotation had checked the spelling of Corpus Christi.

That same director didn't believe in celebrating minorites with events only during Black history month. She preferred to hire and promote minority employees, walking the walk long before other white people noticed the paleness and maleness of library employees.

I was there changing my puzzle for this one

Meanwhile, I did dig up the rogue potato, according to the judgment of blogista gardeners,  which was indeed a slice of potato I'd planted and forgotten. Moved it to a space in another container, dislodging a baby potato in the process

She's now been welcomed by the herd in the kitchen, reminds me of elephants.

And the saga of the neck pain continues, despite exercise designed to help,  walking, heating pad, icing, Advil generic, pain patch,  trying to read at eye level not head bent. 

I have a complete range of motion, no arm involvement etc. I think judging from the resistance to pain meds, it's a nerve irritation. And violent vomiting last week did nothing to soothe it.

Here's the latest attempt to keep reading devices at eye level

Steve's latest post up, for breakfast company.

I'm nervous about Wednesday's fridge delivery, though I expect they've done it before, but it will be good when it's done.

Happy day everyone, celebrate Juneteenth however you do, if you're in the US. Otherwise, let's do our part anyway. 

Few of us live in places where original and minority residents haven't had a bad time.  Those of us who were born in another country and moved at will are really the human equivalent of an introduced species.

We owe a lot to the original caretakers of the land, in my case the Lenni Lenape tribe,  whose artifacts still turn up right where I live. I thank them by caring for the land, recycling, living happily frugally, sparing water, in the past teaching workshops about their crafts and skills.

And I need to honor and thank the people brought here by force, to build and cultivate the land in misery, torn from their own lands. Black people literally built Washington, including the White House. 

It's the least I can do, as an educated white woman, offered in the US opportunity denied me by class and religion in the place I was born. I was unaware for so long of the cost of my  American opportunity to people who never had my options. So now I try to be aware, be an ally, not an exploiter.  And I'm so thankful. My part is so tiny, but it's what I can do. 

Thanks for listening!

Photo AC