ChgoRed, Girl Editor

Sisterpalooza

This is how life works sometimes: One day, just on a hunch, you send an email. 10 weeks later, you are standing in the church you've always meant to visit. Someone opens a manila folder to reveal a photo of your great-grandfather and your heart takes a step back. You've never seen this one before. He's so young that he looks barely like himself. So young, his first wife is in the photo. But still, the face is there. It has been waiting all this time.

His was not the only waiting face. Last week was Sisterpalooza.

They came in from both coasts, and met in my town. And it went...really well. People keep asking me how it was, and I think they're envisioning a reunion like you see on Montel, with lots of over-the-top emotionality and freak-out sobbing. I hate to disappoint everyone, but it wasn't like that. This was more like friends getting together for the weekend.

Mostly, there was talking. A lot of talking. We spent a lot of time winnowing out the differences and the sames between us. There are some of each--her life, with two children and a family business, is very different from either of ours. Yet our approaches to things, likes and dislikes, seemed quite similar at times. I do think there was a lot of surreptitious glancing on everyone’s part—That looks like me…that doesn’t…I think those are mom’s hands… But that’s pretty natural. And it was...nice. And very friendly.

Besides, the big scenes will come next spring, when NewSister will probably go down to meet her/our mother. That will be pretty emotional.  For now, it was nice just to get to know each other and see some of the sights. Hancock Building, Andersonville, Greektown, etc. There were other sights, too—family photos and heirlooms, a review of the family tree. And the church.

Firecracker Firecracker, Sis Boom Bah!

I don't think we'll be setting off any fireworks this year (much to my husband's sadness), and he has to work this evening (again, booo).  But we have watermelon, Diet Coke and Fluky's hot dogs in the fridge, and a Bruce Springsteen DVD to watch.  Later, we may go up to Evanston to see their fireworks show.  Feels like the Fourth to me. 

Also, there's this.  It always bothers me how, when people quote this, they usually stop right at the pursuit of happiness.  I assume they do this because it's nice--who wouldn't like a government that wants you to be happy?  But really, the following lines about how that government derives its just powers from our consent, and how we can get rid of it if we need to--that stuff is much more compelling...and confrontational. 

Happy Fourth, y'all, from your local Croatian-Scottish-German-French-Canadian American.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

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.

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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.