Ehlana and Ethan:
It is getting late and we have had a long, busy day; so let’s get right to the news of the day. Memorial Day is considered our local, unofficial start to the summer season, but it is also a mix of somber remembrance and celebration with the split coming between the morning parade and service at the cemetery and the afternoon picnic in the park. We had to start our day early so that we could meet up for the parade with the rest of the school band, but Ethan and Naomi didn’t join us for Tai Chi by the river that Aiden and I did with Cassie and Michael; and we did our own thing for breakfast too either with the Drapers or Seagers. Ethan and I had fun with our respective starts to today – just as we did last night with our respective family time and separate co-ed sleepovers after the family-and-friends’ buffet dinner at the Inn yesterday.
The parade, as mentioned, was solemn with appropriate music with the band; there was a good turnout thanks to the nice weather; and then the service at the cemetery that Pastor John led was heartfelt, beautiful, and personal – even for everyone that only had links to those sacrifices through our ancestors. Ethan and I stayed with the Seagers or Drapers this year for the walk through the cemetery after the service so that we could hear their family stories while our grandparents led the story-telling for our own family. Those walks always last longer on good weather years, but we still needed to move on to the park in time for the picnic lunch; and Ethan and I went home with Mom and Dad to help with the work there to load up our food contributions and day-camp supplies. The picnic was awesome from the food to the games, biking on the trails, canoeing, and everything else we did. Ethan and I helped out some of the time with next-gen kids; enjoyed the time with our cousins and friends; and eventually helped out with getting our gear home again and then helping with the load-up for some of our outgoing weekend guests. There were some chores to help with after that; had a snack dinner with Mom and Dad; and moved into the office for some evening work and a Magi lesson. We don’t need to cover the work details, but we were busy with some charity and family business projects work; the Magi lesson was defense-related and a bit experimental with something Ethan and I have been working on while not being ready for that to be anything usable yet in an emergency or Dark Magi Master fight. Even with some time phasing, we worked until after eleven o’clock; and then we moved on to bath or Jacuzzi time.
That brings us up to now, but before we get to the world news update; we want to do a bit of a family recap for some of the general news that we don’t write about very often except during holiday visits. As we get started on another summer season; there are some changes happening with our extended cousins; and we’re in the middle of the pack between the groups of teens and kids that are also part of gaps that technically span generations. The teens that are older than us are already in college or will be starting soon; so they are transitioning to that next level. The next group is younger by only a few years, but then they are closer with our own younger cousins including Leah, Brianna, and Faith while less-interested in hanging out with us. The pre-schoolers that we think of as part of the next-gen group get our attention along with our own local kids, and we help with them, but they also hang out with those kids and their collective parents. Cassie and Michael get tossed in with those parents while helping out with their own nieces and nephews; so we’re out of the loop for some of that fun too.
Since the Rice clan was away this weekend, we’ll save up news from them until their next visit home, but we can report that Jayden has his own changes happening – particularly since getting his driver’s license, and while he spent time with us too; he also mixed in spending time with his sisters, Micah and Jeremy, and his aunts and uncles. Jaimie and Micah have another project that they are working this summer with Cassie and Michael’s college friends and their environmental clean-up company; they will be on that job site for most of their summer break; and headed back there tonight. Kaitlyn is staying here and has her summer job with Aunt Leanne – and Dad; and she will start doing more legal work this summer as she works toward her future career in both real estate and as a future paralegal. Let’s add a note about the jokes that Kaitlyn will spend most of her summer staying at her family cottage even though she is technically supposed to be staying with the Everetts, but we don’t know whether she will try to do that or not yet; so stay tuned for that future news story if it happens! ;^)
That’s enough for the family news; so let’s wrap this up with the world news report. Ukraine is getting more attention, but not for good reasons. Russian leaders have warned of imminent strikes on Kiev and told all countries to evacuate their citizens from the capital. We don’t know specifically what Russia has planned, but it appears that they are taking the gloves off after the latest waves of Ukrainian drone strikes; and that will not end well for the Ukrainian people. A smaller story from Russia was about a tanker ship returning to a Russian port from Europe that apparently had multiple magnetic mines attached to it – mines that were from NATO stockpiles. They were disarmed, but the new risks for shipping in the Baltics are an escalation; and could be considered a direct act of war by NATO if one of the member countries has started to mine the Baltic Sea or directly target Russian ships. As for the front lines for the Ukraine war, there are reports of new offensives along the lines at several locations, and if Russia is starting a new summer offensive; that’s more bad news for Ukraine. We have no idea whether their armed forces can survive another year; since their last lines of defense east of Odessa and Kiev could fall over the next few months.
As for the Iran war, while the talk is still about peace today; there is still no true sign that the ‘deal’ being touted by President Trump this weekend is more than smoke and mirrors. Iran is certainly not suggesting that they’ve agreed to anything at all; so it doesn’t matter if all of ‘our’ allies in the region agree to anything if Iran doesn’t confirm anything. We’ll continue to note that Israel does not seem interested in peace at all; and they rotate their own military actions and continue to take territory and destroy everything in their way whether that is the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank; Syria, Lebanon, or Iran. Any peace deal will be meaningless if Israel doesn’t stop their actions too; since they are gaining new enemies every day with their horrific actions. The world economic impacts continue to build thanks to both wars; so we also need to watch for stress breaks elsewhere in the world as costs rise and critical resources become scarce. While our future readers might be getting bored with those regular warnings when we don’t follow that up with actual stories for those consequences; we can’t cover every story; and there are daily reports already out there related to countries and businesses dealing with those problems. Unfortunately for everyone; many of those solutions are just temporary fixes that will cause more problems in the future. For just one example, our leaders are draining the strategic petroleum reserve; the draw-down last week was ten million barrels; and that mostly only suppresses market prices short-term while it will be a future problem when and if we are in a position to fill those tanks again. That doesn’t even take into consideration a future risk of need for those supplies in the event of a true emergency instead of one that our leaders created by going to war with Iran; and we were already running those supplies at barely-more than half of the reserves capacity. We don’t want to go on about that topic, since it really is just one, comparatively-small story, but our national daily use of oil products is around twenty-million barrels per day; so our current reserves would only last for around three weeks if we needed to rely on them entirely without also implementing severe restrictions. Yes, it is more-complex than that simplification, but that’s enough and we need to wrap this up.
This has been a really great weekend, and as we head into the final week of May; we are looking forward to the wind-down to our school year. We’ll be focusing on exams now for the next few weeks, but then we are planning an amazing summer too; so we are going to have fun along with the work! We are ready to get some sleep now; so we’re out of here and off to dreamland.
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
