Ehlana and Ethan:
We’ve had a rain day around here, so most of our outdoor opportunities were cancelled – including our baseball practices. After having a blast with our family and friends last night from dinnertime through the evening video gaming and a movie to the co-ed sofa sleepover time that we got around to after the rest of the teens moved on to other homes and plans for the rest of the night. Thanks to the rain, Tai Chi was indoors this morning; we had a hot breakfast; took care of a few chores after our friends moved on for the rest of the morning; and then Ethan and I spent a few hours at the lab or archives.
While that play-work was fun, we still wrapped up in time for a late lunch; and then we met up with cousins and friends for some shopping that was mostly at the Galleria with only a few visits to other stores including Palmer’s; Taylor’s; and Emerson Computers. Some of our fellow shoppers added in some play time at the studio, but that wasn’t to make a music video; and they only had one short time slot because the studio is always busy during the summer – especially on rain days when campers need to find alternate entertainment. We had our afternoon snack break at the Galleria too; and then Ethan and I eventually ended up at home with a small group of teens and kids for the Pizzeria pizza dinner that Mom and Dad hosted – mostly so that they could still support Rebecca and Jen despite the baseball practice cancellations. We didn’t have everyone in the family at our house – the Carringtons and Ayres hosted pizza dinners too, but then we also didn’t have plans for evening or sleepover guests tonight because we needed to work in the office tonight instead.
Once our friends moved on to other plans for the night, Ethan and I started the rest of our evening with a Magi lesson with Mom; we all got to work after that; and have gotten a lot done tonight – including starting new projects in Europe that we’re helping Cassie and Michael with as they find new opportunities while in Germany.
That pretty much brings us up to now for our local news, but since we haven’t offered world news updates lately; let’s go there tonight – even though we’d rather not spend the time on all of the bad news. The war in Ukraine continues to escalate, and over the past week, that’s partially-due to Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory where their soldiers have mostly been attacking civilian targets. We can suggest that the Ukrainian leaders are making yet another insane mistake that will end badly for them, but that will be proved out sooner or later; and we mostly feel awful for all of the ‘normal’ people caught up in the mess – including all of the Ukrainian soldiers that have and will be decimated as the Russian forces destroy them and then retaliate with even more of the destruction being inflicted in Ukraine. After these last attacks into Russia, we will not be surprised to see that Russia will now not settle for anything less than Ukraine’s unconditional surrender instead of even considering a political solution.
That’s nasty enough, but the mess in the Middle East isn’t any better – and has more potential to blow up into a major battle because Israeli leaders apparently want a multi-front war with at least a handful of countries that they are continuing to attack. They are definitely trying to goad Iran into war, and while there still hasn’t been a major retaliation for recent attacks and the assassination that Israel carried out in Tehran; we expect that Israel will eventually go too-far and that will end badly for everyone in the region. We really should also point out that the regional conflict shouldn’t be allowed to divert people from the ongoing plight of the Palestinians in Israel. The Israeli army continues to commit horrors in Gaza, the West Bank, and elsewhere; and our world leaders should all be ashamed to stand by and let the murders, maiming, and destruction to continue instead of forcing an end to the attempted genocide of the Palestinians. Most leaders don’t want to use that word, but tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in Gaza; maybe double that have been injured; and upwards of two million people are trying to survive being starved and tortured and more for what is now coming up on an entire year.
That is definitely enough of bad news for one night. Ethan and I are going to wrap this up; try to find some happy thoughts before we split up and crash for the rest of the night; and then we will, hopefully, enjoy some nap time with good dreams instead of nightmares. We’ll let you know how that goes for us, but then we should be happy and grateful just because we get to live in a place where we actually can be happy and have love and joy in our lives – a reality that billions of people around the world can’t even dream of or imagine when all effort goes into surviving another day.
Okay, we really need to go now; so that’s it for this report.
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
