Ehlana and Ethan:
Our top news of the day for our own lives is that we began semi-official summer jobs at the lab or archives. Ethan and I spent most of the day doing that, but started the day with Tai Chi by the river and the post-camping breakfast followed by the campground clean-up. Most of our friends were starting summer jobs today too – though not everyone needed to start this morning. That is why we had most of the clean-up done by nine o’clock, though, and then Ethan and I headed to the lab and got busy with our books or beakers for the rest of the day. Let’s also mention that Aiden has an official summer job this year at the bakery; and Naomi is going to do some work at the salon to spend time with her Mom and then work with Aunt Grace, Violet, and Mom as an office intern. There isn’t anything significant to report from the work today, but we were happy to get back to serious work-play; and we have a lot we want to do while we can.
That brings us to some news we’ve saved until after the start of our summer break. Cassie and Michael’s summer work trip is going to be in Canada; and they are taking their favorite six teens along for the work and adventures. No, Brianna, you’re not included – though you will join the favorite teens club in another couple of years! We’re very excited about seeing as much of Canada as we can from east to west coasts, but we’ll save up more details for when we actually head out after the holiday weekend. Let’s add that our summer jobs are going to be away from the lab or elsewhere for our best friends while on that trip, but Ethan and I are going to do related field work; we’ll all help with Cassie and Michael’s work; and we’ll fit in some play time along the way.
Since we’ve gotten away from our news of the day, let’s cover the rest of our birthday story now. The birthday dinner was great, but short for us as we needed to eat and run to our ball practices. We ended up saving the cake for after the practices; moved straight into the campfire from there; and our entertainment around the fire included our own musical contributions with Naomi, Aiden, Sophia, and Aaron. There were scary stories; lots of teen chat and co-ed cuddle time; and late-night fun that included a river swim and more hang out time around the tents. We stayed up late; some of us had co-ed naps in our tents; and then we were up early for the Tai Chi workout by the river that we’ve already mentioned. Ethan and I don’t usually write about our gifts, and we don’t want to do that tonight, but we do want to mention that we did not get any extreme gifts – though there were some gifts that were chosen with our upcoming trip in mind for helping us to stay entertained during long drives between work and sightseeing stops.
After our lab or archives work, we ended up meeting with Mom and Dad at the park for the Pizzeria pizza picnic dinner that went along with the Tuesday ball practices. We caught some of both rounds of practices; came home with Mom and Dad after that; and we did not have any overnight plans with our friends. Mom did a Magi lesson with us; we all did some work after that; and then Mom had us head upstairs by ten-thirty so that we could catch up on our sleep. That works for us; so let’s finish this update with a quick world news report and then get to that nap time.
Instead of covering the war stories; we’re going to mention some of the other stories we see that are comparatively-small but illustrate the growing stresses around the world. Since we’re going to be in Canada soon; let’s begin with a shooting in Montreal, Quebec that appears to be a religion-related attack on a Jewish Rabbi – the latest of a handful of incidents in Canada. In that attack, a police officer was killed and another one was injured in the shootout with the suspect, but while that is terrible and our hearts go out to the families involved; we’re worried about the explosion of this kind of violence in a lot of countries. We’ve seen similar stories across Europe; more in Africa; and we don’t even see a fraction of the problems in places where nobody is paying attention to what is happening for the poorest places in the world. Europe is also dealing with a heat wave that is leading to heat-related deaths; and that could be worse this summer due to rising energy costs that make air conditioning unaffordable for the most-vulnerable people.
Finally, for tonight, we do need to at least include a bit of war news. There are some good and bad signs out of the Middle East, so while we can hope that there will be actual improvements for the people in the region; the fighting continues in Lebanon and elsewhere; Israel is pushing to take more territory by force on multiple fronts; and they are gaining new haters both in the region and around the world that will be a problem for years and decades to come. The Ukraine war continues to go badly for Ukraine, but they – and their western backers – continue to talk tough; threaten to expand the war; and threaten Russian allies like Belarus. Russian leaders are beginning to talk about an inevitable conflict with NATO and the need to prepare for that to happen; so nobody on either side are looking for or expecting peace; and we can only hope that those leaders don’t go down that escalation path that could again decimate Europe or blow up the entire world.
I do not want to head off to dreamland on that note, but let’s stop there; and we’ll try to think happier thoughts between now and when we crash into nap mode.
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
