Still need to

I need to complete my piano practice for the day, and pick up the living room a bit (lesson is tonight) and I really SHOULD do a workout (didn't do one this morning - I slept badly with all the noise overnight from the fireworks).

But, two quick thoughts:

- saw a LOT of fireworks trash around. The house that sounded like the worst offender down the street (though it's hard to tell for sure the way sound bounces around)  had a whole bunch of the stuff in the street out in front of them. And I picked stuff up off my drive that apparently was just un-aimed stuff that fell where it fell. It makes me uncomfortable that fireworks trash wound up in my drive, given that that indicates it just had an erratic flight path (there is no clear straight path from any neighboring yards - there's my neighbor's house and their tall fence in the way, so the firework had to go up and over either to wind up in my drive. I guess I'm glad I cleared the stuff off my roof just in case.

But it annoys me: is it really too hard to pick up your own trash, ESPECIALLY after upsetting all the dogs (and doglike humans who hate noise) in the neighborhood? I am trying not to see it as a symbol of "some people are just selfish in numerous ways" but am mostly failing. I hope everyone shot all their fireworks off last night and we get a quiet night tonight.

- It was the "executive planning meeting" for AAUW today. Held at a small, older restaurant. I hope it's just that it's undergoing renovation but there were a couple of holes in the ceiling (like, there had been leaks) and the place smelled a little musty. It's one of the "historical" restaurants that is greatly loved here in town, so maybe other people turn a blind eye to that stuff, but...

I got a cheeseburger. It WAS pretty good. I wound up not having to pay for it because the new president seems to think that because I'm not teaching this summer, I'm destitute, and she wanted to pay for my ($6.50) lunch. Well, okay. I left a couple bucks on the table as a tip (The other people paid with credit cards and wrote their tip on there)

But the other thing, something she said struck me. You must understand, this person is a Presbyterian minister and seems quite pacifistic. But in remarking about the work I did (and maybe me in general, I don't know) commented that "I could hurt a body if anyone said anything against Erica" which kind of took me aback a little.

(I made some kind of joke about "well, I got my lifetime quota of that when I was a kid")

But...yeah. I don't know. I mean, part of me is hoping very deeply that that means OTHER people feel similar compunction about saying bad things about me behind my back, but what do I know? (I don't know why but the idea that people might be saying bad things about me - without me being there to be able to defend myself - bothers me more than just about anything does). Part of me was "I wish you were there when I was 12 years old."

But part of me was.....surprised, I guess? I don't expect to have people who act like they would defend me.(And part of me was wishing that the people who WOULD defend me in that way were more open about it. I've said before I never really had a "squad" in the sense of a group of people who were "ride or die" for you, and if someone insulted you, they also insulted THEM.)