Day 64: I love my blue furried monster. I mean, really, how can you not love Cookie Monster? COOOOKIE! (But he doesn’t like celery!). In a weird twist of fate, Big Bird and I share the same birthday (he’s a bit older, not by much). I was part of the “original” Sesame Street Generation. Growing up in the middle of Ohio and then northern Illinois, there wasn’t a lot of diversity: apartments? Corner stores? Different ethnicities? And Spanish? To this day, I say I speak Sesame Street Spanish (pretty close). Sesame Street taught me a lot of things: how to count, that really you should eat your vegetables before cookies (sorry my furry friend) and that monsters and birds CAN be friends. I haven’t watched Sesame Street since Mr. Hooper died (I tuned it in because they did a special episode over Thanksgiving my junior year in college: I cried. My brother mocked me – he’s good at that but he’s an Underdog kid). Apparently Snuffy can be seen by adults but one of the little slivers of that makes this country great is Sesame Street: if anything, it gives those of us who grow up in the middle of the country a glimpse of what another part of the world looks like.
Day 63: I was driving home the other day and there was a new story about another individual being punished by tribunal. As I waited to turn into my parking lot, I realized one thing I’m grateful for: a jury of my peers to determine my guilt. I’ve never been called to jury duty but it’s the concept. Yes, it’s really not a “jury of peers” but a jury representative of our community. I’ve lived where there is not a jury system. We take this right for granted: that if we are accused, we can confront our accuser, we can be tried in an open system. Yeah, that’s a slice of this place I’d fight for.
62: Ok, I don’t like shopping malls except for in the middle of summer or winter when I’m feeling a bit closed in and decide I have to see exactly how untrendy I am (very) or decide I completely and totally need a (very useless) gadget. In all semi-seriousness, malls have served some decent purposes: they housed the world’s first indoor rollercoaster (Old Chicago, Bolingbrook Illinois), provided introduction to many people of (American) Japanese, Indian, Thai and Mexican foods, provided countless first jobs, part time work, converted great parks into vast consumerist spots (hmmm, ok that is a bad idea). Really, the best part of the mall is the store that constantly keeps giving me new iPhones as things keep happening to mine.
31 and holding 