HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DARLING!

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Politicians Don't give a Damn about Real People

Actually, there is someone Fiorella hates, and he's dead--Ronald Reagan.

Fio started out liking Ronnie because he seemed to be, well, a likable kind of guy, so when Son, a devotee of TV news, asked her to mail a letter to him (Son was against something or other), she thought it would be a good civics lesson. To play it safe, she added the information to the bottom of the crayoned letter that Son was seven years old.

Fio, being naive, assumed all letters to the President were answered in some way or another, if just by a mimeographed "thank you for writing" so she watched out the window with interest as day after day, Son ran out to the mailbox for Reagan's reply.

But it never came.

And Fiorella's heart broke for Son's loss of innocence and her own..

Sample Painting

Check back to "Artistic Advice" on December 12. This is the sample painting that Fio was trying to upload to illustrate painting what you see, using a pinkish background, and looking for red.

Drowned Child

Yes, Fiorella has seen the photo of the three-year-old Syrian boy in his blue shorts and red shirt, face down in the sand.  And she cried.  But there is so much more to it than this one child, to all the children, all the families.  Fiorella wants everyone rescued.  She wants everyone to have a safe place to live, a place where no one has to risk drowning in ocean crossings or smothering in the back of trucks or being shot by border guards.  People should not have to flee their homelands because of their race, sex, or religion.

But all Fio can do is try to spread the love.

Rain

When Fiorella was a little girl in Ohio, she would stand on the back porch with her nose pressed against the screen and chant "Rain, rain, go away.  Come again some other day."  And right now, even in drought-stricken Central Texas, part of her is thinking the same thing.

But the other part of her is saying "Thank you for the rain, God.  Keep everyone safe, but please fill our lakes because the long, hot summer is to come."

Amen.