I'm trying to be excited about today, but I'm not.  I just got 20 lbs. of potato and macaroni salad so...what's not to be excited about, right?

Except something has been bothering me lately and I can't quite put my finger on it.

My personal life seems to be okay.  So, nothing is wrong there.

I think what's bothering me are some of the things that have been going on in our country recently.  We're supposed to be the land of the brave, home of the free...yet we have gun-toting psychos blowing people away in schools and churches while there are so many "questionable" police shootings that it's hard to keep up with them day to day.

Is this what our founding fathers intended when they set this joint up for us?  Is this what the Constitution was supposed to promote and encourage American people to do?

All of this "stuff" going on in our country is making me sad, especially since it's avoidable. It's making us look like a nation of mentally unstable psychopaths who believe we have no other outlet than causing harm to our fellow man in some way, shape or form.

On top of all that, I was reading in Bloomberg Businessweek about our crumbling infrastructures ranging from our bridges to our waterways crumbling apart by the day...with no money to fix any of it.  Yet our defense budget remains a steadfast 55% of the gross revenues (through taxes) that the government bleeds from the American public.  Many of these infrastructures are original, dating back 70+ years when everyone knew they'd only last a maximum of a half-century before needing a major overhaul.

I was sitting outside last weekend in the hot tub and noticed this very new, very unusual military plane flying by.  It looked like a black boomerang.  Never seen anything like it before.

I wonder how much that cost us American taxpayers?

Meanwhile, the state of California is in a major drought, we claim we have no water, and almost monthly we have a water main break that creates an instant loss of millions of gallons of water because, well...we're still using freaking pipes built beneath our cities over 100 years ago.  So...what the f*** do they expect?  The pipes to last forever??

I wish our government would do better for us as a population but also...

We need to do better as a country and as an American people.  And it starts with every one of us.  I know, it doesn't seem like each individual person can do anything.  But maybe it's a simple as recycling or cleaning up your yard around your house...or hell, being nice to people when you're out in public.  Is it so hard to ask the cashier at Walmart how her day is going?  Is it so difficult to NOT want to shoot and kill someone just because you don't like the color of their skin, who they are marrying, or what religion they practice??

We are the laughing stock of the world as a country because of our ridiculous behavior as a people.  We are killing each other in the most sordid ways each day.  We have political leaders who refuse to believe in global warming and...Donald Trump running for president. Need I say more on why we're being laughed at?

But you...YOU, my dear friend.  You have more control and more power than you think. Because if each and every one of us decided to be a better American and a better person for the benefit of making this a better country for ALL of us to be a part of then, you'll have done a lot for America.

Happy Independence Day!!

See you at the top!

Your mentor,

Monica Main