A Very Bizarre Memorial Day

May 30 --   Strangest Memorial Day Ever started with Riley checking in on the neighbor's chickens and finding two of them dead.  After last night's invasion with the raccoon, Brian went up with Riley just to be safe.  And sure enough, there was a perp in the chicken coop.  As Brian scanned the rafters in the barn, Riley let out the chickens and closed the barn door.  There, perched in the corner of the barn, just over the roosting area, was another raccoon.

At that point, with it up there hissing and baring its teeth,  there was nothing left to do but kill it.  Everybody was freaked that it was rabid.  So when Luke and Connor came home (because the morning parade was canceled) they all entered the barn with shovels and pitchforks.  The raccoon put up a nasty fight but they eventually got it.  Brian said that they worked as a team and that at one point, he thought about letting the raccoon go but he was afraid it was crazed.  That and he was totally pissed that the coon killed two chickens.

Whatever.  The whole day was strange.  At the parade, Luke played Taps with Mike and Luke messed up.  The kid never practiced and acted like he didn't even want to do well.  Which naturally got me really angry.  He looked like an idiot -- when your teacher asks you to perform in front of a crowd -- you prepare.  Luke is a good kid but I just shake my head at his ambivalence to do really well at something.  He says is just a mediocre kid but that's bullshit.  That's the story he is telling himself so he can just glide through his days with minimal effort.  But he has talent so he gets outed when asked to do public performances.  It's almost like he sabotages it.  I don't know.  Part of me doesn't care either.  But the part of me that loves him and wants him to do well in life, gets worried that he will never re-write the script and go for the gold.

And then, the parade leader played a sound track of air force planes flying over on the loudspeaker.  As Connor said, "cheesy."  There was hardly anyone there either.  In a nutshell?  I am grateful for the soldiers who sacrificed their lives but today's events were really, really weird.