Happy Fourth of July, Y'All

Putting the nasty business of the current recession and the 1898 Treaty of Paris aside (which resulted in my home country having their official independence taken away from them from under the rug, only to be given back to them on 07/04/1946 - a holiday, BTW, that most Pinoys in the Philippines no longer celebrate) - here are a few things I love about my newfound adopted country:

- Baseball
- Hotdogs
- The combination of baseball with hot dogs, especially if it results in the picture you see above you of the Hot Dog Races at Progressive Field (although, wouldn't it be more fun if we had these guys in a Meat Product Olympics with the other Sausage Racers in Milwaukee?)
- Scribe's mother-in-law, who got us tickets to see the Twins-Indians game at "The Jake" on Dollar Hot Dog Night... and continues to be a great embodiment of this country's unbreakable yet generous spirit
- John D. Rockefeller, without whose wealth there would be none of the following: The Cleveland Museum of Art, the obelisk at Lakeview Cemetery, and the scholarship that brought my Dad to Minneapolis 40 years ago for his PhD
- The Chrysler PT Cruiser
- Regional brews, both micro and macro (here's to you, Great Lakes and Kona Brewing)
- Barack Obama
- Marshall's, TJ Maxx, and Ross Dress for Less
- Spanx
- Maggie Gyllenhaal, pretty enough to transcend the craziness of her own outfits
- Sarah Jessica Parker, who - while not classically beautiful - is game enough to wear the crazy outfits anyway, and God bless her heart for that
- The bacon cheeseburger
- Turquoise jewelry
- Pants from Gap, shirts from Target, lingerie from Lane Bryant, and Chuck Taylor All-Stars
- Not having to care if I "dressed up" enough to go to Starbucks, yet caring enough to present myself if I want to show the world what stuff I'm made of
- Edward Norton
- George Clooney
- Flannery O'Connor
- The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels (or as Bunny's husband sometimes calls it, the Taj Mahowny)
- River rocks and beach glass
- The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- This video of Hugh Laurie, which simultaneously makes fun of Bruce Springsteen and the way "Born in the USA" has been misappropriated by people who didn't know what he was singing in the first place
- Driving on an open road, windows down, while singing "Irreplaceable" and "Apologize" at the top of your lungs without any recrimination whatsoever
- This Old House
- The fact that I can celebrate all my American holidays with kalbi, sushi, pansit, poke, and manapua... and not have some purist screaming bloody murder at me
- The very concept of the three-day weekend, which eliminates the headache of taking just one day off for a major national holiday
- "...with liberty, and justice for all."