Normally Labor Day weekend is one of my favorite holidays. The weather is usually good and the its one of the few American holidays that occur at the beginning of the month so you can celebrate when your bank account is flush.

Not this year. I donated $100 to United Way Katrina Response Fund. I glad that help is finally coming through, but if there is any sort of justice in this world, heads should roll. I'm a voter with a long memory, and some situations go beyond money. When doctors at charity hospitals in 2005 have to use the glucose in the IV bags to keep going because there is no food and no FEMA and no social order of any kind for four days, that tells me something. I am frankly so ashamed to be an American this week and that shame is turning into anger as I write.

I mused about this, slugging down a couple of martinis during a going-away party Friday night. When I got back home, I found out that sister mailed me another savings bond. Too bad I can't specify what part of the government debt I can assume with the bond. The bond is of the same denomination and issue date and comes again from grandpa. I wonder what tipped his decision - why July 1991? I'll have to ask.

I also got a couple of black and white pics from Sept 1962. Me at four months old. The first one was grandma and grandpa holding me, the second was mom and dad holding me. Out of the five of us, the oldest was grandma and the youngest was me. Whose left now? Grandma and me. Funny how fate works.