Top 10 National Anthems ?

According to Youtube these are the top national anthem's..

Watch on YouTube

I have quibbles. Seriously, Germany in 2nd place? Germany? Granted it's easy to sing. Must be a German who came up with that list. (It should be noted that my ancestory is basically German and Irish, with a mix of Belgium/Welsh/Anglican/Scottish. My mother's father was German. Her mother Scotch-Irish and a touch of German. But her father's father immigrated here from Germany and her grandmother, on his side, spoke nothing but German. She took German so she could talk to his side of the family in German. While my Dad's mom was Irish, her father immigrated to the US directly from Ireland during the Potatoe Famine, and his paternal grandfather was Welsh descent (his great-grandfather immigrated from debtor's prison and married well, someone of Anglican descent) and his paternal grandmother was French Belgium - who had gone to a fashion school in France, and was sent to the US to break up her romance with an illegible suitor. She was a seamstress and not considered at the time worthy of my great-grandfather, who was sort of disowned after her married her. One year after their marriage, he died of consumption. A few years later, her first love immigrated to the US and they were reunited. This was the man who ended up raising my Grandfather, he never knew his real father who had died a year or two after he was born. But he was quite close to his step-father, who taught him to be a carpenter. My last name is Welsh while my mother's first name and maiden name is German. Meanwhile my sister-in-law is Cherokee, Italian, Irish, and Jewish. So my neice is Irish, German, Anglican, Belgium, Welsh, Cherokee, Italian, Scottish, and Jewish (ethnicity not religion -- and yes, it is both.) What can I say? All Americans are mongrels...and we all descend from immigrants, just depends on how far back you want to go. I'm third generation American on one side, and fourth on the other. )

But I agree that Russia wins the contest, although I rather like France and Europe's.

US is 10, which makes sense...ours is impossible to sing.

Today begged for Chocolate.

Lots and lots of chocolate. So, I bought chocolate. Healthy chocolate, with hardly any sweeteners. I've discovered the benefits of mixing avocado and chocolate. Also apples and chocolate.

When the going gets depressing, which seems to be February in a nutshell, the tough eat chocolate. This explains those boxes of chocolate on Valentine's Day, doesn't it?

On the way home, ran into a homeless man on the train. The day before, a man was sitting in the tunnel between the 5th Avenue entrance and the subway on 6th Avenue, beaten up, with a can in front of him and a sign --- "I was beaten up while I was sleeping on the subway." I stopped and did a double-take. Then almost burst into tears. I couldn't give him money -- the money was not readily available, hidden deep within my backpack, and it's a bit dangerous to go digging around in one's backpack in certain areas. I'm always at a loss in these situations.

Today, the homeless man, who appeared to be in his late 40s, African-American, with a beard and cheerful eyes, was sitting across from us, he stunk like the streets, raw sewage, although it being winter, somewhat subdued and barely noticeable. Raggedly. The following is the conversation between this man and the passenger sitting next to him, who appeared to be of Asian descent:

Homeless Man: Sorry about this. Know I'm taking up space...but you see I lost my job some time back and I'm living here. No home. No place warm to go to. Go where I can, to get what I can. To get by. (He has three plastic bags on the floor in front of him. A piece of cardboard beneath his bum, and is wearing a ragged old army camouflage coat. Along with a floppy blue hat with a visor. Also has a torn black canvas bag next to him. Everything he owns in the entire world is with him in those bags, and the bags are those cheap ones you get at the pharmacy, which tear easily. The other passengers, including myself have given him a wide bit of space. Only the heavy-set guy sits anywhere near him, towards the far end of the bench, there's enough space for about five people in between. Meanwhile, I've crammed myself between a young gal reading her iphone and an older man dozing off.)

Passenger (gives the man some money and a listing of homeless shelters that he can get help at in the city.): I hope this helps you, it's admittedly not that much, but at the very least it will get you a good meal...and if it helps any, there are lot of successful people of color who started out homeless. Whoopie Goldberg was homeless. So was Tyler Perry for a while. So it is nothing to be ashamed of.

Homeless man: I thank you. And...(he thinks for a bit, pondering it). That's true. Very true. Perry lived out of his car. Totally forgot that. Thank you for reminding me of that.

[As I write this someone is playing the old British ditty..."Downtown", which fades in and out competing with the hissing of the radiators and clanking of pipes, and footsteps in the hall. Reminders that I'm not alone in this city of over a million...]

They chat for a bit, as I read, trying to block it out. But not succeeding. The kindness the other passenger shows the homeless man in the midst of this busy, soon to be packed subway car, overwhelms me. I, who feel anything but kind at the moment. Who feel like I want to push the world far far away from me. Roar at it. So I got out at Bergen Street, bought things I shouldn't. Staring at the bleak February sky, gray as a hard boiled egg. That off-white color that makes one think of dirty socks that no matter how often you wash them never seem to get cleaned. Much like the traces of snow...still littering various sidewalks and stoops.

The day has been a sluggish one. A struggle. Lando (my cubicle mate) and I commiserate over our failed attempts at being lawyers. Although, to be fair, Lando actually practiced, while I merely dabbled. Not sure I'd call what I've done the last 20 years practicing law exactly...although it is technically a step or two above a paralegal. He reminds me of why I'm glad not to be one and at times wonder why I bothered going to law school in the first place. He seems to wonder why he did it as well.

While I'd dreamed of being a civil rights attorney, he ran from it...and got nowhere. Telling me the pay was low, the rewards few, and the fight endless. As an African-American lawyer though, it seemed he had no other options-- that was the work they funneled in his direction. His race always held him back.

Today, he was taking stock of his life. "I come to you with a heavy heart," he tells me. I take out my earbuds, and face him. Calm. Listening.

"My friend announced on Facebook the other day that this would be his last post. He would be soon leaving this world...and he did. A few hours ago today. He was just a few years older than me. Cancer.
A long battle with cancer. He'd been fighting it off for a while now."

"What type of cancer?"

"Prostrate."

"I'm sorry."

"Makes me rethink things...about what is important. Re-examine my life as it were." He looks around our cubicle walls. "This place, these things...not important."

"No...they aren't." I echo, trying not to think about the gaps in my own life.

"How much longer for you?"

"What do you mean? Here?" I ask, confused.

"Until retirement. How many years you got?"

I think for a minute. "Ten or fifteen."

"That long?"

"I started at 40."

"So you've some time yet."

"I don't think about it that way...I've had so many jobs, redefined myself so many times, that I know nothing is ...I take it a day at time. I discovered law wasn't going to work for me, so I jumped into publishing, but I was way overqualified. I did rights and permissions for a while, no money in it and I hated it, so I redefined myself ...I was with that job for 7 years, before I left without another in place, got another job, was laid-off, then laid-off again, and finally found this one."

"Do you have a plan?"

"I've learned not to worry too much about what happens next. I take it a day at a time." (Well that and my plans tend to blow up in my face, or unravel, as my mother recently reminded me. So I've found I'm much better off not planning.)

"You always should have a plan."

"Yeah, but right now, I really need to send out these plans..." so, I block him out, and put in my earbuds, and work on sending out my addendum, which is more or less the same thing as a plan just in legal form. Before I begin to work on analyzing the financial proposal that I'd received from my on-call environmental consultant regarding a groundwater sampling job that the NYSDEC required. Numbers, clean, and simple.

I had discovered "spotify" a day or so ago, and have been listening to a different station each day.
Today it was mainly "Intense Studying" -- which is classical music. The day before, Americana.
And Rock Classics. I blast it. Lose myself in it. Block out the ambient conversations, the chit-chat, try not to think too hard about what I can't change or know not what to do about.

And if I hurry, maybe I can work on my sci-fi novel a bit on the sly. It's my treat for getting my work done. But not today alas, too much time spent chatting with Lando.

Upon returning home, I talk to my mother. Our nightly chat. Dependable as the days turning on the calendar. She tells me that her choir director wants to know when my next book is coming out. And to hurry up and write it and get it published. (I don't know if he'll like my next book - considering it's this odd sci-fi novel that I'm tinkering with, not the noir world of the previous one. Okay that's not quite true, it is noir, it's just noir in space and the distant future. But hey, I have a fan. A fan I've never met and don't know, and is male. )

Me: I have one fan.
Mother: Not just one.
Me: Seems like just one.
Mother: Lots of people liked your book.
Me: Okay.

It just feels so futile though. Everything. Like you're staring up at the sky, see a glimmer of sun, but that's it. And it drifts back behind the cloud. Or that poster on the subway walls of the lawyer trying to wall up a slanted street against the wind...underneath, it states in bold letters "Better Call Saul"...which reminds me of my conversation with Lando.

Me: "I went to law school to try and save the world."

Lando: "I did too. But unfortunately they don't pay you for that."

Me: "No. They really don't. But, it also turns out that the world is impossible to save."

Lando: "Nor does it particularly want saving."

Yet, today a man tried to save a homeless man on a train. And the sun and sky peeked out behind the clouds. And I ate a gluten-free peanut butter chocolate brownie with homemade coconut yogurt on top.
When the going gets depressed, the tough eat brownies.