The dogs are thrilled I made chicken soup - and yesterday Tutte the fat black cat, stood among the canines, eyes fixed on my hands as I cut the chicken to pieces waiting for small shards of flesh to fall. Slim, who is a little more direct in his approach simply jumped on the kitchen counter and stomped over to where I was working and grabbed. I'd like to say that I threw him violently off the table and disciplined him by denying him any more treats. Instead I asked politely 'Slim, must you do that?' He looked at me in total amazement, and his mouth dropped open a little. And then made off with a leg. A chicken leg. Oscar, in his smart new orange fleece wrap took off in pursuit and for a moment an 18 year old dachshund was locked in bitter dispute with a smartass gray cat with a chicken leg in his mouth.
Yesterday - and the day before - a number of people said 'Jill, you seem better. You definitely seem to have shaken that depression of yours (and as if on cue 'Better' by Regina Spektor bursts from the speakers). Yes, I said. Definitely feel more like someone I like better. Of course the sun was shining.
I think I have to just accept that a perennial sadness persists year in year out and it doesn't take much to remind me that millions upon millions of young girls and boys and women are traded globally like cheap Chinese made trinkets. Japan is the biggest user of slave labor among rich nations. 50,000 women a year are brought into the country for the booming sex industry, in India, Nepal and Pakistan approximately 18 million live in hereditary debt bondage, Europe consumes and spits out girls and women imported from developing or poor nations, children are enslaved in Haiti, children ensnared in Ghana and it is estimated that around 18,000 people are brought to the USA every year as slaves. Slaves, not underpaid exploited migrant workers. Slaves. Almost 30 million around the world.
I was reminded of this truth as I watched a film called 'Trade' with Kevin Kline about the intersection of Russian crime syndicates, the theft of Mexican girls for illegal export across the border into the US to be sold at online auctions in harmless looking suburbs in New Jersey, and the apparent inability (unwillingness?) of governments to keep this crime enterprise controlled.
We are a strange species indeed. Such incredible gift for innovation and compassion, such capacity for brutality against our own. It's mind boggling really.
So, it's another year, though my friends in Australia already warned me 18 hours earlier that 2009 didn't look much different from 2008. I have a nasty cold, my head is splitting and my body is aching (I always seem to have one of these a year) and it definitely brings up my most petulant self.... Actually, I'm looking forward to this coming year - work has become a bit more stable, I'm already plotting being somewhere warm next winter, my friends are offering to bring gingerbread and as many cold meds as I can consume, Oscar seems to have gained a whole new lease of life in his brand new orange sweater and Slim brought the chicken leg back having been unable to get a real handle on it.
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