Today is the Fourth of July and I have the day off work.
(This has nothing to do with any work holiday, I am just not there today.)
Tonight I will be going out for a eager special Indian meal with my mother and family. It is now 20 years since she has 1/2 a lung removed due to lung cancer and she has been cancer free ever since.
We celebrate every Fourth of July now for that reason.
The 4th is also The Warrior Princess's birthday; (the big number 12) we're putting on a barbecue birthday party at a park in the East Bay with a big swimming pool and lots of other things for the kids and adults who are so inclined to do, (we long ago gave up on the idea of having a warm sunny 4th in The City) the place we're going to be also has easy access to watch the fireworks from the Oakland Hills...
It's going to be a long day....
I'm planning to become mildly intoxicated sometime mid afternoon, and staying that way through the fireworks finale....(not shit faced drunk, just enough of a buzz to deal with my Roman Craig brother-in-law and some of Kelly's more colorful relatives for ten hours straight hours with a smile on my face.... )
I'll be going over to my brother's to visit once more before I leave NY, then in the evening out on a small boat on the Hudson with my sister's family to watch the fireworks. The big BBQ was yesterday, and it was a terrific day - sunny and hot.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
I'll be going over to my brother's to visit once more before I leave NY, then in the evening out on a small boat on the Hudson with my sister's family to watch the fireworks.
That should be a real treat BSG...
The best fireworks display I ever saw (and I saw a lot of the DC displays camped out on The Mall, including the Bicentennial display in '76...so I've seen some good ones) was in New York in '86 for the Centennial Celebration of the Statue Of Liberty. I watched them from the roof top of a friends house... (rooftops in the same neighborhood were being rented out for 5k because the view was so good) it was like one long finale, and then the finale turned the night into day....
And then they opened up on the Jersey side with a display almost as good...
We did our thing last night which was our families ritual get together held by my Great aunt and recently Late great uncle so this year we had a belated service and wake (he was cremated so there was no rush) and Then had the usual party topped off with the fireworks display put on by their lake association. (the finale was had such a rapid pace and lasted so long that I could only view it through one squinted eye.
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.
James Taylor at Tanglewood, barbeques, fireworks, lots of time on the beach, and a local road race this morning!
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké
I watched the Tour De France go past the end of the road where we're staying. 40 minutes sitting in a hot French ditch for five minutes of frenzied action....
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Just me, my wife, Capt.Obvious, and friend, smoked ribs macaroni and potato salad with cold beer. Our fireworks were not much to write about but hey it's the attempt the counts.
I expect to go straight to hell...........at least I won't have to spend time making new friends.
On July 3, 1776, John Adams said (of July 2, when the resolution adopting the Declaration was approved by the Continental Congress): "It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."
And so we celebrated, all weekend long!
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké
As an unusual treat, my brother invited me to be his guest at a Pirates' baseball game yesterday afternoon. There was a lot of patriotic, military flavor to the pre-game ceremonies, and the home team won the game in very stylish fashion. The tickets, which included good food, good seats, and free soft drinks, were $170 each. Had I been required to pay for them it would have busted my spectator sports budget for at least 2011 and 2012. My brother comes into this sort of thing with some regularity as a result of his position with his employer. Indeed, these perq's are the reason why he has delayed his retirement into semi-dotage (69, and counting).
I'm always torn about what to do on the evening of 7/4. I love fireworks, and the fireworks provided by the City of Pittsburgh at Point Park are among the best around. The venue is a large city park at the confluence of three rivers, with the explosions bouncing off the hillside on the south side (known as Mount Washington). There is a band playing the 1812 Overture and the explosions are timed to coincide with the crescendo's of music. The producers, Zembelli's of New Castle, is one of the best in the country.
But getting out of town after it's over is a pain in the neck, so we rarely do it (didn't last night). A boisterous neighbor provided a lot of noise and smoke until about 11pm - good for them.
The best display I ever saw was on this occasion, in this place, in 1976. My son, who was born in 1982, does not remember.
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