5th of July

Happy (belated) 4th! We had a good one (more on that in a bit) and I hope that you did as well.

I never thought much about celebrating the 4th (besides doing it) until one year my wife, the HB and I were in Canada for Canada Day (July 1). The amount of ambivalence, especially compared to the US, was astonishing. Part of it appeared cultural: Canadian culture doesn't seem to support blowing one's own horn as much as US culture does.

Maybe it's because there isn't the same type of defining event (the signing of the Declaration of Independence) associated with it. Hell, it took Canadians 50 years to even bother celebrating it. Or, maybe it's because it didn't start a war. Regardless, we were in Vancouver and we heard some great music that week and really enjoyed the city.

The 4th was a good day (though, today seems weird...is it a faux Monday? a real Thursday?). OK, it started good 'cuz the wife and I really knocked it out the night of the 3rd. We had a bit of a drought of late so we both had some pent up energy to release. After sleeping in a bit, we puttered around the house (still trying to get the sand out of my camping stuff), then the HB and I rode in the local 4th of July parade. It's been pretty warm here, but a marine layer came in and kept things nice on fire truck on which we were riding. After that we grabbed some lunch (for some reason, the wife didn't want to bbq here while our cleaning woman was doing here thing--we could have made her lunch as well--so we went out) and then headed down to the wife's middle sister's house. We picked up our nephew and went and saw Ratatouille.

I'm not a big kid flick fan, but I generally like the Pixar movies and this was one of the best. The animation is exceptional without being flashy and the plot has enough complexity to keep adults interested without confusing most kids. A good time.

After the movie, back to my s-i-l's for some hot dogs, etc. and lighting of the fireworks. The city where she lives is one of the few remaining in SoCal where you can legally purchase and set off fireworks. My nephew claimed he wasn't that interested--until the first one was lit. The HB had a great time (he was looking forward to it almost as much as Halloween) and was very safe in lighting them. When my nephew was young he would introduce all of the fireworks before he lit them. The HB just likes dancing to them.

Happy Bday, USA. Maybe our resolution this year will be to quit shredding the documents that made our founding worth celebrating.