(no subject)

I hope everyone who was celebrating had a great 4th! In the words of Abu, "Celebrate the birth of your country by blowing up a small portion of it..." :)

The garbage men, surprisingly, did not get a day off, and came promptly for the garbage at 9 am on Friday. The hubby was betting that they wouldn't come and I put the garbage out anyway just in case, since we had a calendar from the city that said garbage pick up would happen as usual. Et voila; I hope they were getting paid serious overtime.

I had seen a sign for a local parade at 11 am within walking distance of our house. So I went out to see it, and it turned out it was a participatory parade. :) Everyone just sort of gathered, and eventually some folks with trumpets and drums started up on America the Beautiful and everyone headed off.

It was pretty cool--grandparents with grandkids, folks out with dogs and strollers, kids on bikes and skateboards and little red wagons waving their flags. A mom and daughter combo was practicing their baton tossing as they marched along. The band played Yankee Doodle Dandy and the Battle Hymn of Republic, which means the Civil War is actually over, right? :)

But it wasn't very welcoming, for all it was good natured. No one explained what was happening, what the route was, how far we were going, etc. I was kind of expecting some sort of introductory statement of what to expect, for people who hadn't done this before. But it was clearly a "we all already know each other" situation, so I split off after the first few blocks and walked back home. Maybe next year I'll do the whole route and see what happens at the end...

The rest of the day was a relaxing holiday, sitting on the couch veggin'. Today is more of the same. I should be working, but hey...