Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Happy Independence Day....&c &c!

Happy Fourth of July! (Imagine sparklers and shimmering chrysanthemums in the night sky here). I'm off to a friends' home for a celebratory meal, after which I'll come back and begin sharing my last week's adventure. Suffice it to say that there were NO cats, NO books...but in spite of it all, I really did knit!


(This is Castor canadensis, the American Beaver, whose work ethic I greatly admire...and besides, they're so CUTE!)

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Happy Fifth of July! I hope you had an inspiring and moving holiday. I admit it, I have a real patriotism. Now, I've never been anywhere outside of North America, although we've gone to Canada and, in 1999, to Nova Scotia. Love them both...but they ARE in North America. I'll admit it here, I'm a Canada-o-phile (tip of the DPN to the Yarn Harlot). As a Living History Reenactor who portrays woman of the Fur Trade, circa 1750-1815, we spend weekends whenever possible pretending to be French-Canadians. Mr. Dearling is un voyageur, and I portray his wife...either as an Ojibway or as an Acadian widow now married to the voyageur. 'nough said on that (for now) but back to the original idea, I consider that one of my multitudinous, 800 berzillion blessings is that I live in America. As an Unrepentant Hippie I have some serious questions about the current Administration, but it is not lost on me that I can SAY that, here or on the phone or in public, and I have no fear of being dragged out of my bed and taken into the night. By the government. Yet. I like the flag and it swells my heart. I love a good Souza march, and the "1812 Overture" invariably brings me to tears. (They played it last year at our Concert on the Square, which we attended, and they fired the cannon off the top of a tall bank building and it was so excited I could hardly stand it.) So I like Independence Day, and most years (this was a slight exception) we go to the fancy golf course where there's a steep hill and they have fireworks at about 6:00 p.m. I take a basket with a couple of my American Girl dolls and some teddy bears....they love fireworks, although we take mylar pinwheels instead of sparklers, because you know. Fur - sparks - no. At the behest of Miss Iris von Heliotrope (a Steiff bear who is a naturalized citizen and therefore very passionate about the 4th of July) we always take tiny cream-cheese-and-black-olive tea sandwiches, lemonade and cookies for dessert. Sometimes there are other things - veggies and dip, for example, but usually just the basics. Sometimes there are cream-cheese-and-GREEN-olive sandwiches, and sometimes there are sunflower seeds in the black-olive ones. (Those are some mighty good sandwiches, btw.) We always dawdle afterwards and take a book and/or knitting, and at the end we sit in the car and just chill ("did you just say 'chill'"?) until the traffic thins out.

This year we went to the aforementioned friends' home and had lovely hamburgers, potato salad - and of course our finger sandwiches. No fireworks, but a totally enjoyable evening just the same, and I got a few rows done on my current Homespun Tasha-Tudor shawl. By the time I got home I was pretty pooped (still recovering from the Adventure) and so went to bed. Very satisfying day; now on to the Adventure!

2 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Those sandwiches sound great!

I hope by the time we get to the next inauguration we will all still be enjoying those liberties you mentioned. I do fear that the current occupant and his henchmen mean to deprive us of a few more freedoms before they're through.

Jane said...

Looks like you had a lovely 4th! We celebrated small town style with a homespun parade, lovely dinner, and local fireworks. It was all great. I love the flag too, although with each day I'm less and less proud to be an American. Hopefully, we'll be able to reverse that trend soon!