Kaboom

I was holidaying!

Well, sort of. More of a take-time-off-dammit-or-you'll-start-losing-vacation. So I actually took three whole entire days off work. Granted, thanks to a slightly wonky compensation practice it turns out I've actually only taken off 1 hour (yes, one whole hour) but the important bit was the whole not going to work thing which I managed beautifully!

And it was 4th of July. Which again, for those not of the 'Mercan persuasion, is a day to celebrate our victory over the evil oppressors* by charring hog innards and trying to see just how many body parts are flammable.

After I grew up apparently my parent's neighborhood decided to become The Coolest Neighborhood In the City. When I was little entertainment consisted of the crazy lady with the dog that tried to eat small children on bicycles (the dog, not the lady... although...) and the old woman who would stand in her fluffy negligee and shout for her cat in a deep bass voice using a word I later found out might have an entirely different meaning. Fourth of July fun was going up to sit on the roof and watch the taller of the country club fireworks display.

Not these days. These days several neighborhood dads get their game on by out-buying each other at the illegal firework stands outside of town. Then they spend three hours lining up seven or eight enormous fountains at a time and burning their leg hair off by trying to light them one by one with what looked suspiciously like a blow torch. The women support them by sitting on the porch drinking mimosas and making loud comments about how eyebrows are highly over-rated.

Interesting fact learned? The smell of gunpowder is small-boy crack.

Also there's nothing quite so evil as the innocent smile of a seven year old trying to convince you to let him light a roman candle. Good try kid but Child 1 has survived 15 years of the Male Child and is no one's fool.

Dang.

Back to work.

*Is this celebrated in Britain as well? And do you call it thank-goodness-we-aren't-responsible-for-them-any-more-and-yet-
they-still-let-us-import-their-humiliating-reality-television? Because I would.