Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

The Gryphon and I spent Independence Day, July 4, with the same friends with whom we spent Memorial Day. The party this time was being held at the White Rabbit's new house. He had told us people could arrive any time after noon, so we took our time first, getting some things done around the house.

Then, because we were going to be gone for awhile, I wanted to be sure to get a walk in with my dog, Una.

We just happened to be taking our walk right as people were lining up for the annual Fourth of July parade.

In addition to people setting up folding chairs at curbside, we also saw kids an parents making their way to the lineup spot with bicycles and wagons decorated in red, white and blue. Dogs wearing red, white and blue bandanas around their necks passed us, freshly washed.

Una found all of this highly amusing. I wondered what she thought, especially when most of the people we passed, in their chairs, called out "Hi, doggie!" or "Cute little doggie."

Not everyone shared these views. Near the end of the walk, I crossed to the opposite side of the street from where I normally walk, because of the crowd. Una stopped to squat on a lawn. An elderly woman standing on the lawn next door said to her friend, "There's the dog that's been ruining my lawn."

I said, "Excuse me?"

She asked me if Una was a female, and I said yes. "Females squat on the lawn and they burn the grass."

I told her I never even walk on that side of the street normally, so it can't be my dog.

She stepped closer and jabbed her finger in my face. "Females squat and burn the grass."

I said, "She doesn't burn my grass." Una drinks a lot of water and is the least likely dog to be doing any sort of lawn damage for that reason. But she repeated it again, so I just said, "Have a happy holiday" and walked away.

On the final block, the universe made it up to me. An elderly neighbor, whose walk I had once shoveled in a particularly bad blizzard, shouted across the street, "How'd you lose all the weight?"

I called back that I'd been eating right and exercising. I'm sure she wanted to hear a miracle cure, but it's the truth.

"You look great," she said. Thank you, universe, for turning my bad mood back around.

By the time we got to the White Rabbit's party, a lot of people had already shown up. He was just about to make a grocery run and was taking requests for ice cream flavors. The Gryphon requested vanilla, and I requested chocolate.

To my surprise, the White Rabbit had an air conditioner, which did a fair job of cooling things off until people started to go in and out of the back door a lot.

While we waited for the White Rabbit to return, people munched on tortilla chips. I unwrapped the veggie tray I'd brought, along with the fat free dip I'd bought, which turned out to be far tastier than I would have expected.

Another friend, The Cousin, arrived soon and shared a container of dried fruit. I have to admit, while I started out the day with fresh veggies and dried fruit, a veggie burger for my main course, I eventually moved on to less healthy items, such as brownies.

By the end of the day, once more, I regretted my lack of self-restraint. I'll have to work out some sort of a system for how to behave at similar situations. It's easier when the food is tucked away on a buffet table you can choose to ignore. It's a lot harder when the food is spread out throughout the party, so that there's always something within arm's reach.

The Book Worm and the Martial Artist had returned from their honeymoon in Alaska, and the Book Worm shared her pictures with us, both from the disposable cameras we all used at their wedding party and the digital photos from the trip. She had some very impressive shots of the Alaska landscape, taken from a helicopter.

A number of people brought some board games along. I'm not generally much into that, but I did play one card game. I think it was called Space Munchkin. It was kind of a silly game. You accumulated cards, some of which gave you special abilities. Your goal was to get to 10 levels before anyone else. But it was one of those games that depends on being mean to people: knock them down a level, steal their inventory. And even though it was fun joking around with my friends, every time I played a mean card I felt guilty.

Later, when they were starting up a second game, they were trying for a fourth player. Someone asked me, and I said I didn't want to be chained to the table any longer. As an incentive, they suggested I could get Batman back.

"Oh, really?" I said. "Why?"

"Because he won last time."

"That's right. Well, I still pass." I didn't hold it against Batman for winning. After all, he'd quite openly amassed a pile of ridiculous laser weapons right in front of us, and none of us did a thing about it until he used them all.

We did have some Fourth of July goodies to set off: namely, carbide canons, which are basically a noise maker, and poppers that shot confetti. I tried to photograph people in the act of setting them off. The best I could manage to capture was a little bit of smoke.

The timing was difficult because my digital camera takes a second or so to process information before taking a picture. So you would pretty much have to start taking the picture before the action takes place you wish to capture.

I did shoot one .AVI movie as well, hoping to capture some of the action that way. Unfortunately, it's 37 MB, so instead of sharing it, I'll just show you the frame where I actually managed to capture one of the carbide canons being set off by The Cousin's daughter.

By the end of the evening, the food had caught up with me, and I realized how bad an idea it had been to continue munching. You see, I tell people I'm on the Al Roker diet without the surgery. Because basically, I've cut back on serving sizes. This means that when I overeat, my body rebels. I felt like that bloated purple girl in the movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

The highlight of the evening: we got to see fireworks without going anywhere. The White Rabbit happens to have a very fortunately located house. He lives in the Philadelphia suburbs, only a few blocks away from where the community fireworks are set off every year. Some of us sat on the front porch. Some of us thought we had a better view from the back yard. But we all seated ourselves by 9 p.m. to watch the show.

They were shooting the fireworks low this year, due to cloud cover. Every once in awhile, we saw a piece of burning debris land in a neighbor's yard. We began to joke that maybe we should have someone on the roof to knock off any wayward debris. But it was a fantastic display and a comfortable night, just warm enough to enjoy without putting on a jacket. This was actually the first time, in the four summers I've been in this area, that I saw fireworks here.

One by one, or actually two by two in most cases, many of us having paired up over the years, people began to drift home. The air conditioner, with less people going in and out the back door, became more efficient. The mood was so relaxing some of us started drifting off on the couch, those who weren't still playing a game.

Eventually, thinking about poor little Una sitting at home alone, The Gryphon and I also said our good-byes, making sure to hug the Court Wizard, who would be flying home to the Midwest the next day.

Yet another fun day with friends, then a drive home to a grateful dog, who greeted us jubilantly, as excited to see us as a child to see fireworks.

Copyright 2004 by Alyce Wilson

Musings Index

What do you think? Share your thoughts
at Alyce's message board (left button):