Independence Day 2013

When we visited Philadelphia and Independence Hall a couple of weeks ago, it didn't even occur to me that Independence Day was right around the corner. Happy coincidence!

That helps make this holiday celebration the same as all our holiday celebrations--academic and low-key.

our hometown Independence Day parade (we like it weird!)

fireworks!!!

This is the first year that we've done fireworks at home. Our town can't seem to figure out the simple, practical measures that all the surrounding towns take to ensure a nice fireworks show that isn't a money pit, so they cancelled the show this year in a fit of spite. Normally, I'm really squeamish about causing the kind of scene that driveway fireworks make, but our across-the-street neighbor is really nice, and our next-door neighbor, well... Animal Control came back to our house a couple of days ago to verify that our coop does not smell, as he called again to complain that it did, and that our sight barrier is within the regulation, as he called again to say that it's not, and seeing that the officer was visibly angered at having been sent back for no reason (wild goose chases cost time and money!), AND as driveway fireworks are also within city regulation, I felt confident that I had the City's double support for annoying him inside the bounds of the law.

The M-60s were satisfyingly LOUD, and the honeybees were bright and loud and lifted up surprisingly and delightfully speedily and high. The children were absolutely giddy, and could barely be brought down the necessary few notches before bedtime, even with the generous application of sparklers:

Even after their showers, they went to bed still smelling like smoke and gunpowder.

Just as they should do on the Fourth of July!

New Haven, Connecticut, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

This morning's drive to the Philadelphia airport to pick up Matt had been an ongoing subject of conversation during my entire time in New Haven; Mac and I discussed it plenty, and that one guy in the grocery store check-out line also had some good insight into the matter.

The trouble was that, although my GPS estimated a 3 hour and 40 minute trip, I would be driving straight through the morning commute of what seemed like the entire East Coast, including cutting right past New York City. How much extra to allow for this? One hour? Two? I finally decided on a one hour estimate, because, frankly, it would be easier for Matt to hang out at the airport an extra hour to wait on us than for us to hang out at the airport an extra hour to wait for him.

With that settled, we packed up the car, said goodbye to Mac, secured his promise to mail us all the things that we had surely forgotten under couches and behind bookshelves, and found our spot in the bumper-to-bumper traffic slowly edging its way down the East Coast.

It was by far my most stressful drive, sure, but I kept myself going by thinking, "I'm going to pick up Matt; I'm going to pick up Matt," and at one point Syd said from the backseat, "I like it best when you drive, Momma, because you let us help you look for exit signs!" I do, too. Even though a child has never actually been the one to say to me, "Oh, there's the exit there on the left--half mile!", somehow it makes me *feel* like I'm getting some navigational help when I tell them both to help me look out for it.

But in the end we made it! I didn't rear-end or get rear-ended by anybody, I DID make the wrong turn around New York City that I feared I'd make, but that wrong turn didn't then send me through the streets of Manhattan as I'd feared it would, I did have enough money for all the tolls (we avoided all the turnpikes before and after this one trip, but I was afraid to take the time to detour on this leg), I did figure out where the pick-up for Matt's airline was, and, running more like an hour and a half past the GPS estimate but about ten minutes out from the airport, I did get a call from Matt saying that he was off the plane, headed towards the exit, and could meet me out front in, oh, ten minutes?

And yes, I did pull up to the curb, get out of the drivers's seat, give Matt a hug, and then hop my butt right into the passenger's side. I felt a tiny bit guilty about throwing Matt into the deep end of city traffic right after his early morning flight, but oh, did my neck and shoulder muscles need to de-stress!

So that's how poor Matt, after a short night's sleep, an early morning trek to the airport, and a long plane flight with a layover, found himself driving his family minivan into downtown Philadelphia. I knew that I wanted to see some history, but I hadn't been certain enough of our timeline that day to actually make any reservations, so we only got to see Independence Hall from the outside across the street--

--but the Visitor's Center did have reenactors (Willow flat-out refused to walk up to the patriot and tell him that she was tired of British oppression and wanted to enlist), the most boring film about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution ever made (seriously, it was so boring that it almost cycled back around to interesting, because you kept thinking, "HOW could this movie be so BAD?!?"), and a gift shop, where a certain little girl could continue her stuffed animal acquisition crusade by purchasing a stuffed bald eagle:

We were able, by waiting in line for a bit, to see the Liberty Bell up close:

--and fortunately, there's a lovely, grassy park right next to it, facing Independence Hall across a street closed to most traffic--

--and it was a lovely place to run around, catch up on all the accumulated gossip of a week apart, and, of COURSE, eat Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches:

There's a ton more to do in Philadelphia, of course, but we chose an early night of it, heading to our hotel for a swim, a movie, a take-out dinner, and an early bedtime, because tomorrow--

--we were headed back to Sesame Place!

Sparkle

Although they're cheapest right before Independence Day, sparklers?

They're an all-summer after-dark treat around here.

Rain on My Parade (Again)

I can't believe it's pouring down rain on the Fourth of July AGAIN! I mean, sure, it's like 8,000 degrees in my hometown in Arkansas right now, but at least Papa and Aunt Pam and everyone down there can barbecue! And shoot off fireworks! Here in Indiana, it's in the mid-60s. But the grill is standing cold and empty out in the deluge. And the fireworks, they are cancelled. I swear, I am very out sorts. Very out of sorts indeed.

Fortunately, it was only drizzling during the Fourth of July parade this year, unlike last year's utter downpour. We found the BEST spot to sit and watch the parade this year, and no, I'm not going to tell you where it is, because I don't want you to sit there instead of me next year. I do hope that nice man who sat on my other side comes back next year, because he talked trash with me about the very odd lady who encouraged her 13 (I'm not kidding) children to run out into the street, during Taps, to pick up the hot shell casings after the twenty-one gun salute. They also came thisclose to getting hit by every single parade float in the parade due to their focused determination to GET CANDY. And also? I had to crop the entire brood out of every single photo.

Even in the drizzle, all my favorite parade groups were present:

The Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls

We're going to miss their next double-header, but will be back rooting them on in August (My top three fantasy aspirations: 1--Run a farm of my own 2--Be in a stage production of Hair 3--Be a rollergirl).

The Lotus Festival The Dark Carnival Film Festival (I get to go to this one by myself, because the rest of my family are wusses)

And, of course, Beanpole:

The monkeys watched the parade and its goings-on solemnly--happily, I suppose, but solemnly, with deep, focused concentration. I'm big on ceremony, so after standing still with hand on heart listening to Momma belt out the national anthem (why don't more people sing along? It's fun), and standing still for the twenty-one gun salute, and standing still for Taps, and standing still for the passing of the flag, I was sort of afraid I'd sucked all the life and fun out of them, but I think they were just concentrating really, REALLY hard on the parade.

Because right afterwards, they shook themselves awake and immediately looked like this:

And then we went home and made popcorn.

In other news, I've been on an unwilling crafting hiatus due to the total chaos of the house, but this three-day weekend (especially since we don't have to take off any time to barbecue or do fireworks) is spelling change for that, my friends.

And my fingers are just itching to get back to business next week.

Variations on a Flag

One of my favorite things about having a blog (along with the regular practice of writing and photography and the making of new blog-friends) is how it helps me see the flow of my life. I had forgotten, for instance, that last summer around this time both the girls were obsessed with maps. It was a nice tie-in for Independence Day, actually--we made a giant map of the United States that we downloaded from Megamaps, and a big sugar cookie map, and we decorated each of them with stuff that I explained to the girls were symbols that represented things in the real world. Because don't even get me started about symbols.

Or do. I love myself some symbols. And symbology is such a terrific thing to teach a very young kid, in my opinion, because so many of the things that they'll be asked to do in structured learning use symbols--reading, writing, math, cryptology, etc. Call me crazy, but I think it's something very important for even a four-year-old to understand overtly that C-A-T represents "cat," but is not cat itself (This is not a pipe, y'all). That might turn them into the eighteen-year-old freshman comp students who CAN get it through their thick skulls that although King Kong is, yes, a giant gorilla, he represents, (at least in the 1930s version) a racist fear of African-Americans. And write a paper about it. A paper with a thesis, please.

So lately the girls have been really into flags, which is apparently our current symbol of choice. Will enjoys leafing through our children's atlas together, having me name the country that goes with the flag on each page, and I've been thinking about making some kind of puzzle of world flags, because Sydney likes puzzles...but anyway, I'm digressing.

Will's been asking lately to go again to our sometimes wandering destination, Rose Hill Cemetery (Hoagy Carmichael! Alfred Kinsey!), so since it's nearly Independence Day, I involved them first in a project to make some American flags that we could put on the graves of soldiers at the cemetery. I gathered up red, white and blue cardstock and scrapbook paper, beads and buttons, popsicle sticks, crayons and markers and colored pencils, and pulled up a nice, big picture of the American flag on the computer screen.

The results? Beautiful. Creative. Evocative. Patriotic.

Flag-like? Ummm...

Here's Willow with her flag, at the grave of a World War I soldier that we found:
The scrapbook paper is red and white and blue, you see, and the popsicle sticks are red, and the stones and shells are white.

Here's Syd's, with red and white and blue scrapbook paper and red and white and blue buttons and a big orange carrot that she's munching as hard as she can:
Her soldier was also from World War I. And lest you think that we were simply using these belated gentlemen as mere canvasses for our artwork, I'll have you know that we also swept their markers and pulled the weeds and long grasses from around them, leaving quite the pretty, if inexplicable, picture for other passers-by. I'm glad that neither of our soldiers actually died during the war (Sydney's soldier was a bugler!), because although the girls and I talk about soldiers oddly often, I haven't yet happened to bring up the fact that soldiers, you know, fight--I tell the girls that soldiers work for our country and do jobs for everyone who lives here, so they probably think that they're like administrators, or garbagemen, or something. Who knows.

Of course, the other fun thing to do (along with running around all that nice, grassy space and wishing you could climb all the gravestones but being told by your mother that despite all appearances, this is actually NOT a playground, both feet on the ground please) is to pick out cool stuff on the marker stones, especially cool, probably, because of Bloomington's own glorious limestone-carving history, which means that scattered among the generic headstones, there are some true gems: And, of course, intimations of one's own mortality:

I'm trying to put together an entire alphabet from gravestone photos, which sounds kind of morbid but is actually pretty awesome (and morbid, yes), so although the girls and I are going blueberry-picking tomorrow, we'll likely be back out at Rose Hill Cemetery the next day.

The day after that, we're totally making another 64-page map of the United States.