Independence Day

For a change, it wasn't 300 degrees on July 4th, and so the parade was less of an endurance test than usual. For heat anyway, there was still the usual coterie of election-year floats and other oddities to be endured.

On that front, this year's winner by a mile was a float that featured kids dressed as robots and had a woman speaking into a megaphone about America embracing God again and getting the country's business back on track. I need to go back to my New Testament to figure out which of the Beatitudes dealt with macroeconomics...

We had the Ace of Cakes guy as the parade's honorary grand marshall, which meant that he and his tattooed band of merry men (and women) were pulled down the street on a flatbed to the wild cheers of food nerds and people who like girls with sleeve tattoos and tube dresses. Which covered everyone (except maybe the robot Reagan/Jesus people).

Jane (for whom every day is independence day) decided the sidewalk would be the ideal place to really practice walking. To her credit, she didn't complain about the scraped knees that resulted, and she actually did a pretty good job.

Amazingly, she can only really walk when she's holding something. Usually said object needs to be either a choking hazard or an object that could render her a cyclops, but she settled for a bag of crackers while we were at the parade.

Later in the day our friends had their annual 4th of July party, immediately preceded by the annual thunderstorm. Even so, the tents were up, the beer was cold, the grill was going, and Samson got a chance to jam (and stay up late enough to see a firework or two).