Today I am reminded of how our freedoms shouldn’t be taken for granted. Let’s all work together to make our country great for everyone!

Our local park does their fireworks show this Saturday. We will have a BBQ before it. Growing up in South Carolina, we called it a cookout if you had hot dogs and hamburgers. If you had a BBQ you had actual barbecue. Incidentally, barbecue was one of my “spelling bee words”, you know, the word that lost you the spelling bee. I spelled it “barbeque”. The thing that burns me up, RIGHT NOW, is that my blog program doesn’t mark that as misspelled. But I lost the spelling bee.

In any case, it’s a big annual event for us. I don’t even really like fireworks…I think I’ve probably complained about this before, because I’ve been complaining on this blog for years, but they are loud. I’ve played many orchestra concerts in the past where we had to play while the fireworks started, really near us, or while we had to wait for them to finish before leaving, because they were too close to leave. I am like a cat and don’t like sudden, loud noises, so I don’t really like fireworks.

I’ve been dog sitting for Banjo this week too, so I’ve got the two dogs. They don’t seem to mind the fireworks too much, though tonight will likely be louder (everybody in St Louis demonstrates their patriotism by blowing things up and making it sound like a war zone around us, and then when people complain online, they further demonstrate their patriotism by telling those people that their opinions don’t matter, that they are wrong, or that they should just suck it up, that it happens every year, and who cares if their pets are terrified—you can tell how I feel, right?).

The fact of the matter is, I haven’t found something Banjo is afraid of. I used to joke that the only thing Mackenzie is afraid of is the vacuum cleaner, and that is still mostly true, although I suppose the vet ranks pretty high up there, and then she’ll have a weird instance where she refuses to walk down a particular street, but that’s not really fear. But Banjo, he’s not afraid of the vacuum. He just stares at it blankly when I use it, which is really good for Mackenzie to see, that it isn’t something scary to Banjo. Banjo likes to sleep up against the front door, for (I presume) my protection. And the other night the fireworks from various places around us were pretty loud and Banjo kept pacing from door to door in the house. Mackenzie too. I don’t mind that they are here.

They are both old though, and sometimes I get sad thinking of it. I haven’t known Mackenzie for four years quite yet, but almost. I don’t find myself to be as physically affectionate with dogs as with cats, but she has grown on me and I don’t know what we would do without her.

ANYWAY. I should never blog before having too much coffee. You guys know I just spit this stuff out, stream of consciousness, right? This is why it’s terrible and my only followers are hate-followers.

(I hope that’s not true. You all like me well enough, correct?)

What are you doing for the fourth? I’m going to stop by a friend’s house in the afternoon before going to another friend’s house in the evening. I have beer and pasta salad to share.

Have a wonderful holiday! I hope most of you get to relax and enjoy time with friends and family!