Wednesday, July 05, 2006

The Fourth was cool!

We had a good Fourth of July this year. The weather cooperated. It was cool enough last night that my aunt Jan had a blanket on her lap during the fireworks. Usually it's so hot outside that we're all sweaty and have been a buffett for the mosquitos. Last night was cool, and the mosquitos were only mildly annoying. Hopefully we wont all end up with West Nile Virus.

My dad cooked steaks and hotdogs on the grill, baked potatoes...my aunt Jan made corn-on-the-cob, chili, german chocolate cake, and homemade blueberry ice cream.

I went and saw Superman Returns with my boyfriend Don earlier yesterday afternoon before we ate. Then we came back to my house, pigged out on steak, chilidogs, and blueberry ice cream. While we waited for it to get dark enough to see the neighbors try their level best at blowing up the neighborhood, Don and I worked on....well...ok, Don worked on getting my wireless internet range extender working correctly while I sat and watched in boredom...errr...ummm....awe. :)

I now have a constant connection to the internet now, instead of having it drop out every 5 seconds! It's really cool having a friend who knows what they're doing with computer stuff. I just try not to impose on him to fix my system for me too much.

When it started getting darker, we dragged chairs across the street and watched the fireworks from my aunt Jan's driveway. Champion's Run Golf Course does a fireworks display every year. They dont advertise because it's a "private display for club members only", so we tried really hard not to watch the private display, but that was pretty difficult since it took up most of the southern sky. ;)

The neighbors (most of them) apparently imported the entire state of Missouri's supply of fireworks (Omaha has a law against selling fireworks) and they all seemed to put on a good show...except for one misfire. One of the neighbors around the corner from Jan's house had a canister that fell over after they lit it and instead of going up into the sky it blew across the street and into the Commons area and exploded there. I thought it might have bounced off a parked car before it hit the grass. It made for a neat explosion, but was kind of scary because of how quickly it happened. At least no one was hurt and the neighbor sent someone over with a Super Soaker water gun to make sure there wasnt going to be any grass fires.

It was really weird not having TinyMonsters around yesterday. (he died in March) I was so used to having to check on Tiny, and having him trying to climb into my arms during the fireworks. Tiny weighed 100 pounds and was a fierce looking dog, but when loud fireworks were going off, he thought he was a little guy again and just wanted me to protect him. My mom and aunt Jan both kept saying they wished Tiny was there last night. I was actually glad he wasnt, because I was the one he always leaped for when he was scared, and there was a lot more fireworks going off in the neighborhood last night than ever before. Tiny would have been so traumatized that I just wouldnt have wanted him to go thru that. Miss him to death, but it was nice to not have to worry about him being scared.

*****

Saw that North Korea couldnt hold it in any longer and just had to launch at least 7 test launches. From what I've seen on the news, the launch of the taepodong-2 missile petered out after 30 or 40 seconds. Some "experts" on the news thought the other 5 or 6 missiles (Scud missiles) were launched as a smoke screen to cover the apparent failure of the taepodong-2, and possibly also were symbolic shows of "strength" against America. Thought it was interesting that they waited till the biggest patriotic American holiday to do their test.

*****

I've gotten some crocheting done on two shawls I'm working on. Doing another one of those pineapple chairback doily shawls (with Red Heart SS), and the other one is just a half granny square shawl. The half granny shawl is being worked up in Joann's Rainbow Boucle. I'm really loving this yarn. It's the first time in a long time that I've used something other than Red Heart for a large project. I think I might head out to Joann's Crafts and see if I can get a couple more skeins.

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