Happy Fourth of July.

Whether you celebrate it as the US Independence Day, or it's just another weekday to you, happy day today.

I'm disappointed by Bush's decision to commute Libby's sentence. It seems awkward, considering who Libby worked for and who/what he may have been covering up for - it seems complicit.

I will be interested to see what happens in the next presidential election. This country has elected some real disasters before, and survived it. I hope we'll survive it again.

And on an unrelated note, today's story at the Elder Storytelling Place is a stitch. Nothing to do with presidents or politics, I promise.

That was nice.

We stayed home for the Fourth, but got some fireworks to set off in the street, as did our neighbors of course. It was much fun watching their kids' excited reaction to discovering there'd be extra fireworks just a few feet from theirs.

Someone somewhere in the distance had roman candles. Tsk. Illegal in this state, along with anything else that goes very high at all, for the casual user (fireworks shows obviously are permitted to shoot stuff up up up, but the rest of us no). A bad night for it in any case as there was a good stiff breeze. It wasn't bad for our fountains, though - the breeze went along our road, perfectly parallel, so it just stretched them. (And we all had hoses ready anyway: reasoned, controlled paranoia is not necessarily a bad thing.)

There was a professionally-done show somewhere not too far away. No idea where! But it went up behind and above our neighbor's house so we could see the showy, high-shot fireworks very clear and very large.

Much much fun. Came back inside with some trepidation to see how the cats were handling it all. They have always lived way out in the country and not been much subject to this sort of thing. We opened up the cupboard in the upstairs hall bath (Babe's first "safe spot" when they first moved here, as the hall bath was Basta's first safe spot) in case they wanted it. Silly humans! We worry too much. Basta was downstairs by the air conditioner, napping. That didn't surprise me too much - as far as I can tell from her reactions, she is indeed either hard of hearing or deaf, as Dad told me he thought. What surprised me is that Babe was also downstairs, very much awake, but simply lying there, looking no more stressed than is normal for her. She did look sharply in the direction of a couple of the loudest bangs at one point, but that was it. Scott coming suddenly into the room startled her more than the fireworks noises did.

For this I am grateful. I had worried that this would be really rough on them, especially Babe, and instead they were just fine. I am very relieved/happy. I am also very tired, so I think off to bed with me. I hope everyone reading this had a good day today, whether it is a holiday for you or not.