Next big event after our anniversary was the 4th of July, which was a day off for me. Next regular public holiday: Labor Day. But the night before, as had been our custom, we drove down to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger's parents, to take in the fireworks they hold there on 4thmas Eve. Here I pulled off an extremely minor coup, parking my car in the not-quite-enough-space between her father's car and the sidewalk, forcing the choice of my driving us to the park where we'd view the fireworks from. bunnyhugger has lost confidence in her father's driving --- he's always been nervous but now he's nervous and failing to notice things like pedestrians, and he came terribly close to hitting some people walking back from the fireworks when we went in 2021. (And worse, didn't realize, taking only with great skepticism our word that there was someone giving him a New Jersey salute.) [*]
I tried to frame it as doing a favor to someone who's doing us so many, and he at least claimed to accept that, and we have eleven months before we have to revisit this specific issue in this specific context. He was not at all sure I could find my way there, unaware that once I've gone somewhere like four times I remember the path automatically and also that I could reason ``every car in town going off the main drag to these neighborhood streets'' probably have motivation.
bunnyhugger's mother again stayed home, pleading that she needed to watch over the nervous pets and all, and we allowed that. It was a pretty solid show, with the fireworks launched from a slightly different spot from what we all remembered --- and what we'd advised people before the show started --- although in a way that made less of it obscured by the park's trees.
Back at bunnyhugger's parents' home we did the usual sorts of evening things like eating ice cream and then setting off our own fireworks. bunnyhugger had brought some from Meijer's and her father had gotten some the sizes of carry-on luggage so it looked to be a promising night. Also, a kid who'd been staying at the house down the block wandered over, with permission, to watch; I don't know his exact deal but he had apparently been there a couple months and was being moved away as the least-bad available option of some family crisis I didn't understand and will not speculate about.
The home fireworks were a good bit of show and fun, right up until bunnyhugger's father brought out one called ``the taco''. This was a semicircular one that he set down, semicircular arch vertical, that is, so that the top of the fireworks package was horizontal, and facing us. Also the driveway and his car. My home-grown wariness of fireworks and tendency to stand just a little farther back was justified as great showers of many bright colors shot right at us. Also, I point out, at bunnyhugger's parents' car. I ducked behind the side yard fence, accidentally setting my foot in the dog's water dish. bunnyhugger and her mother cowered against the small front porch, wanting to hide in the safety of indoors but not willing to get the two feet closer to the fireworks that they'd need to open the front door.
Obviously, none of us were set on fire and the car was not blown up by this, and with it all safely in the past we can safely tease bunnyhugger's father about does he not know what a taco looks like and how it is generally held? ... But he would offer excuses the rest of the night about why he was mistaken regarding what way was up. I sincerely hope he hasn't felt hurt by all this.
The 4th, ourselves, we ended up not using to go to an amusement park or anything. It was nicer just to sleep in and putter around the house, puttering being an underrated pastime. bunnyhugger did put together a coronation-chick'n salad, though, made into sandwiches that we used to bring a picnic to a park near the Armory. From there we watched the City of Lansing's fireworks, as well as a nearby show that we're pretty sure was the ballpark's fireworks. We also saw miscellaneous random other bits of fireworks that were probably from surrounding towns such as whatever the heck ``Dimondale'' is. Also people setting off their own fireworks, including some folks right at the Armory who were setting off container-cargo-sized arrangements of fireworks that may not have been strictly legal. As nobody ended up hurt that we saw, this was the wise and correct thing for them to do.
Also while in the park, sitting around, waiting for the city fireworks and watching the wildcat fireworkers, we saw people launching lantern balloons, over and over. The balloons turn out to be larger than we had envisioned. They're three or four feet tall and about that far across, and filling them up looks a little like the trick of opening up a garbage bag by swinging it back and forth in the air, and it takes some experimenting to see whether there's enough hot air in the lantern to set it aloft. That alone would have been worth going out to see, besides the cozy air of the whole neighborhood come out to just mess around in a pleasant cozy summer night.
[*] I will know when bunnyhugger has read this entry by when she cracks up.
Next up on my photo tours: it's bunnyhugger's birthday and that means taking a trip somewhere special ... somewhere wild ... somewhere you can dilute! dilute! OK?
Now where would you get an array of flags like this and why am I going and filming it at a weird angle? Besides that this way it's an interesting picture and arranged right it's not?
That's right, it's Bronner's Xmas Wonderland, the biggest [ qualifiers ] Christmas store in the world and the natural center of shiny, sparkly things in eastern Michigan! ... Note how people are dressed for, like, 60 degrees instead of ``early November weather''.
And here we are! Is that a heap of sparkly lines or what?
The back end of the line either for ornament personalization or possibly Anthrocon registration. No way to tell.
Scoreboard set up above the Sports ornaments section. Do you get it? ... Because I do not know what 'Home 36' signifies. 12:25, and visitor '1' sure, but is this like the whole, huge family is home for Christmas?
Little cityscape setting with figures that dance in magnet-enhanced circles around a Central Park Skating Pond.
Trivia: India's field hockey team, which had begun international play in 1926, swept the 1928 Amsterdam Summer Olympics and started a 30-game winning streak that would not be broken until six Olympics onward, and a a 1960 finals match against Pakistan. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle.
Currently Reading: Miscellaneous comic books, as mentioned.
