Oh beautiful for rainy skies

Had a good Fourth. It started raining about 8:30, which kept the crowds down by the water. But right before the Macy's show started at 9:20, the rain stopped so all the people in front of us closed their big honking umbrellas. I think it's one of the best views I've had from the ground; I could even see one of the boats.

The buzz for this one was about the 'floaters,' fireworks that somehow float in the air and stayed lit. But they were a bit of a letdown; I only saw two or three of them. If they had twenty or thirty up at a time, that would have been cool.

The only thing about the Macy's show is it's really a bit too long. They definitely heard the old saying about 'leave them wanting more.' Here's the usual traing of thought while watching the Macy's fireworks.

Wow, I hope I can see the fireworks...hey, there it goes...WOW! HOLY COW! THAT ONE'S HUGE! AWESOME! Wow! Umm, nice. That one's cool. Is that those little floaty things? Is that all they do? It sure gets pretty smoky. There's the smiley face again. Oh, it's a cube. Look, it's the big green spheres. Again. And the ones like planets. Again. I wonder when the grand finale is. I'm hungry. Now would be a great time to break into my house. Please let this be the grand finale. If I hold my son up for five more minutes my arms are going to fall off. Please don't let anyone break into my house. Please let this be the grand finale. Christ I'm tired. PLEASE LET THIS BE OVER. This has got to be the grand finale. Thank God. How long is this going to go on...

And yet when it's finally over, I'm always glad I stayed.

Now, for the rest of the night we're going to have all the smartasses out there with their Black Cats and bottlerockets they bought over in Jersey and Pennsylvania. I mean, I set off my own fireworks too when I was a kid. But one, I was, like, ten, and two, we would go out on the mesa or something away from people's houses. And we didn't have a big show off of boats on the Rio Grande.

And I need to get a good night's rest, since I'm going to Massachusetts tomorrow. I guess tonight is a good night for a Brooklyn Lager and a poor man's ambien. Put those two together and we could be under a mortar attack and I wouldn't know the difference.