It's my favorite holiday!
July 4th, 2016
Happy Independence Day!
Normally, this is the one day of the year where I get incomprehensively inebriated, and sit back while people blow things up in the midst of a hot, summer evening. The benefit of a staggering array of explosives going off in my vicinity is that the smoke seems to ward off mosquitos, an important thing when you're like me, and the horrible things find you irresistible to dine upon.
In other words, this is nominally the day of the year where Denny gets to enjoy an evening outside without waking up the next morning with fifty bug bites that have festered from the night before, making him itch until he looks like a meth addict. I won't be doing that presently, however, because it would appear that the weather has turned against us this time around, being all cold and wet.
Though the rest of the planet is experiencing record heat year after year, this odd corner of the Midwest that we live in is a huge anomaly in that regard. For the last couple of years, the area around Dayton has had unseasonably cool summers, at least according to the scientists who track this sort of thing. That data seems to hold up, because it's cool and damp today, and nobody's blowing up anything.
Not in Yellow Springs, anyway.
That's okay, though. I do not require the celebration of my favorite holiday ever to live. It's fun, of course, but I can forego booze and bombs for another year. Last time I didn't manage it for... reasons? And this summer events conspired against my heading out to do the annual family shindig once more. But 2017 will be the year that I make it back to Omaha to visit the family again.
I should have some vacation time next year, for one thing, assuming I still have my job at... well, that place what where I toil away my weekdays. But until then, I figure I could at least wear my hat today. You know, my very special hat. The one that I wear on the fourth of July! So that's me mugging it for the camera, there, even if my camera's 'selfie' lens is pretty ghetto. Sorry about that!
I suppose that I could find other ways to waste my time on the Fourth of July. Sure, explosives and liquor are great ways to pass the time, but they're not the be all and end all of existence. No, I suppose I could haul my butt up off the couch and find some people in the area that are into doing things. Perhaps I could buy the product these guys are peddling, and play a game of flag football.
Do you see what they did there?