Fourth of July

I’m home from Vermont in time to rest up for the Fourth of July Independence Day celebration – and another gigantic spate of mattress sales. I just don’t understand how selling mattresses – or having any other kind of sale - has anything to do with patriotism, unless we consider capitalism gone wild a way to express our love for our country.

In any event the neighborhood has been pretty calm – knock on wood. Instead of the usual firecrackers all night for two weeks in advance of the Fourth, I haven’t heard anything. With luck, dogs all over the neighborhood are neither peeing on carpets in fright nor jumping on their masters in the middle of the night at the sound of random explosions.

My dogs don’t seem to be afraid of firecrackers or thunderstorms, and for that I am grateful. Brando barks at the vacuum cleaner occasionally, but I ignore him and he lies down by himself pretty soon. Stella doesn’t seem to notice either way unless I put the suction hose on her body, and then she makes herself scarce. With good reason.

I know people whose dogs go wild at the slightest rumble and try to crawl under the closet floor to protect themselves. I don’t understand why some dogs tremble and others don’t, but I suspect it has to do with their puppyhoods. We didn’t have either dog as a little puppy, although we got Stella when she was six months old. Brando came to us six months later at a year old. Both are rescue dogs, probably not full-blooded anything, and that may account for their temperaments.

The Dogs Next Door are apparent basket cases last night and this morning, perhaps in anticipation of coming thunder. They have done nothing but bark. Stella pretty much ignores them, and Brando is working on it, but neither of my dogs has even been outside when the neighbor dogs have heard us – even in the house – and gone wild. The lawn people are here this morning and that is driving the DNDs crazy. Go figure.

In any event, we are going to the grandkids’ parents’ for the Fourth. The grandsons' (David and Jonathan, terrific kids!) father is remarrying in August, and his fiancée has two kids, our two new grandchildren Greyson and Alexa, who are also absolute delights. Now we have four grandchildren to spoil.

And maybe that’s the patriotic theme of this blog today. We have such freedom. Freedom not only to say what we want, and blog what we want, and think what we want, especially if we think George Bush is a mendacious moron. Freedom of association and travel and even, I suppose, mattress sales, are freedoms we can thank our founding fathers for. And we thank also those who have fought for us over the past 232 years, especially son Derek, who went to Annapolis and then gave another six years to the Navy and his country, our country. We owe them deep gratitude.

Happy Fourth of July! Happy Independence Day!