The weather each day is spoiling me with its warm sun and cool breezes. If I could invent the perfect weather, the last couple of days would have been patented under my name. The birds are singing, the spawns of Satan are chasing each other from tree to tree and Gracie is taking a nap. I feel like I’m in a Disney movie.

This is the first big weekend of the season. Cars will be bumper to bumper waiting their turns over the bridge. Bicycles will be hanging off racks on the back. The wait to get here is easily endured. The wait to leave never is. I have to go off cape tonight to a family party celebrating my aunt and uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary. He went into the hospital earlier this week, but we were just told he is being discharged today in time for his party. Today, fifty years ago, was their exact wedding day.

I have no plans for the weekend itself. This is when most of us who live here start to hibernate. Monday I’ll go down the street to my friends’ for a barbecue. We’ll do the all-American July4th menu of burgers and franks and deviled eggs I hope. It’s traditional after all. Later I’ll put out the bunting on my fence and add flags to the garden. My flamingo will be dressed like Uncle Sam.

Through my teen years, I always marched with my drill team in the July 4th parade, a huge one in the next town over from ours. The parade still exists and is still huge. People put out chairs in the pre-dawn hours to reserve seats on the sidewalks beside the road. The ones under trees are prime seating. The sellers of balloons and such walk up and down the route selling their wares. Every year I watched some poor kid see his balloon fly high into the sky. The kid always cried and most times got another balloon which was tied more tightly to a wrist.

Lat night I could hear fireworks from further down the street, and every night now through the 4th we’ll hear bursts and blasts. Celebrating a country’s birthday should never be confined to just a single day!