Katie and I opted to forgo the craziness downtown and the significant chance of popup thunderstorms this year and catch the Boston fireworks at home on the television. This had the added advantage of guaranteeing both a good view of and the ability to hear the Boston Pops performance. Turned out to be a wise decision as the esplanade and both sides of the Charles River were temporarily evacuated due to the approach of an oncoming thunderstorm just before the 15th Overture was scheduled to begin. Jamming into the Storrow Drive Tunnel with approximately 100,000 of my fellow Bostonians is not my idea of a fun evening.
No, we decided to a quiet, peaceful day relaxing at home followed by a nice dinner and watching the fireworks from the couch was best. Then we opted to make July 4, 2012 the date of our 2nd annual cat bathing bonanza. It made sense seeing as we had the time and the cats had almost forgiven us for the time we bathed them last summer.
The feline aversion to water is legendary. Cats appear to believe that they will dissolve in water, or turn into a pile of steaming goo like the wicked witch of the west if doused in it. It is easy to see how they would make that mistake, as all that's left of a cat after a bath is a pile of hair floating in the bathtub. I can testify to the fact that cats do not in fact dissolve in water, at least not within the few minutes it takes to bathe them. Their claws also in no way soften. I have a tic-tac-toe board on my wrist to testify to that fact. What they do is make a sound that suggests that all the joy has been sucked out of the universe. It is a sound so sad and pathetic and so incongruous with their actual situation that it's impossible not to laugh.
The bathing of both cats was accomplished with only minor bloodshed. As a bonus I kept the majority of the hair from being sucked down the drain by placing a piece of cheese cloth over drain.
Then I got our little Weber grill going and when the coals were ready, tossed on the chicken I had been brining in the refrigerator. I served this along with sauteed greens from our CSA and corn on the cob.
Katie and I watched the fireworks on CBS. The fireworks were excellent as usual and we saw more of the Pops performance than they show nationally, as it was carried on the local feed. The one downfall appeared to be the coordination of the cameras during the actual fireworks program. The camera feeds seemed to switch and zoom in and out nearly at random. I can only assume that the individual in charge must have been closely related to a board member or the station's CEO.
The real excitement was happening in our back yard. Like many cities, Boston looks the other way when people set off fireworks on the 4th. As a result, the park near our house serves a launching pad for an array of bottle rockets, aerial shells, cakes and roman candles. This year, someone apparently decided to set off something that can only be described as a bomb. While people were presumably sheltering in the Storrow Drive Tunnel downtown and CBS was running pieces of the Boston Pops performance from last night to fill time, I heard an explosion several orders of magnitude greater than any earlier fireworks. It rattled the windows and even caused the house to quiver. Moments later, I heard what sound like a pile of rubble impact the street outside and a car alarm went off. There was a massive cloud of smoke shrouding the park don the street and rocks strewn about the street. So yes, a fun and exciting 4th of July.
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