HOW I SPENT THE 4TH OF JULY!

The day started with the church service at St. Mark's. I really love being there on a national holiday because the music is great, and we have some of the patriotic hymns. It's a very emotional experience that isn't there every Sunday though the music is always terrific. This 4th of July we sang "God of our fathers whose almighty hand," "The National Anthem," and "America the Beautiful." There were other hymns, of course, but these were special.

Back home I changed clothes, ate a bowl of cereal, and began making these little critters for the Shreveport Regional Orchid Judging Center.



These are attached with wire to any plants that are awarded something. This is really a labor intensive job because the stickers have to be stuck inside a laminating pouch, laminated, cut into squares, then the corners have to be rounded, and finally, a hole punched in the square. Ever seen one of these?



It's a little instrument for "cutting corners." Of course, you have to do each corner separately. Once that was done I punched in the holes for the wires. I made sixty of them. HOWEVER, THERE IS AN UPSIDE to this story of tedium. While doing this daunting task I was able to watch 1776, one of my favorite musicals on TV. It kept me in the spirit of the day.

Then I moved on to cleaning some of the plant labels we use during judging. At this point I learned the deeper meaning of tedium. It involves eliminating the pencil scribbling on a plastic label so that it can be reused. Simple erasing leaves smudges, but I've found making a paste of Bartenders Friend (from the grocery store or Walmart) and water and scrubbing like crazy with a pot scrubber does a really good job. So it goes from what you see on the left to what you see on the right.





I only got about 16 of these done when it was time to feed the dog and get dressed to go to the evening's festivities. Only have 40-50 more to go.

Chillax, Jaz, and Oyster picked me up just after 6:30 to go downtown to the Barnwell Garden & Art Center on the bank of the Red River for the 4th of July party which included our city's big fireworks display. We really lucked out on getting tickets---free. It included hot dogs, hamburgers, BBQ sandwiches, beans, potato salad, chips, tea, and lemonade, brownies and soft whip faux ice cream. I didn't eat all of that, but 'pert near. Oh, yes! There was live entertainment until dark billed as jazz, but I would call it "lounge" music, such as "Girl From Ipinema" and "My Satin Doll." Too loud, but they were good. (Maybe they were just trying to overcome the music from the next venue down the river.)

We had a table about 30 feet from the fence over the river. Excellent place to be for viewing the fireworks, and we had chairs, and, I forgot to mention that the temperature, though warm of course, was not unpleasant. I don't think any of us were sweating. Can you believe it? Didn't have to bring anything except ourselves---and camera, of course.

Chill and Oyster wanted to check out the barge with all the fireworks all set to go.






The fireworks began a little after nine . . .





and it was really fun to be so close and to be able to see everything. Plus I'd invested in earplugs for all of us to reduce the booms. It made me think of falling meteors or being in a Star Wars movie.



The show was about 25 min. long, and then came the finale.





It probably took about the same length of time to get out of the parking building at Sam's Town Casino and away from downtown. But I think it was worth it and lots of fun. Hope your holiday was great too.