Day Off

I worked the morning shift this 4th! Yea for time and a half!!!So 9:30- what ended up being 4pm then I shopped a bit and headed home for some backyard BBQ and a bit of playing with the soon to be niece and nephew ( going on 1st grade and pre Kindergarten ) . Did the proper Perfumista Aunt thing and passed Nayeli a small set of the BBW Be Enchanted as it smells too much like citrus and those cheap candy necklaces that when you are 5- it's cool to wear ( and presumably smell like) thirty years later (for myself at least) it feels odd. As if I should be in a line that states " you must be ------ high to go on this ride" timewarpy weirdness . Pass candy scent on to the little one let her treasure it,and let me make a bit of space for the package on its way ! Glad you all seem to be having good 4ths too! And that your birthday went well Tom! Note to self , must go snoop the library for Mapp and Lucia- I don't think I've ever heard of them.

Happy 4th - love that birthday cake!

Happy Independence Day! I'll spend the evening out in the backyard, watching the fireworks displays from our city and four or five neighboring cities, as well as illegal bottle rockets set off by at least two different idiots in our neighborhood. Periodically I'll try to calm the dog, and check our elderly neighbor's wood shake (I.e. kindling) roof, to make sure it hasn't caught fire. I miss beer. Please report back on the new Lucia books. If they're even in the ballpark of the originals, they should be great. It was a sad day when I finished the last Mapp and Lucia.

I am by nature the kind of person who'd rather settle in with my husband and some good music most of the time, but I always enjoy a good old fashioned rollicking 4th of July get together. I live out in the country, related by blood or marriage to everyone within half a mile of me. There will be well over two hundred of us wandering from house to house, eating and drinking and singing and waving flags and having epic water fights. (Last year, my 89 year old great aunt scored the biggest hit by hiding up in a mulberry tree and dropping water balloons down upon the unsuspecting head of the preacher of the local Baptist church, who happens to be her nephew) Half the men will be in and out of my uncle's garage, pretending to be working on his old Mustang, and all of their wives will be pretending they don't know they're all in there drinking my uncle's highly illegal corn liquor. I have little boys fishing down at my pond, and my husband set up a shooting range at the other end of our property, so there's plenty more boys, big and little, down there, and several girls, too. We're a musical bunch and there's a group settled in under the big oak tree in my mama's front yard; I can hear the banjo, the mandolin and my Uncle Bobby's fiddle clear down here. I love the unbridled raucousness of a 4th of July celebration. I mean, let's face it... if you can't be loud, obnoxious, overly emotional, and ridiculously patriotic while shooting off guns and fireworks and eating enormous portions of obscenely unhealthy food, you may as well just chuck it all and go and live among the civilized in Canada. But of late, I have started a little tradition of getting up at o-dark thirty on the 4th. I get myself a glass of iced tea, and sit on my porch, by the dawn's early light no less, and think about what it all really means..... the courage it took to revolt, the wisdom it took to hammer out the Constitution, the men who have fought and died to keep us free, and just how grateful I am to be American, warts and all. I hope everyone who celebrates the 4th, whether you do do quietly or go full-bore, has a wonderful holiday!

I hope everyone in the US has a great holiday today! Enjoy your time off today!

Enjoy reading by the pool, there are not many better things to do in this life. Since Brazil is playing today, it is holliday here too. My intention is to bathe in Shalimar and drink a thousand beers by the lemon tree.

A very happy Independence Day to you and all your readers! I didn't know what Two Buck Chuck was, so looked it up. I can't believe that you guys can buy wine for $2 a bottle, and it doesn't sound too bad either!

HAPPY 4Th of JULY! Enjoy your day and night. Do as little as possible and smell as lovely as usual. Portia xx