4th of July, Just South of Asbury Park

In New Hope, Pennsylvania, as it happened.

It was pretty much a good old fashioned Fourth of July: barbecue in the back yard, tubing on the river (the Delaware river, very near where Washington made his fabled crossing during the Revolution), concert in a big field, followed by fireworks.  Small town fireworks, at that: not nearly as spectacular as the big city variety, but just as much fun in their own way, in among the balloons and the smell of bug spray and the folding picnic tables with stars and stripes paper tablecloths, and the annoying family nearby who kept moving the garbage can closer to us.

We entered the scene as Carl was making some jam.  He had a question about the process, so before I'd even been properly introduced, I was on the phone to mom for some guidance.  She steered us in the direction of a paraffin seal (which saved us a bunch of time and trouble) and not too much later we had us a batch of blueberry jam.

We had brought a case of beer and a bottle of spiced rum (drink of choice of our hosts) and continued to give good help in the kitchen, and it's good that we did, because Carl and Kevin outdid themselves with the hospitality.  SO much fun, and at the perfect time, right between Hamlet and the crazy dayjob Voyage to Boca.

They also have a couple of fun cats to liven up the joint.  Yes, yes, I'm allergic to cats, but it was a big place, and I took drugs to help me through it.  And they were some photogenic felines too, so we had that going for us.  Which is nice.

Here's Oliver, who's a little camera-shy:


And here's Rudy, who came right up to say hi:

And the backyard even had some nice hydrangeas. 

Throw in a late brunch at a Mexican place in Lambertville, NJ with Jen and Charles (love those guys!) and a good drive in both directions with my best gal in the passenger seat and it made for a damn fine holiday.

So, alright, this is an awfully conventional blog entry, but what can I say?  It was Independence Day.  How 'bout if I throw in an appeal to exercise your patriotic duty and contact the President to let him know that indefinite detention is unacceptable (and Unconstitutional.)  

And yes, we listened to The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle on the morning of the 4th.