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The Fourth
Jul. 4th, 2011 11:58 pmToday was sure a day of ups and downs. Exhaustingly so. We had fun watching The Princess Bride, though we’d all seen it before, and then D. and I had a great time at the pool, though it was too crowded to try to beat our ball-tossing record. I grilled burgers, which were very tasty, with watermelon and some spicy version of Doritos, but we’d hoped to eat while watching Serenity, and none of the DVD players would recognize the DVD, though we’ve watched it successfully in the past. So we found Knight and Day on the on-demand, which was perfectly satisfying for the occasion, as far as I was concerned.
Then I introduced D. to croquet, and after a few very vigorous rounds, I left him to design a new course for us while I came inside briefly. I returned to find him creating ramps! This became a major production, and we had a great time playing the course – R. even joined us for that round (and won). D. is a really good sport – he was scrupulous about reporting when he’s accidentally tapped the ball a bit, and generous about declaring me to have done an equivalent of making it up the ramp, when the structure kind of failed and I had fallen way behind.
After that, it was dark enough for our fireworks, and when I suggested to D. that he might like photographing them with that little camera we got for Outdoor School, he was so excited – he said, “You just blew my mind.” So, yeah, we took a lot of pictures, and for a while he was even sort of “hiding” behind me in a cute, affectionate way, for the louder fireworks. And then he and I walked to the middle school field, for our now annual ritual of watching the aerial ones up there, and of course he brought his camera, too, though the light levels turned out to be too low to take pictures. The moon was a bright sliver near the western horizon; it kept catching our eyes. We walked all the way to the far side of the track, then headed home, past a family that was doing the most beautiful aerial ones right in the street outside their house. Then, urgh, the batteries fell out of D’s camera! And that meant all of his pictures were lost, both of tonight’s fireworks and of their trip to the coast. I am so disappointed for him!
And then I discovered that our poor sad router, stepped on a year or so ago, and apparently stepped on again last week, has apparently failed entirely. I think it got knocked to the ground when Thor was watching our croquet game through the sliding glass door. I’m only online because I’ve hooked the ethernet directly to my laptop, and I’m out on the couch. What a pain.
Then I introduced D. to croquet, and after a few very vigorous rounds, I left him to design a new course for us while I came inside briefly. I returned to find him creating ramps! This became a major production, and we had a great time playing the course – R. even joined us for that round (and won). D. is a really good sport – he was scrupulous about reporting when he’s accidentally tapped the ball a bit, and generous about declaring me to have done an equivalent of making it up the ramp, when the structure kind of failed and I had fallen way behind.
After that, it was dark enough for our fireworks, and when I suggested to D. that he might like photographing them with that little camera we got for Outdoor School, he was so excited – he said, “You just blew my mind.” So, yeah, we took a lot of pictures, and for a while he was even sort of “hiding” behind me in a cute, affectionate way, for the louder fireworks. And then he and I walked to the middle school field, for our now annual ritual of watching the aerial ones up there, and of course he brought his camera, too, though the light levels turned out to be too low to take pictures. The moon was a bright sliver near the western horizon; it kept catching our eyes. We walked all the way to the far side of the track, then headed home, past a family that was doing the most beautiful aerial ones right in the street outside their house. Then, urgh, the batteries fell out of D’s camera! And that meant all of his pictures were lost, both of tonight’s fireworks and of their trip to the coast. I am so disappointed for him!
And then I discovered that our poor sad router, stepped on a year or so ago, and apparently stepped on again last week, has apparently failed entirely. I think it got knocked to the ground when Thor was watching our croquet game through the sliding glass door. I’m only online because I’ve hooked the ethernet directly to my laptop, and I’m out on the couch. What a pain.