Sometimes the celebration finds you

I wasn't really feeling it this year. The heat's been really bad, and the idea of leaving my house for any reason... no. Just no.

Plus a lot of our local activities were canceled. There was still a parade on the 4th, but at 9 a.m. and with only an abridged ceremony after, not the Field Day games at the school field which I volunteered to help with last year. We no longer do fireworks because the group that organized and funded them for decades was volunteer-run, and all the volunteers aged out and weren't replaced.

But Saturday night, at around 9:00 p.m., I heard fireworks and went outside. They were the ones in the next ttown up the road from us. Almost literally up the road, because they lookd like they were happening at the end of our street. Most of the neighbors ventured out of their air conditioning and we stood in the street and watched - close enough to see, far enough that they weren't noisy. 

As we watched, a breeze began to blow. We looked at each other - what is this strange thing? - and by the time the fireworks concluded, the lightning started. Within ten minutes, there was a soaking rain and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. It was glorious.

So that's how I ended up spending our country's 250th anniversary standing in the middle of the street, watching fireworks with a bunch of other people who apparently didn't make the effort to leave home either.

Sometimes the celebration finds you.