Happy 55th

I've reached another enormous age -- 55! No wonder I'm fat. It sounds more like 75. It's a highway speed limit, for heaven's sake. But here we are, and better than the alternative. I'll write a little more about the 4th and something about the 5th and then I'll feel like I'm all caught up with the blog.

So 4th of July went OK. The kids and I saw "Inside Out" -- I enjoyed it a lot, but surprisingly, so did they. I don't really know what they got out of it, I just know they weren't bored. About halfway through the film, Kid B whispered to me that he needed to go to the bathroom. "You can go by yourself," I told him. "You know the way." "But I don't want to miss the movie!" he said, and he stayed. Every 10 minutes or so he told me again that he was suffering -- but he still didn't want to miss the movie. When we hit the credits, he and Kid A raced for the bathroom, causing them to miss the funniest scene in the movie (the cat brain), but they probably wouldn't have been as amused as I was.

Fourth of July dinner was simple but satisfying: a sockeye salmon done on the barbecue, corn on the cob, and sliced, marinaded radishes cooked on the grill in a foil packet. The radishes came from our garden! When we got back from California we ran to see the garden, and what did we find but ripe radishes! Tons of them! We picked and picked -- lots of fun.

Only problem is, I don't like radishes. And these are very peppery, hot radishes. Rocket Boy ate a few -- the twins tried them and spit them out again. Yuck!

So, what to do with the radishes?

Well, I went online and found some recipes for braising and roasting and grilling radishes. They all claimed to tone down the radishes' bite. I mixed together some recipes and came up with the one we used for 4th of July dinner. See the bowl in front of Kid A? They're in there. But sadly, they weren't much better cooked than raw. Rocket Boy and I ate a few spoonfuls of them, and Kid A ate a few, but really, hmm, not very good. Oh well.

After dinner the kids and I roasted marshmallows and made some s'mores, and then around 9 pm it was time to go up the hill and look at fireworks. It was a pretty wild night, constantly threatening rain, and quite windy, so we drove a few blocks west on Dartmouth (instead of walking) and then went onto the Department of Commerce property and walked up the hill to get a good view. In fact, you don't have to walk far -- in the old days we used to go way up Antenna Hill, but you don't have to. Just off Dartmouth the view is fine. Anyway, we got in position about 9:20 and we waited. And waited. And waited. We could see fireworks displays to the north and east of us -- Longmont, Lafayette, Louisville, other places -- but they were too far away to give us a real fireworks experience. We wanted Boulder! But where was it?

We waited until 10 pm and then gave up, walked back to the car, and drove home. When we got home (just a little after 10 pm) we suddenly heard "BOOM!"

"It's the Boulder fireworks!" Rocket Boy said. "They're starting!"

"Oh, for crying out loud," I said. I was just getting ready to put the kids to bed. But the kids didn't want to go to bed, they wanted to see fireworks, so we got back in the car, drove back up the hill, and watched the fireworks. So ridiculous. I read later that they almost cancelled the show due to the high winds, but when the winds calmed down a bit, the show went on. The twins got to bed around 11 pm.

This morning the twins demanded that I open my birthday presents before I'd even had a shower, so I complied.

The present they really wanted me to open was the box of chocolates from Dad and them, which is not pictured here (we are keeping it at the top of a tall bookshelf which I can't actually reach). But here you can see my new shoes from Nonny and two new CDs from Baba, and three cards. I was very happy with my loot.

We went out to lunch at the Southside Walnut Cafe (I had a 4th of July waffle, with strawberries, blueberries, and whipped cream) and then bought me a lemon cake at the grocery store. And around 4 pm we had tea and cake.

The flowers are a present from our next-door neighbors. I was really touched that they remembered me.

Oh yes, and look at all those candles.

I am really old.