Monday, July 05, 2010

Happy belated Birthday America!

I know that San Francisco is probably considered by many to be one of the least patriotic cities, but we do indeed celebrate the 4th of July here.  It's the biggest holiday here between Karl Marx's birthday and May Day!

We started off by attending a local street fair with an informal parade, a water balloon toss, and American flags galore.  After the parade, one of the local residents, costumed as ye olde timey revolutionary guy, read some olde timey document.  It seemed somewhat familiar to me, like maybe it was the Declaration of Independence or The Origin of Species, or maybe the Communist Manifesto.  I resolved the issue by raising a scholarly-looking eyebrow at Daisy.

"Daisy, do you know what document he's reading?" I asked in my best teacher voice.

"Yes dad", she sighed, "It's the Declaration of Independence."

Thought so.

We continued our festivities later at home by playing Daisy's new favorite game, Taboo.  In order to make it fair, whenever we encounter a card that seems like it might not be common knowledge for a 10 year-old, we toss it out.  Sometimes Daisy surprises us though.  When she got a card with the phrase "Straight up", she paused for a moment and then said "Not on the rocks, but...."

Hank immediately barked out the answer while I reached for the phone to turn ourselves in to Child Protection Services.

We closed out the day by heading up the nearest big hill to watch the downtown fireworks.  Of course, this being San Francisco in the summer, the fog rolled in and completely enveloped the waterfront, entirely hiding the official fireworks display.  Thankfully, this also being San Francisco, the nearby Mission District came through with a remarkable set of illegal fireworks being set off from seemingly every corner and back yard.  We sat in the blustery cold and heartily cheered the Mission scofflaws for entertaining us. 

I can't wait to see what they do for Lenin Day.

2 comments:

And I'll Raise You 5 said...

Sigh. I now officially miss the city of my birth. I am a million miles away, or might as well be, in the East Bay.

Mike said...

You know we built a bridge a few decades ago between the East Bay and SF.