4th of July Report: My Child is Blue and He Eats Bugs
You would have gotten this entry on July 5th, but, alas, I was having a little disagreement with the Hosts of My Website -- all has been straightened out now, and it wasn't anybody's fault -- and so there were no entries till I got back from Albuquerque and was able to actually talk to a representative of the Hosts, which was much better than all that bouncing email, which wasn't going anywhere. Literally.
But if I HAD given you this entry when I wanted to, I'd have told you that our 4th of July was an excellent one. It's why we go to Albuquerque for the 4th, by God; we're still allowed to set off fireworks in the backyard, even if the city IS under Severe Drought Conditions and Bernalillo just got evacuated due to fire, the week before.*
So we were there for the fireworks, besides the lovely family of my origin. On the fourth itself, we went down to Old Town, where we had lunch and went to the excellent Natural History Museum. At the Natural History Museum, there is a gift shop, of course, and in that gift shop, there are for sale lollipops in which are enclosed various dead bugs. Real dead bugs.
My brother offered to buy the children lollipops, if they agreed to eat the bugs; should anyone accept a lollipop and fail to eat the bug, he or she would owe him the $3 he'd spent on the lollipop.
One cousin turned down the deal; my child and the other cousin took the deal. That cousin made it through his lollipop up until he got to one of his scorpion's legs; at that point, realizing that the scorpion was real, he threw the lollipop out. He now owes his dad $3. (Sam rescued the lollipop and soaked the scorpion out; the cousin now has a dead scorpion, which he is carrying around in a pill box.)
My child ate his lollipop, cricket and all. He says crickets taste bitter.
So now he's some sort of macho hero among the cousins. And the target of fun for me; there's an endless number of jokes that can be made now, at the child's expense -- What are we having for dinner, Mom? Well, some of us are having Sloppy Joes, but might you prefer crickets? -- or, walking down the street and observing some sort of bug-like creature -- Hey, honey, are you hungry? Cause there's some bugs around here!-- oh, endless, I'm telling you. I don't intend to stop. Ever. It's going to be a major source of grief when he's a teenager. Thank you, brother! Excellent method of blowing $3!
Then, later, there were fireworks. Before the sun goes down, we go in the backyard and have a cook-out; then we light smoke bombs, to amuse ourselves until it gets dark enough for the REAL fireworks.
And it's then that we discovered that if you actually get on top of the smoke bombs, you can change your own color.
If, you know, it's one of those real colors. Not yellow. Blue, for instance.
*****************************
*The irony of the week was that when we got there, the road to Placitas was closed, on account of the Fire Danger; soon afterwards, the monsoons hit, one month early, and there were, as usual, dangerous flashfloods everywhere, and so then the road to Placitas was closed on account of it was washed out. Which meant, as my brother pointed out, that at least whilst one was stuck on the road to Placitas, one could smoke cigarettes.
But if I HAD given you this entry when I wanted to, I'd have told you that our 4th of July was an excellent one. It's why we go to Albuquerque for the 4th, by God; we're still allowed to set off fireworks in the backyard, even if the city IS under Severe Drought Conditions and Bernalillo just got evacuated due to fire, the week before.*
So we were there for the fireworks, besides the lovely family of my origin. On the fourth itself, we went down to Old Town, where we had lunch and went to the excellent Natural History Museum. At the Natural History Museum, there is a gift shop, of course, and in that gift shop, there are for sale lollipops in which are enclosed various dead bugs. Real dead bugs.
My brother offered to buy the children lollipops, if they agreed to eat the bugs; should anyone accept a lollipop and fail to eat the bug, he or she would owe him the $3 he'd spent on the lollipop.
One cousin turned down the deal; my child and the other cousin took the deal. That cousin made it through his lollipop up until he got to one of his scorpion's legs; at that point, realizing that the scorpion was real, he threw the lollipop out. He now owes his dad $3. (Sam rescued the lollipop and soaked the scorpion out; the cousin now has a dead scorpion, which he is carrying around in a pill box.)
My child ate his lollipop, cricket and all. He says crickets taste bitter.
So now he's some sort of macho hero among the cousins. And the target of fun for me; there's an endless number of jokes that can be made now, at the child's expense -- What are we having for dinner, Mom? Well, some of us are having Sloppy Joes, but might you prefer crickets? -- or, walking down the street and observing some sort of bug-like creature -- Hey, honey, are you hungry? Cause there's some bugs around here!-- oh, endless, I'm telling you. I don't intend to stop. Ever. It's going to be a major source of grief when he's a teenager. Thank you, brother! Excellent method of blowing $3!
Then, later, there were fireworks. Before the sun goes down, we go in the backyard and have a cook-out; then we light smoke bombs, to amuse ourselves until it gets dark enough for the REAL fireworks.
And it's then that we discovered that if you actually get on top of the smoke bombs, you can change your own color.
If, you know, it's one of those real colors. Not yellow. Blue, for instance.
*****************************
*The irony of the week was that when we got there, the road to Placitas was closed, on account of the Fire Danger; soon afterwards, the monsoons hit, one month early, and there were, as usual, dangerous flashfloods everywhere, and so then the road to Placitas was closed on account of it was washed out. Which meant, as my brother pointed out, that at least whilst one was stuck on the road to Placitas, one could smoke cigarettes.
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