Thursday, July 5, 2007

afternoon storm, tea, and fireworks later

Oh, what a delight to have a holiday midweek. The afternoon was full of legs over the arms of chairs, an oscillating fan, a drizzle that changed ever so subtly, slowly, into a full storm. I was perched by the window, facing outward, and basking in the pre-storm freshness of it all. I am reading this book, a series of short stories and poems for "proper grown-ups" by good ol' A.A.Milne. It's a cozy book, very British.

Rich is reading a book on leadership or success or something like that. We stopped every now and again to recite parts we liked. And then eased back in where we left off on the page.

This is my favorite kind of afternoon. Delicious and quiet and intimate and perfect.

We left this pleasantness to find a good spot on the football field for viewing fireworks. I'd imagined that the entire of Tschaikowsky's 1812 Overture would be performed to synchronized fireworks. I waited upright and eager for the lights of the stadium to go out dramatically just as the skies lit up with art. The truth of it is that the fireworks came only at the very end of the Overture, as Rich predicted all along.

These were the best fireworks...all set to patriotic music that made me weepy with pride. Best of all, they were performed without many long pauses between clusters.

The evening ended just a bit prematurely as they announced the moisture of the weather had ruined the fireworks reserved for the grand finale. A disappointment, surely. I can only imagine how grand the grand finale of this already grand performance would've been. Still, I'm happy with what we saw. It was glorious.

I'm at the cottage today. I'm going to try to take pictures of how wonderful it's looking around here so stay tuned to their blog.

Happy day, everybody.

3 comments:

a pink-bee said...

What a perfect way to spend a day. :)

Anonymous said...

I love the part where you read parts from the books to each other, how romantic :) Sounds like a lovely day!

Sarah Ridgley said...

our grand finale got rained out too. What a drag