God Bless America

It's July 4th, Independence Day. All afternoon long, our neighbors have been setting off firecrackers that sound like gunfire. I jumped the first time I heard the rat-tat-tat outside the window. But by mid-afternoon, when Victor and I took a break from writing our respective book proposals to toss the Frisbee at the neighborhood park, I barely flinched when some kids set off sparklers on the park's perimeter, just a few meters from where we stood.
En route home, I took Victor up on his offer to buy me a round at Pete's Candy Store. We squeaked in just before happy hour ended. So Victor got a Brooklyn lager for $2. Of course, I ordered a Campari, which apparently did not qualify as a "well drink," so it cost my husband $6 and earned me a long why-can't-you-just-order-a-cheap-vodka-tonic look. But he paid for the drink and threw in $2 more for a tip, and we carried our drinks to the garden behind the bar. There were a few guys in T-shirts and flip flops at one of the long wooden tables drinking draft beers from pint glasses, a dark-haired guy sharing a large bottle of Zyviec (Polish) beer with a girl in a lime-green tank top nearby--and one leering, leathery old man in an open shirt and gold chains, sitting alone across the garden staring at the girl as he smoked a cigarette and sipped a cheap well drink. But he didn't stay long.
We sat a few tables away and downed our drinks. Then we walked to the grocery store so Victor could pick up a steak (he had a craving for red meat; I had a black bean burrito waiting at home). Back home, we split a bottle of Pinot Noir and watched the fireworks exploding over the New York City skyline--on TV. I know, I know. It was a bit ironic that we chose to watch the televised version of what was happening right outside our door. But we'd turned down an offer to meet up with some friends who live further out in Brooklyn so we could work on our books. And we didn't feel much like dodging bottle rockets to catch the show from our street. Plus, we'd seen it before. And the NBC cameras had a damn good angle for the fireworks display (at least, when they weren't focused on Mariah Carey or the multi-racial mix of military men and Mariah fans singing along to her songs on the pier... Was that the price of admission, we wondered--military service or the ability to recite her lyrics on command?).
I actually got a little misty-eyed watching the show. After the New York Pops played "America the Beautiful," we toasted our good fortune to have been born in this country, and to have found our way to New York and to each other.
Happy Fourth.