You know you’re in liberal-land, when you go to a Fourth of July parade, and you see the ACLU, the PFLAG (parents, friends/family of lesbians and gays) getting lots of cheers and applause.

And, of course, the American legion and other military-style groups got barely a smattering of applause.

It’s also a northern California parade when it includes about 20 belly dancers, ethnic Hispanic dancers, Falun Dafa, the church of scientology, and plenty of “green” floats.  However, our local garbage company had a number of good-looking young garbage men pushing garbage cans down the road, too, and they got big cheers.

But, it was still nice to be out and about and at a parade.  Lyd was impressed with the baton-twirling girls as well as the advanced gymnasts from her Gymnastics school, who were doing flips and cartwheels down the road.

After the parade, we picked up our traditional Fourth of July food – KFC original recipe.  Greasy, unhealthy, but YUM!!!  It’s a once-a-year indulgence for us.  In the afternoon, we went to some friends’ house, where they had ordered a bouncy house, which the kids loved, and where they were grilling out delicious, juicy burgers for supper.  I brought homemade chocolate chip oatmeal cookies as well as rice krispy bars with red, white, and blue star sprinkles on them.

After supper, JJ, Curious J, and I went back home.  I put Curious J to bed, and JJ worked on his stuff for church the next morning.  Then I went back to watch the fireworks from our friends’ deck high up above San Francisco Bay.  We watched fireworks there last year, too, and it was great.  Lyd had made a new friend while the rest of us were at home, and she and her new friend were enthusiastically watching the fireworks, exclaiming loudly over each one.  It was quite something, and very, very cute.

Then it was off to home, with Lyd sadly saying, “I wish we could watch fireworks every night.”