Fourth of July!!

Woke up at the God-forsaken hour of 6:00 a.m., on my own. No alarm, no small child, no amorous husband. Just a conditioned brain - weekday means 6:00 a.m. wake-up. Okay then.

7:30 a.m. finds us at the local IHOP - International House of Pancakes for you less fortunate folks - ordering breakfast from the 'inexpensive menu'. We had a great breakfast. Husband and son like to doodle to pass the time between ordering and eating. So one will draw a letter and the other will make a picture out of it. Back and forth until the pancakes arrive.

We stopped at the house on our way to the Huntington Beach Fourth of July parade to get jackets, just in case. We are going through the motions at this point. It's the Fourth - our family tradition is to attend the parade. We have every year since the boy was small and regardless of our current situation, we will hang on the that tradition. We found a great parking stop, quite by accident, and walked about a quarter mile to the parade route. The boy found a group of dogs to play with while we waited for the parade to begin. Husband and I discussed our need to relocate to a less expensive climate. He points out that a less expensive climate will include seasons. I shiver. Not at the thought of season; it's cold downtown this Fourth of July morning...a whole 62 degrees...husband laughs and shakes his head. The parade begins and I notice that only Huntington Beach is represented. In years past, many different cities joined the beginning of the parade, each in its respective fire department and law enforcement vehicles. This year however, the cities need their vehicles to protect and serve...their own cities. It brings home, to me anyway, the irreversable changes brought on by the September 11th attacks.

The rest of the day is spent watching "Indiana Jones" movies and sleeping. Son played with his friends. Husband played computer games. We ate a fine steak dinner and headed back to our 'parking find' to watch the fireworks show. It was great and my son, the boy, named each firework pattern as it exploded. We had fun together.