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desperanceMy first USian Fourth of July, Karen sat me down and made me watch 1776. She didn't have to work too hard, as I am known to love musicals, and am constantly fascinated by the slightly weird approaches that authors sometimes take to those things they choose to celebrate. My version of Evita will forever feature Che Guevara selling insecticide; if you wanted to memorialise the birth of America in song and dance, of course you'd choose to feature a pack of middle-aged men in a closed room quarrelling over minutiae. What else?
Also, as Bob at least knows, July 4th is my half-birthday, which I have traditionally marked with a party. When the whole of America is celebrating me, it seems churlish not to do the same on my own behalf. So, here was a new element in the tradition; every Fourth, we include a showing of 1776 within the day-long joviality.
Alas: since that first time? I have never yet managed actually to sit and watch the lovely thing again. Hosting a party involves, y'know, duties. Mostly kitchen- and barbecue-related, for me, but duties none the less. I get to see snatches; sometimes I even get to sit down for a bit; but the whole thing, beginning to end? No chance.
Still: that was yesterday. There was pork and lobster and salmon on the grill; there was chilli on the stove; there was bread buns and lots of fruit and sunshine. Mad brought a particoloured cake:
(It was just as hybrid on the inside, yes. White chocolate and dark, and om nom nom.)
And today I am making small-batch strawberry and rhubarb jam; tomorrow I will probably be making larger-batch strawberry and balsamic jam. Strawberries are plentiful hereabouts.
Also, I am reading about Kim Philby and his friends. The author has not in fact used the phrase I made up for the subject line above, but I think he should've done. It seems as accurate as anything. (The point I've reached, Philby has just been readmitted to MI6, despite almost everybody believing him - and rightly - to have been a Russian spy for the last twenty years or so. Yay Kim! It's a masterstroke. It's not going to last, alas, but right now he's making a splendid comeback.)
Also, as Bob at least knows, July 4th is my half-birthday, which I have traditionally marked with a party. When the whole of America is celebrating me, it seems churlish not to do the same on my own behalf. So, here was a new element in the tradition; every Fourth, we include a showing of 1776 within the day-long joviality.
Alas: since that first time? I have never yet managed actually to sit and watch the lovely thing again. Hosting a party involves, y'know, duties. Mostly kitchen- and barbecue-related, for me, but duties none the less. I get to see snatches; sometimes I even get to sit down for a bit; but the whole thing, beginning to end? No chance.
Still: that was yesterday. There was pork and lobster and salmon on the grill; there was chilli on the stove; there was bread buns and lots of fruit and sunshine. Mad brought a particoloured cake:
(It was just as hybrid on the inside, yes. White chocolate and dark, and om nom nom.)
And today I am making small-batch strawberry and rhubarb jam; tomorrow I will probably be making larger-batch strawberry and balsamic jam. Strawberries are plentiful hereabouts.
Also, I am reading about Kim Philby and his friends. The author has not in fact used the phrase I made up for the subject line above, but I think he should've done. It seems as accurate as anything. (The point I've reached, Philby has just been readmitted to MI6, despite almost everybody believing him - and rightly - to have been a Russian spy for the last twenty years or so. Yay Kim! It's a masterstroke. It's not going to last, alas, but right now he's making a splendid comeback.)