Well, just as was the case with Pride, things are far less restrictive this year, but huge public gatherings remain unallowed—in Seattle anyway, where the fireworks show on Lake Union was canceled for the second year in a row. Plenty of other cities went ahead with their fireworks events, from New York to Bellevue right across Lake Washington from us here in Seattle. I even considered seeing about going over to Bellevue to see their fireworks display. but decided against it when I realized I didn't want to deal with trying to find parking, and then dealing with traffic while driving back home afterward. When Shobhit and I went down to South Lake Union Park to watch the fireworks display in 2017 and 2018 (in 2019 we went to the party at Lea's apartment—right by Lake Union), we didn't park down there, and would just walk the couple of miles back home. It worked out.
last year was an incredibly different scenario, and Danielle invited us to come hang out with her and the girls, which we did, even though we stayed outside the whole time and carefully socially distanced. At least we still got to see some some fireworks, as their neighbors set off a lot of them from the middle of the street in front of their house, and the entire neighborhood was alive with booms, cracks, and light streaks across the sky.
Also, spending the Fourth of July with Danielle last year was the first time I had done so
since 2005, after having made it a bit of a tradition with her for many years beginning in the late nineties. In fact, I took a weekend trip with her to Seattle for that very holiday in 1997, along with her then-boyfriend Seth, a year before I moved to Seattle myself; in 1998 and 1999 she traveled over from Spokane to spend that holiday with me. By 2000 she had actually moved over, and was barely past moving out of living with me in my studio apartment for four months. That was the first year we went to Gasworks Park to see the Lake Union fireworks instead of the waterfront ones—the waterfront fireworks having ended permanently back in 2009.
Anyway, the next few years—2001 through 2003—I only spent the holiday with Barbara, but then in 2004, the first year Shobhit and I got together, Danielle and Patrick invited us out onto their boat, that giving us a truly spectacular view of the Lake Union fireworks from seemingly directly beneath them. We attempted the same thing the next year, in 2005, but the boat broke down and we were still over in Lake Washington when the fireworks actually went off so we missed them.
And, then: I did not spend Independence Day with Danielle for another fifteen years. To be fair, for seven of those years Shobhit was living in either New York or Los Angeles; for five of those years I traveled to be with him for the holiday. Four years in a row were at
Grand Park in Los Angeles, something I grew to really enjoy and one of the few things about regular trips to L.A. that I still kind of miss.
Then of course, 2020 came along, throwing everything for a loop. Hanging out with Danielle at her house became the best option, and it was even a lot more fun than I expected.
This year, it was me who contacted Danielle to see if she was open to doing what we did last year again. She actually had an invite to another friend's house and tried to encourage us to go with her there, even if it meant just stopping by briefly. I was talking to Tracy about this on Saturday, actually, and she asked how many other people would be there, which for some reason I had not thought to ask. Shobhit was immediately resistant to the idea when I got Danielle on speakerphone to discuss it shortly after he got home from work Saturday night, and when I asked how many people would be at this other party, Danielle said probably about twenty—yikes. Danielle's initial assumption was that Shobhit and I were concerned just about the size of gathering of strangers in what really is still the time of COVID, and honestly I was just thinking about being at a party of a large number of people neither Shobhit nor I know at all.
Now, granted, I did once accompany Danielle to a friend of hers' "Christmas in July" party, and I didn't know anyone else there either, and I had a perfectly good time. But, when I realized the point currently when it comes to not having any idea how many of those people are vaccinated, it did become an even iffier prospect. We basically agreed that we would all meet at Danielle's house yesterday after Shobhit got off work, and if we felt like it we would make a brief appearance at the other party later in the evening. Fairly predictably, that never happened—Danielle herself declared early on that she was content just to chill at home and skip the other party.
So, for the most part, it was just the four of us: Danielle, Rylee, Shobhit and me; Morgan stayed at home with her dad this year, and I guess hung out with some other friends. Honestly, there was something about the novelty of it all last year that made it slightly more exciting than it could be this year—but a lack of excitement is not a dig either. Danielle asked Rylee to set a blanket out on the front lawn, and once dinner was ready, we still all sat outside. The weather, in stark contrast to last weekend's record breaking heat, was perfect. It was all very pleasant.
Also, it was nice not to have to worry about being six feet away from each other, and we actually could hang out inside the house, which we did at times. I had walked over to the Central District PCC in the late morning and bought pint containers of about seven different Deli salads to bring, and later I also brought rolls we had from Costco and veggie patties for burgers, which was the main portion of all our dinners—Danielle made real-meat burgers for herself and Rylee, but graciously let us cook our veggie patties in the cast iron skillet first.
Shobhit had gotten off work at 6:00, and got home around 6:30. I had spent the intervening time doing things like watching and reviewing the movie
No Sudden Move on HBO Max (
B+, very good); doing laundry; vacuuming; and later zonking out when I decided to take a nap. I had everything ready to take in a bag, and we headed out pretty quickly after Shobhit got home, managing to arrive at Danielle's by about 7:10. I'd say that ultimately we were there for just over three hours last night.
It might have been slightly less, because Shobhit started talking about going home before it even got dark, as he tends to do—no matter where we go, he wants to go home before I do—but I told him I wanted to wait a while and see some real fireworks, knowing that Danielle's neighbors would be setting off some. Danielle had purchased some herself too, though, and they were a
lot more elaborate than they had been last year, according to her because this might have been the last year she could do so: currently, fireworks are banned in many city limits, including Renton, but where Danielle lives is actually in unincorporated King County. But, and this was both a long time coming and inevitable, the sale and use of consumer fireworks will be banned county-wide
as of next year.
Works for me. Hopefully, probably, almost certainly, we will be back to professional fireworks displays we can go to in the evening for 2021 and thereafter. And if we find ourselves in a year yet again where huge gatherings are prohibited, well, we'll adapt. A picnic, hang out with friends, whatever. As long as it's photogenic, I'm good! I do love fireworks, though.
Anyway. Waiting a bit turned out to be something Shobhit later was openly glad we did, because he got to light the fuse on several fireworks, something he said he had not done since the year his dad died, when Shobhit was 16 (1990). He really enjoyed himself, and managed to get both Rylee and me to take one turn lighting one. They were all set into this little sort of launch tube in the middle of the street that Danielle's neighbors had set up. The one Rylee lit was surprisingly long lasting and can be seen in the video below.
Danielle also brought sparklers again, of course; that's what I'm holding and waving around in the photo above.
How many photos I get for Independence Day really seems to vary more widely than for most holidays over the years—it seems to depend less on fireworks specifically than on just how photogenic whatever else I've done for the day, or the weekend, has been. Sometimes the photo album on Flickr is just for Independence Day itself; sometimes it's for "Independence Day Weekend"—that being what I did
for last year, including July 3 which both Shobhit and I had off and so we took a day trip to Bellingham and Larrabee State Park. That filled the album with 78 shots, actually a record number, even though had I limited the photo album to July 4 itself the album would have had all of 21 shots in it.
Thus, this year's
31 shots (24 photos, 7 videos) just for July 4 itself isn't half bad, historically speaking. Even one of the South Lake Union Park photo albums (2018) was smaller than that. I had a good time and am really glad we went.
[posted 12:49 pm]
