All American

Last night, on July 4th, we seriously had this for dinner.

Hamburgers.

Potato salad.

Corn on the cob.

And watermelon.

I was not wearing a red-white-and-blue straw hat, but I might as well have been.

After the kid went to sleep, we made margaritas. We've been married almost nine years, but it's the first time we ever made margaritas at home. My wife and I both looked at the glass and said "there's a lot of booze in this!" (It was a combination of shock and appreciation.)

A note? Homemade margaritas are delicious. Mrs. B picked up a sack of key limes, so we had fresh squeezed lime juice. AWE-SOME.

Back to Your Cage

After the holiday is over, the balloons who could not find homes go sadly back to their kennels, doomed to wait until next year.

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Songs for Independence Day

It's hard for me to find songs about this country that a) aren't angry and bitter, or b) aren't too overused and cliched and, y'know, kinda sappy. But here's a good collection of songs that conjure the right images for me.

Several of the songs called out the uniquely American image of going somewhere and starting your life over again. The concept if reinvention is embedded in the history of this country, and at its best, America is the place where it's never too late to become who you might have been.

Several other songs focused on the immigrant experience. My paternal grandparents came to this country from Mexico and found schools, housing, and opportunity for themselves and their family. My father, a first-generation American, is one of the most patriotic people I know - both in terms of love of country, and in terms of being angry with America for not living up to the ideals that it embodies. Nobody gets this country metaphorically better than the most recent immigrants.

I pulled out the angrier songs into a second playlist instead of omitting them completely. I think it's important and honorable to love your country even as you hate its actions. I hate the war that we started for no good reason in Iraq. I hate that nearly 50 million people in this country have no heatlth care. I hate that so many people are being laid off or have no hope for finding work or opportunities for themselves or their families. But I love this country - for what it is and for what it could be.

"Chicago" - Sufjan Stevens
"Different Trains: America - Before the War" - Steve Reich
"Fourth of July" - Charles Ives (because any holiday needs a little chaos)
"America" - Simon & Garfunkel
"This Land is Your Land" - Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger
"I Am a Patriot" - Little Steven
"America the Beautiful" - Ray Charles
"America" - Soundtrack, West Side Story
"American Land" - Bruce Springsteen
"Ashes of American Flags" - Wilco
"City of Immigrants" - Steve Earle
"The Hands That Built America" - U2
"A Change is Gonna Come" - Sam Cooke (but performed here by the amazing Ryan Shaw)

Angry Patriot Songs:

"Bullet the Blue Sky" - U2
"The Star Spangled Banner" - Jimi Hendrix
"(Who Discovered) America?" - Ozomatli
"Christmas in Washington" - Steve Earle (this is the live version - it's nine minutes long but worth it)

Happy Independence Day, folks.

Happy Easter - get outta my way!!!!

Easter 2008.jpg
Originally uploaded by Sky Bluesky

Here's Oliver posing with the Easter Bunny at our local supermarket. (We were standing in the produce aisle.) Feel free to add your own caption in the comments.

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{rant alert}

People at Easter egg hunts should have some goddamn manners, that's all I have to say.

Not the kids. The adults.

We went down to our local grocery store, which was doing a super blowout Easter egg hunt all throughout the store. Over 15,000 eggs! Madness!

It started out fine - they handed out coffee, cookies, and other treats while we stood in line. They announced a rule that I thought was sensible - each kid should limit themselves to 25-30 eggs each.

They did mention that about 100 of the eggs would have a special treat inside them - a numbered slip that the lucky kid could redeem for free stuff: a Wii, an iPod nano, and other cool stuff. Good idea, right?

Except this: the kids didn't care so much about the prizes, they just wanted to get to the chocolate-filled eggs and run around the store.

The parents all went crazy looking for the prizes.

And as far as the limit goes, forget about it. People were walking around with giant-sized baskets and grocery bags filled with a hundred eggs or more. The hoarding was clearly being coordinated by the adults.

Parents - not the kids, mind you, but the parents - were sitting on the ground, eagerly opening the eggs to see if they won anything. Because, y'know, it was their party, not the children's. (The kids could be seen looking uncomfortable or wandering far away from their wild-eyed parental units.) It was a rather disgusting display of greed and selfishness and crappy sportsmanship.

I'll admit - we did shake a few eggs on the shelves to see if they contained paper instead of treats. and we did peek inside all of our eggs to see if we won a prize, but once we found that no prizes were there, we quit and went home. We only took home around 2 dozen eggs. I'd be surprised if the people who won all the big prizes even have children.

{/rant}

Anyway, despite the bad behavior from some of the grownups, we still managed to have a good time.

Happy Easter, everybody.