Boom my brain has exploded,

I sneaked off for a couple of minutes with the computer this morning. I've got a mixed bag that I need to air out.

Last night my husband and I went to see a movie, The Fantastic Four. It was entertaining. I had to get up at one point and walk down several rows to ask some teens if they wouldn't mind not talking so loud. I made a point to look them straight in the eye. They did quiet down. I walked back to my seat feeling all, yay for me! After the movie my husband asked me what I said to them, so I told him, and he asked me if they did stop talking. You see, he never even heard them talking in the first place. This, my friends, illustrates the difference between the female and the male brain. Now I understand why, half the time, he has no idea I've been talking to him. For fifteen minutes.

Today is the fourth of July. Hooray for explosions! We were never allowed to have fireworks of any kind as children. My dad was dead set against them. This from a man who fought bottle rocket wars in his youth. The only person this ban had any effect on was me and probably my baby sister when she was older. We were the good children in the family.......My brothers all managed to get their hands on fireworks one way or another and lived to tell the tale.

My most memorable fourth of July was spent at World's of Fun, our local amusement park. It was one of those freeze frame moments in my life that stopped the passage of time for a breath or two. My middle son, now the fifteen year old, and I ran to catch the last ride of the night on the Orient Express, a looping roller coaster that is no longer in existence. On the long slow climb to the top, before the "big drop" we watched a 360 degree panorama of firework displays going off all over the city, as far as the eye could see. There were big city displays, huge and loud, along side little neighbor hood shows, probable illegal. Something about the moment was breathtaking. And just like that the moment was over and away we went over the drop and looped our way to the end. The park display was kind of a let down after that.

Yesterday was my Dad's (the firework police's) birthday. I was in that freeze frame of mind and I remembered the time my dad stood up to a crazy neighbor who was angry at my brother for some indiscretion. My dad was, judging by his appearance, a bit of a Hippie. He was somewhat on the older edge of that movement, being in his thirties, but he hung out with the theater crowd. Our neighbor was high and tight with a haircut to match. His son was a royal terror. One day he came, fuming, over to our house to settle the score over whatever it was that my brother had done. He banged on the door and my dad, bearded and long haired, probably wearing his dashiki, answered cutting him off in short order and telling him off in no uncertain terms. In my memory the neighbor went home with his tail tucked between his legs and my dad rose several degrees in my estimation. I was sort of intimidated to tell the truth. Then on some weird level the whole incident influenced my views on the Vietnam War. At age seven. That's a whole other entry, though. And now my brain is tired.