The Evening Sky

I love fireworks. I know there was an article in the Los Angeles Times on Friday about how environmentally unsound they are, but I have always enjoyed looking at them. When I was a teenager, if I was visiting my mother in Illinois at the July 4 holiday, we always managed to make our way to a display for the evening. I used to go with my PATT (Partner at the Time) to the fireworks in Dana Point; we were usually visiting his family down in South Orange County on that day, and it seemed a nice way to end the evening of eating and drinking. (There was always a lot of eating and drinking where his family was concerned, but that's a story for another time.)

Not long after moving into my current abode, PATT and I realized that we had a perfect view of a massive fireworks celebration here in Los Angeles. All you had to do was sit on the couch in the living room with the blinds open and you could see perfectly all the astonishing lights in the sky. I don't even know where the fireworks come from. They just appear magically at about 9 p.m. every July 4. Several times over the years that he and I were together, if we were here instead of South OC, we'd make sure that we were home by the time it got dark so we could watch.

Last night, I was well prepared. I haven't been making public appearances, as you know, because of the continuing nose bandages (three months, two weeks, and three days, but who's counting?). I even lost out on going to see Bette Midler in Las Vegas this weekend because of this nose of mine. So I was determined, at least, to enjoy the fireworks as usual. I ate dinner somewhat early, I guess, and had already turned out the lights in the living room (and the rest of the apartment) by 8:45. All I had on was the television; I was watching Joan Crawford chewing the scenery in Rain, a great movie with her at her "bad" best. Sure enough, at about 9:05 p.m., the first spark headed upward into the sky and the fun began.

There are really two sets of fireworks that are visible from my living room window. One is the larger stuff, the spectacular explosions of color and sparks that seem to fill the entire sky sometimes. The other is shorter, and that's the one that I don't really get to see all that well. There's a suspiciously placed palm tree that obstructs the view of the smaller display; it's the only palm tree around, just for the record. Hmm. It kind of looks like the palm tree is on fire--but in a very sparkly, multicolored kind of way.

Still, for 15 minutes or so last night, I got to see another year come and go. I prefer July 4 fireworks as a way to mark the change of year more than New Year's Day, frankly. Perhaps it has something to do with July being my birth month, but at least in July, you can still go out and enjoy yourself without having everyone around you being completely drunk and misbehaving.

I even got to watch in peace and quiet since the neighbors have apparently decided to be gone most of the weekend. That's a reason to celebrate on its own. Perhaps I'll post about that another time.

There were several highlights, but I don't know if my descriptions would do them justice. A couple of them first seemed to be these golden streamers, but then then turned into flashes of color (usually green or red), and finally they became these circles of golden sparkles. Amazing to watch. Another set came into the sky simultaneously, four or five of them at once. After they each turned into these large balls of brilliant colors (blues and reds and greens), they turned into what looked like a series of interlocked golden geodesic domes, kind of like the Cinerama Dome. Perhaps it was an homage.

The ending always features a large number of explosions simultaneously, all those lights and thunderous booms at once. I suppose that's the tradition. I kept hearing "The Stars and Stripes Forever" playing in my head. I know that's incredibly hokey, but that's what I remember from the fireworks displays of my youth, and I imagine that tradition is being carried on to this day as well.

So now it's back to work and school and whatever else. Monday starts my first day of summer school and, hopefully, my last day of recovery from surgical procedures. Maybe that's another reason I see July 4 as a turning point. Here's to another year, maybe an even better one.