Happy Fourth

This evening I had a very relaxed, low-key celebration of the USA's Independence Day. My dad and mom came over, and so did my sister-in-law, and I made dinner: spaghetti, salad, warm French bread with butter. The spaghetti sauce was Prego traditional; I browned some mild Italian sausage meat to put in it. The French bread I simply buttered generously, wrapped in foil, and warmed up in the oven. My sister-in-law can't digest garlic, so I didn't make it garlic bread. The salad was a pre-made green salad, and I put out some different dressings, some croutons, and some sunflower seeds to put on it. For dessert, we had vanilla ice cream with raspberries and blueberries on it, to strike the red, white, and blue note. (I added chocolate syrup to mine, which has no symbolic significance. I just like chocolate.) The berries were local and in-season. The ice cream was from a local dairy business, Edaleen. My dad likes their ice cream the best, and he ought to know because he grew up on a dairy farm.

I had bought a nice Chianti to go with the spaghetti. While I was opening the bottle, I broke the cork, so that half was still left in the neck of the bottle. I went back in with the corkscrew, and when I managed to pull the remaining cork out, some wine splooshed out of the bottle, with some drops going on the floor and a few on my shirt. While sitting at the table, I at one point dipped my sleeve into the sauce on my plate. And during dessert, as I discovered afterward, I dribbled some chocolate on the neckline of my shirt and even inside my shirt on my bra. So, basically a typical meal for me.

My shirt and bra are in the washing machine even now.

Now it's later in the evening, and fireworks are popping all over the neighborhood. My dog, who is utterly neurotic about some things -- such as being left alone -- has no response at all to the booms and bangs. He is sleeping quietly.