July 4. The apex of the family vacation. We plan it this way because well, it’s the 4th of July and it’s my husband’s birthday. A couple of years ago on family vacation, in the best house we ever rented, we were sitting in Adirondack chairs overlooking Lake Michigan, freshly sunburned and drinking by 9:30 am. While we don’t have the lake view this year, I am sure I can manage a fresh sunburn and a tipple before lunchtime. 

The birthday is another matter. I’m not terribly good at birthday gifts—gifts are not my love language. I like acts of service and quality time. I like birthday productions. A song and dance spectacular-spectacular with an all-day agenda that includes new shoes, pancakes, and a driver. 

I want a birthday tour with custom t-shirts; my husband wants a bagel.

So I got a dozen. I’ve never been able to buy just one of anything. If I go to a store and find only one thing I like, I’ll put it back because I can’t leave with just one thing. And I got cream cheese. Two containers.

I ate one bagel (cut in half with two different flavors of cream cheese). Now I want another.

So far, I’ve got him two birthday gifts. They are of a Grizzly Adams/backwoods (think Canada not Appalachia) theme. But I need 3. One is an accident. Two is intentional. Three is style. Unless we’re talking movies. Jaws is brilliant. Jaws 2 not so much. And by the time we get to Jaws 4, well…. Michael Caine missed accepting his first Oscar for best supporting actor in 1987 because he was filming Jaws 4. Of the film he says, “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.” He got an Oscar and a new house but missed the party. Meh, anyone can have a party, but an Oscar and a house to put it in...? How did I get here? Oh yes, panic on the 4th of July…

in the corona. Just as I like a big production, I like a good panic. And I have a good list of things to panic about. It’s probably the same list as everyone’s—work, school, incurable air-borne disease, the disintegrating cultural fabric of America, the rise of the far-right totalitarian regime and the impending coup—you know, all that stuff. But I have a vacation to finish up and a birthday to celebrate; panic will have to take a number. 

It’s the balls-to-the-wall, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, Independence Day, birthday, and summer vacation finale, 2020-style. In a few hours, we’ll all converge at my sister-in-law’s house. She promised to set up the kiddie pool. I’m getting in a not sharing—the kids can run through the sprinklers. If anyone threatens my water-filled mansion, I’ll shoot them with a squirt gun. 

She’s serving a Wisconsin supper club menu--a mid-century phenomenon featuring food with human names such as Brandy Alexander and Steak Diane along with onion dip and potato chips. The piece de resistance is a relish tray spun about on a Lazy Susan featuring small foods designed to be skewered with plumed toothpicks. Which, if you think about it, is a perfect menu for eating in the corona. 

The only downside of vacation is the same in or out of the corona—it ends and we have to drive home. Jere mentioned yesterday that, on the bright side, this is the first July 4th in years in which we will be able to watch the city’s fireworks.

Except those bombs aren’t the ones exploding this summer.