This is a loaded weekend for me.  M and I rarely go out on the holiday weekend, generally because our idea of fun doesn’t involve crowds of drunk people, driving, or excessive heat. When we had dogs, we had to stay home to dose the dogs with anti-anxiety drugs, because the fireworks terrified them.

(And I’ll spend this holiday, and Thanksgiving, avoiding any mass media, because the complete butchering of history makes me snappy.)

But over the past ten years, some emotionally charged things (among them, stuff like this) happened near the holiday weekend, so I always process the emotional fallout over this weekend.

Last year, trying to insulate myself from memories, I made a list of all the signers of the Declaration of Independence and wrote down my relationship to each of them on a big yellow pad. (I got through about 2/3 before I lost interest.  Also, I realized I’d never heard of most of them.) This year, I thought about recording all of my Revolutionary War ancestors and compiling the biographical data I have on each of them, but – well – the more isolated I am from my family, the less interest I have in our shared ancestry.

So maybe I’ll do something different, very different – like maybe teach Pea some Schoolhouse Rock songs, drink beer, and watch fireworks on the roof with my tipsy neighbors.

Dare I say it?  For us, that would be revolutionary.