Fourth of July

When I was a kid, I used to love to go to the top of a hill overlooking Mt. Lebanon High, the high school I attended in a Pittsburgh suburb, and watch the fireworks go off over the nearby park. Only rarely would we go sit in the bleachers at the football field to see all the other festivities, too.

More recently, I enjoyed visiting the Rose Bowl for the July Fourth celebration a few years ago. I’ve also enjoyed watching fireworks displays over the Pacific Ocean from near some friends’ home in Marina Del Rey. It’s also fun just standing on our upstairs balcony at our house and observing up to a dozen displays in the distance over the San Fernando Valley. The noise isn’t as loud from where we are, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

None of my fireworks displays were ever as eventful as the one Monica described yesterday. Perhaps that’s just as well.

I know that picnics are among this week’s Killer Hobbies topics, and so are recipes. Neither are dear to my heart these days, unfortunately--although I used to do a lot of cooking on holidays. Maybe I’ll restore my love of cooking someday, but not today.

But today I would definitely entertain the idea of a picnic on the beach, as long as I had sufficient sunblock. And I’d love to picnic in a dog park, as long as I didn’t have to share my meal with the exercising pups, including mine. Either way, I’d probably just visit a deli first and buy sandwich fixin’s. Those of you who are collecting our recipes... well, I could give you directions to our nearest deli, but I doubt that would help.

Do any of you want to chew me out for not including a recipe? If so, go ahead!

Happy July, and have a wonderful Fourth, everyone.