A lot of the time in the midwest consumerism and patriotism can look a lot alike, and every public holiday is an excuse for a really big sale with never before seen low low prices. It is hokey and really suburban… but if you are in the market for things like large appliances, the public holiday sale prices can be hard to pass up.

Our fridge came with the house. We have no idea how old the fridge was when we bought the place, other than the fact that it was far from brand-new, and we have been here for eight years. For the past year or so, the fridge has been in a slow death-spiral. The ice maker no longer made ice. The freezer often let ice cream melt, while the fridge occasionally froze the milk solid. Little things like that.

So on the 4th we went to Home Depot to check out their appliance sale, and placed an order for a white LG refrigerator, which was delivered the other day.

The ice cream stays solid. The milk is cold, but unfrozen. And every time we hear the soft crackling sound of ice cubes coming out of the ice-maker, it sounds like victory.

DeForest, the guy who really got John and myself into fencing, and our good friend, passed away last night.

He was supposed to outlive us all, despite the Crohn’s and Lupus, not die from the complications of a goddamned ruptured appendix.

Life can be crushingly unfair.

Eastern Standard Time (EST) in Ohio is about six hours off – six hours ahead – of Hawaii Standard Time (HST).

So the first night that John and I spent in Kona, we woke up at about 2am HST. Woke up and stayed up.

We did pretty much the same thing when we went to Maui for our honeymoon, but on Maui the getting up so early had a purpose since we planned to drive up to the top of Haleakala to watch the sunrise. We had no such plans for the big island, so we hung around the condo for a while, had some coffee, read a little, and then finally got dressed and at about 3:30-4:00am we went out for a long, very late night, walk down Aili’i Drive along the seawall and through the empty streets of Kona.

We saw a lot of stray cats.

It was very quiet and peaceful, and I am glad that we got out and spent that time wandering around.

Dear John,

Even though we are going out to celebrate tomorrow, today is the actual day.

So.

Happy Birthday!

The days surrounding the 4th of July were rather hectic, so much so that the 4th itself felt rather anti-climactic. And having a major holiday like the 4th smack dap in the middle of an otherwise ordinary week just felt… odd.

We have been (and still are… as the temps are supposed to be hovering around 100 degrees today for the umpteenth day in a row) in the middle of a heat wave that has been breaking all kinds of records. Then last Friday we (along with much of the mid-Atlantic region) were hit by a severe windstorm and lost power.

Since we lost power just before we were supposed to leave for the weekend for a SCA event (Baron Wars in Toledo) we kind of shrugged and hit the road. Apparently everything between South Dayton and Toldeo had suffered considerable wind damage and lost power. We saw a lot of downed trees, barns and silos missing roofs, tumbled machinery, convoys of DP&L trucks out to start in on repairs, and bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go (mostly stopped) traffic headed south on I-75 consisting of people fleeing the devastation and seeking A/C and electricity and fast food.

The power was back on when we got home on Sunday. As near as we can figure out, our power was out for over 24 hours. We were lucky, as there are still a lot of people without power.

Sunday evening we joined a bunch of friends for the fireworks celebration in downtown Dayton. And if that particular party hadn’t been taking place in the lovely air-conditioned Racquet Club on the top floor of the Kettering building, we might not have gone… it was just that hot and humid.

Yesterday, the actual 4th, we spent working on various projects. We could have gone to see more fireworks (Centerville puts on a really good show) but decided at the last minute that (again) it was just too hot and humid to venture forth from the A/C.

Maybe when it cools down enough to want to spend time outside we will run around the backyard with sparklers, or set off a couple of bottle rockets. Or maybe not.