Fireworks

I helped work on a fireworks crew at Cache Creek Casino yesterday.  This was the second year in a row that our friend Kevin (Ana's Godfather) was doing the show, so he asked Erin and I to help out.  Erin made dinner for all the people working on the show, and I transported it and set it up.  I'm not going to say that Erin and I should start a catering company, but we would probably take the catering world by storm if we did.

I also helped on the clean-up after the show.  Let me tell you that it has left me tired today.  Like zombified.  In case you're an idiot and didn't know, fireworks have to be shot at night otherwise it kills the whole appeal of big, bright exploding lights.  It's sort of the whole point of their existence and all.  And summer means that the sun doesn't go down until pretty late in the day in case you haven't kept track of the sunset patterns since the beginning of time.  Which means a late night for all involved.

So by the time the show is over, it's after 10pm.  There is a waiting period immediately after the show to check if there are any fireworks that didn't go off.  There are also usually small fires that need to be put out.  This means that we're inching closer to 10:30-11:00 before we can even start the clean-up process.  And clean up isn't just simply picking things up off the ground.  This includes pulling nails out of boards, gathering wire, and lifting the boxes where the shells are loaded into trucks.  It's grunt work, but it isn't unenjoyable grunt work.

By the time we were finished with clean up it was 12:20 AM.  And I still had an hour and a half drive home.  After showering off all the dirt and sulfur, I wasn't in bed until after 2 which wouldn't be a big deal if not for the whole having two 20-month-old kids.  Apparently Grace and I disagreed on how desperately I really needed that extra hour of sleep because I awoke to the sounds of her crying and screaming this morning.

As I write this I can't actually be sure what is actually making it onto the page.  That's how tired I am right now.  But the show itself was fantastic.  Even better than the one they put on last year.  It's a shame the girls and Erin couldn't be there to watch it because they would have loved it.

As it was we did take the girls to a fireworks show that is done in our neighborhood on Saturday night.  There were a lot of "Oohs" and "Ahhhs" and they even mixed in a "Wooooow" here and there.  I was pretty proud of myself because I taught the girls how to say 'Merica.

And really is there anything more patriotic than fireworks and babies saying 'Merica?  I say no.