Happy Fourth of July

So I spent my Fourth of July alone and didn't see any fireworks at all;
it was awesome. My grandparents both went to my grandfather's opera. He composed and conducted it and my grandmother wrote the libretto for it and gave a short introduction, contextualizing the opera (it's based on the Hebrew Bible story of Ruth). I went to see it last night, and had previously seen it when it first premiered when I was in high school (2003?), so I stayed at the lakehouse. After a day of biking, reading and writing in the woods, I spent my Fourth of July evening alone on the shore of Lake Michigan with a glass of red wine (a 2006 Washington State Cabernet Sauvignon, if anyone else cares ^_^), cheese, crackers, and chocolate. I split my time between watching the sunset over the lake and reading a book--one which I actually just started today--about the need to contextualize the all too often self-contained American historical narrative within a broader view of international history. At one point, I think it was after reading the line "The raw materials of history rarely stop at borders. The nation cannot be its own context. No less than the neutron or the cell, it must be studied in a framework larger than itself." I exclaimed aloud "Yes." Then, I looked up to see the sky awash in pink and red, to which I responded aloud with an equally visceral, "Yes."
Happy Fourth of July? Yes.