The fireworks were shot off at midnight between the third and fourth. I've heard my coworkers complain about the puny fireworks display, but I went to see it anyway. I thought it was pretty good, to be honest. It wasn't any worse than the displays I saw in the little town where I grew up, at any rate. I'm glad there are fireworks at all, considering it was still twilight at midnight and there's always about an 80% chance of rain anyway. It was a twenty minute display of mixed various fireworks. My favorite was the big one they shot off near the end that exploded and then the sparks that flew off of it exploded a second time, but different colors. I also liked the smaller ones they shot off several times that flashed so brilliantly when they exploded that the first time I saw one, I thought for a wild instant that there was actual lightning! That would've been something really worth watching, since I have yet to see lightning or hear thunder in Seward. They say it happens... occasionally. Apparently, "occasionally" means about once every eight or ten years.
Considering this is a rainforest, people here have a weird idea of rain. For example, it "rained" today, like it does about five days a week. In fact, it rained "hard" today. That means the raindrops were almost big enough to be visible. No steady pat-pat-pat of rain on the roof, and you could work outside in the "rain" all day and still not get wet. Damp, yes, but not wet. Where I grew up, a real rainstorm involved turning off and unplugging computers. The rain would come down in sheets, so hard that you could walk outside, count to ten, and walk back inside soaked through your underpants. You could always hear the storm coming because of the thunder and lightning, and if you were lucky, you could actually see the edge of the storm approaching. Solid sheets of raining flattening the distant grass in a field, moving right towards you, coming closer and closer, and then flash-BOOM! And you blinked, and suddenly, the rain would be pelting your windows so hard you'd almost be afraid they would break. We would sit out on the back deck and smell the rain and watch the lightning and count the seconds till we heard the thunder so we could see how far away it was, and sometimes, the electricity would go out because of the storm. THAT'S raining hard.
And then there's here, where people think that it's "raining hard" because the pavement is almost all the way wet from the drizzle that's been coming down for an hour. Sometimes I miss Virginia....
Anyway, yeah. So this year was the first time I actually had the fourth of July off, so I walked downtown to view the festivities. People come from all over Alaska for the Mount Marathon race, where poor ambitious fools race to the top of Mount Marathon and back down. I was actually impressed that they managed it. I've never even walked to the top of Mount Marathon, let alone run. The poor runners came back with their skin bright pink, and one lady had apparently tripped or something, because one of her legs was bloody all the way down, but she still ran on. There was one lady, coming in eighth or so, who jogged the last little bit through the streets downtown, holding a little girl (who looked to be about seven) by the hand. I wonder what the little girl was thinking. Was she impressed? Did she feel weird with the crowd clapping and cheering at her and her mother/aunt/friend of the family/whoever she was?
There were a lot of booths downtown. The main reason I bothered going was because Steven had said one of them sold lighters that gave off green, blue, and various other colored flames. If they were reasonably priced, I wanted to get one. Well, I never found them, but I did find a booth where a lady was selling hand-carved and -painted ocarinas. I had to stop and look because I've never played, seen, or even actually heard of an ocarina. I've heard of the video game Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but I'd never actually stopped to wonder just what an ocarina was.
These appeared to be made of stone and sound a lot like a recorder, but maybe slightly more breathy. So of course I had to get one! There were four different sizes -- I got the small one (not the extra-small, though) and it's probably about the pitch of a soprano recorder, I guess. In learning to play it, I'm discovering the small hole of mine is the wrong size, so I'm having to invent new fingerings to keep it in tune. I love it, though! It has a nice sound, and I find it's fairly easy to play as long as there's not a specific tune I've got in mind.
Anyway, toodles! This post has been brought to you by the word ocarina.
2 comments:
Aww that ocarina is teeny!
Now you need to add a sound file.
I agree that standing on the back deck and watching a storm come as a sheet of water across the yard is really an awesome thing.
I get a LOT of business from people with their computers plugged into surge protectors but don't put the telephone or cable line through a surge protector, so the computer gets zapped through that.
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