I had much fun on the 4th of July! It started in Downtown Lansing (Michigan) with a parade. I danced with Habibi Dancers. Mom came out, all by her self with a little US flag and waved it and called to me when I passed. I stopped the parade to hug her, of course.

In the middle of the day I went home. I had to change personas from Eudora (my dance name) to “Lynn Heftone” (my singing alias). So I got a nice bath, and did my sort of Clark Kent transformation. I baked a rhubarb crisp dessert and took it over to Rae’s Yarn Boutique. I could not stay for the barbecue but at least I was there in spirit, and in dessert!

I do love costuming as an artform and as a joyful part of my life. Those who know me, know I have almost nothing in my closet either red or white, and maybe a small handful of blue items.

Therefore, I went to Goodwill on Thursday and found myself a blue skirt to dance in, and a blue gown to sing in (topped with a red sequined tunic I already had in the closet). I made it work out quite well.

It’s a good thing I did not yet dye the baby alpaca circular Peace Shawl that Alison Hyde knit for me. She suggested I dye it and I’ve intended to do so, but have not done it yet. Last night I wore it white for my holiday singing engagement. It was beautiful, AND it was a protection against a few mosquitos as well.

I was done with mosquitos when we finished singing at 10pm, and it was very dark. We headed back to the car and I watched the fireworks from there. Much better!

Luckily my camera has a setting for fireworks. If you can hold the camera steady, it works well. In the car I could lean against the frame, and that did the trick. I’m going to give you six photos that I am happy with.

It was really cool, driving to a good vantage point in the car just before the fireworks started. This town turned out in force! You can see the fireworks from the parking lots of a whole lot of stores, including the Meridian Mall, Central Park Place shopping area, Wal-Mart, Meijer (huge Michigan discount store/grocery), and many places between.

Everywhere you looked, people had set up their folding chairs on the sidewalks or front yards, just everywhere. They had policemen on bicycles patrolling, and it all looked quite civilized, but the amount of people I saw all at once? I haven’t seen that on the streets since I was in Africa.

Only at concerts or sporting events do you see this sort of density around my corner of the world. It was quite the scene. It made me remember the two years I was in Boston and the one I was in Chicago, several when I was a child… just the whole gathering-together thing that happens on this holiday. It’s a lovely thing, really, the coming together… whether there are fireworks or not, no matter what your political ideals might be.

Boom! Happy 4th to those in the US. How nice it gave us a 3 day weekend this time!

(Photos: 1) Me as Eudora. 2,3,4) The Fabulous Heftones at Meridian Historical Village… thanks to Sharon’s SO, Lynn, for taking photos yet again. I owe him many favors back! 5-10) Meridian Township fireworks, taken from Meijer parking lot.)

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 5th, 2008 at 1:16 pmand is filed under Dance and Music, Lansing, Outdoors, Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.