EastGirlsWest

We celebrated the birth of our nation this past Tuesday as many Americans did, with meat cooked on a grill. Although, to be fair, we had some veggie burgers, too. And potato salad, pasta salad, cole slaw, guacamole, watermelon, beer, cake and illegal fireworks.

Looking around, I felt rather proud of the America we represented. Among us were members of the press and members of city government. Small business owners and entrepreneurs. Artists and teachers. Many different definitions of “family”, and a wide variety of flip flops. Plus, not a single one of us managed to harm ourselves with a sparkler.

At one point we lit a Duraflame in the fire pit outside, and two of our youngest guests were helping me blow on it to get the flames going. Of course, they had no sense of when it was time to STOP blowing on the log. Because when you are four years old, forcing air out of your mouth towards a flame means one thing: birthday cake!

Pam, who is a mom and therefore endowed with the gift of quickly responding to innocent why? and what? questions with a clever answer, asked them to back off a bit - since their enthusiastic blowing was now including a fair amount of spit.

“It’s not a birthday cake, girls. It’s a log.”

“Is it a birthday log?”

“No, just a log. For the fire.”

“It’s a birthday log!”

“Okay. Yes, that’s right. A birthday log for America.”