Nobody went to the office on the fourth.
In the evening, the sirens were more frequent than usual. I can only assume people were lighting off crackers and blowing their fingers to shreds in celebration. Some of the bangs were quite close - Mary and I went out to San Vicente, the boulevard nearest to the house to watch the fireworks. She says the local country club has a display every year, but it's set so far back into the grounds that only a few of the fireworks make it above the tree-line. The rest just light up the smoke and make the sky look radioactive.
A few other clusters of people were out watching as well. Los Angeles is so warm, even at nighttime I was out in my bare feet and a thin shirt, and a few little kids chased each other around with sparklers. It felt very surreal, like we were in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The police cars kept passing as the grand finale made a valiant leap and pushed past the tree line for a spectacular red white and blue explosion.
It is a tale.
Told by a country club, full of sound and fury,
Signifying American excess.
Hurr hurr.
As we walked back, one of the family groups passed us. The heavyset father looked put
out. “Well, that was lame,” he
said as he plowed along the sidewalk.
Mary laughed. “I’m
sorry, but it was,” he shot over his shoulder.
Notes from the office.
In Los Angeles, there are televisions on all the buses. Today on the way to the studio they were playing old reruns of 21 Jump street.
The rest of the office is on lunch break. "Is it weird that I'm eating turkey, chicken, and salami at the same time?" one of the writers asked. From the next cubicle over: "Sounds like something I would do." A thoughtful pause. "You want to go see Spiderman tomorrow?"
Great minds of our generation, ladies and gentlemen.
Cheers
Julia
