This was the fourth of July, and I stayed home.

Not for the whole day of course—after the bachelorette party last night that finally happened, and went so well, I woke up at 6 (6! When I won't be able to sleep in again for another week & a half!) and hung around our house with my lovely roommates, eating pounds of leftover fruit & enjoying the sunshine. It looked like July all day, and until now it had only been flirting with looking like summer at all. But there was not a single cloud today, the sky was perfect, and everything in and out of doors was glad.

After noon I drove up to visit my grandparents and their flowers and ice cream. I have wonderful grandparents, and on the 4th of July they make wonderful ice cream. You know it's the real deal when after a few bites there begins to be a fat residue on the bowl of your spoon. They fed me a whole lot of wonderful things, we admired all the flowers, my grandpa got outside to take a ride on his tricycle (yes, tricycle. It's blue and very cool), and I got to talk to my grandmother for an hour or so. It was very nice & as usual she sent me home with house plants and cherries.

But on the way home I called my roommate & discovered that they were not going to the BBQ, but at that point leaving it. I wanted a nap, had done the Gasworks-crowd thing the past couple of years, and didn't really care about fighting for a place on the hill and then waiting 5 hours for the fireworks to start. Some years, yes, but I wasn't feeling it. Took a nap until after 8, and then decided to clean my room. I'm a grown-up. I have a lot of friends, we have a lot of parties, I have options, and I can stay home by myself. I can do this. Look, I'm being independent.

I moved at the beginning of March. I have the nicest view in the house; it looks out over houses & trees straight south, to where you can see the sparkly blocks that downtown seems to be from this distance. At the time I said, Oh, maybe you can see fireworks from here! They later told me that it's really not hard to get onto our roof (if you don't mind stepping on the bathroom counter to climb through the window). We had idly discussed having a party then and having people watch from up there, but it was so far away in distance and in time that we didn't think much of it. And our poor house has basically hosted three parties in four days, and doesn't need another one. Tonight no one is here but me.

It got dark around ten. My room was cleaner. The sporadic pops and bangs that had been floating around the neighborhood since yesterday started to intensify. The ironing could wait. I ran across to the bathroom and clambered out onto the roof.

Growing up in Spokane, I had 1) a yard that was nearly a half acre, 2) a father who liked blowing things up, and 3) only a twenty minute drive to get to Idaho, anyway, so we were always pretty well cared for in the fireworks department, for the 4th and for New Years. I didn't know what I was going to do in the city, and although it's been working out fine and although I know boys who like fire, I somehow thought that we lacked that certain something: call it patriotic civil disobedience; call it disregard for all of the tall houses and trees that are freaking everywhere and might get in the way of mortars and roman candles; call it independence; call it beer. I didn't think we had it. But I'd never spent twilight on the roof before.

Down the street to the east, and in the trees to the west were two sites (I couldn't see the houses or yards) that seemed to be answering each other with roman candles and pretty silver shriekers. (Too much time away from the actual action itself and I'm forgetting names.) Northwest there were occasional mortars, on the horizon directly west were some more enthusiastic ones, and directly south I could see what must have been Gasworks, lighting up with glitter and booms between me and the city itself.

Light traveling faster than sound (did you know it did that?) made trying to watch in all directions a little awkward at first—hear something boom, turn to find a cloud of smoke, repeat. But downtown wouldn't stop lighting up, and my two patriotic neighbors kept things pretty, close to home. I even caught some of the glow of what appeared to be an exploding Space Needle, but it was almost entirely blocked by some huge trees, and running around on a steep roof in the dark while looking at the sky isn't wise.

I felt like a spy up there, and here is what I have to report:

Those fireworks that launch the little paratrooper into the air (you know, a little plastic man whom you can never find afterwards so you don't know if it was a success—that one?) actually work. I saw the pretty fire shoot up, make a nice noise, go out and blow away in smoke, and I saw a little parachute gliding down, from higher up than I'd thought they went. He probably landed in a tree & then probably never found him. If you read this, neighbors-mine, know that he got out alive.

The sky was still not very dark. I found the tail of the big dipper, and tried from that to extrapolate where Cassiopeia would be, although no other stars were visible. But once I was looking straight at her, she was right there! I was happy enough about that to throw my arms up in the air, standing on our roof like a Peter Pan cake topper. I'm sure I looked happy and ridiculous.

-Which brings me to my next report: people don't look up. I was standing on the very top of our roof, and all kinds of people whom I clearly saw didn't see me. Cars I can't blame and bikes only slightly. But several people were walking along neighborhood sidewalks on the Fourth of July with fireworks in the sky to their right and left, and no one looked up and saw the girl on the roof.

I considered going down and finding one of the parties & inviting myself, but the one time we tried that on a New Years, they weren't as thrilled with us as we were, so I refrained. But I got rather fond of some of them. At one point I could tell, from the way the fire moved and from the shadows holding it, that to the east there were several kids with sparklers. They had Small Bees, too, like the one that burned a hole in Ben one year. But at one point they were shooting off some tall ones, the house on the other side was doing the same thing, and downtown had vanished in clouds of golden sparkles and puffs and streamers. There was a man walking down the street holding beer, and if he'd looked I'd be in plain sight, but the shows kept going and I couldn't help myself: I started clapping. Beer-man was a bit surprised. He looked around some (I curtailed my applause), but not ever up! He went into the house across from me. Another neighbor man was on his lawn. Neither looked up, neither saw me or the sky, both went into their houses.

It was a good view. I though the show was only supposed to be a half hour or so, but it seemed longer. I had gotten through wondering if they were playing Blitzkreig Bop or Wagner there again this year, and was making up silly rhymes in my head, when I looked down and saw a man walking his dog…who looked up and saw me. I looked away and back to be sure, but he was definitely surprised, and looking. I cocked my head. He spread his arms out in a shrug-question: Hey man, what are you doing up there?? I waved big like a 6-year-old, using my elbow: Hi Buddy, I'm on a roof! Yay! I thought it was self-evident what I was doing up there, and looked back at the fireworks show to demonstrate. He continued walking his dog.

I was marveling how no one bothers to look up, and happened to glance up. For perhaps two seconds, something was there. High over my head a bright thing flew, at an angle saying that no one had launched it, and with no sound accompanying it. It streamed a tiny trail of sparks, and vanished. I sat down on the roof, staring at where it had been, and said "For reals?" I'd been thinking about the contrast between the real, bright stars, low in the sky over the brightly colored temporary ones, but here was a natural firework! I had barely seen it. Note to self; look up, even if you're the one standing on the roof.

A short time later, saw man-with dog come back. He didn't look up this time, at least not that I saw.

Shortly after that, I clambered back down & in through our bathroom window and waited for my roommates to get home. It was a good Independent day.