4th fun...

After much shuffling and driving ( I HAVE MY CAR BACK! SHE'S SO PRETTY AND SHINEY WITH HER NEW WINDSHIELD AND ENGINE THAT HUMS AND DOESN'T MIND GOING INTO REVERSE OR DOING 75 MPH AND BRAKES THAT ACTUALLY BRAKE! Yay, Dovi! ~coos~ ), Adam and I spent the 4th with my folks. Yah, hanging out with mi familia... Best part of the whole night: the most expensive firework Ma bought. It was a thick cardboard tube, ~2" in diameter, with its fuse near the plastic base and a promise of six really huge, pretty shots with report... So Adam, our local pyro, set the thing on the log we were using as a launch pad and lit the fuse...and watched it fizzle just as it got inside the tube. No problem, he says; all I need's a stick and a set of earmuffs.

(tee-shirt from Charleston: "bomb tech--if you see me running, try to keep up.")

So armed, he tried to relight the tiny nip of fuse...nada. Took a lighter to the bottom of the cardboard...nada. Then my granddad speaks up: "Hey Tom? (my father, the welder) Where's your torch?"
And Da laughs and gets it for him.
Yep. That's right. My 70-odd year-old Grandfa stands three feet away from a potentially nasty explosive...with a blowtorch trained on the fuse's last known whereabouts...

Y'know what kills though? He melted away the plastic and set the waterlogged log on fire...but the cardboard never caught, let alone the powder or shells inside it.

Midnight, Adam and I dragged ourselves into the car and drove back home--3 hours or so by interstate. 102.9 played "New Age Girl" a little past Nashville. Crawled into his mom's guest bed for a two-hour nap, then took him to work at 05:30. We've officially done two days on four hours' sleep. It's been pretty psychadelic thus far. We haven't snapped at eachother once the whole time. Totally unexpected, but *way* welcome.

I'm going to surf a little longer on the company DSL, then methinks I'll go crawl up on the shelf near the plate burner and go to sleep...feels like it's 18:00 already...

Addendum:

Quote of the day from Wednesday, but first a little backstory:

Since the pendant is, necessarily, much smaller than my first rendering of Anubis, I've had to go back and make it more 1"x1"-compatable. Only problem: every sketch made him look like either a kangaroo or a character from a WB cartoon. Not quite worthy of being someone's representation of their god. Honestly, barely worthy of the graphite and paper they occupy. Fed up, I put down my pencil and huffed at the Voice, "I can't do this alone. I'm not feeling it, and I have no vision. What say you give me a hand, eh?"

To which a voice significantly more bass and hollow than my usual Anthony Daniels-sounding amigo replies, "All right, stop thinking and draw."

Poof, sleek sketch.
"Cool," I say, nodding. "Howsabout one for this little box here?"
And in a minute or two, there was a non-kangaroo-looking Anubis, complete with headgear.
The bass groused. "You know I hate that headdress, right?"
"It makes you look more regal."
"I've never been a king in all my life. Do it again."
Okaaaay...

While I was working on a headdress-free Jackal, my sister-in-law Basia sat down to observe. Admittedly, this fellow *did* look to have a bit more power to him. ("thank you.") After a minute of watching, Bas put her head on my shoulder and cooed:

(Being the quote of that day:)
"He looks so much like a puppy..."
And the bass, I can feel eyes going wide, "WHAT?!?!? (choked laughter)"

...yay, mild insanity...