mistressofmuses (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mistressofmuses) wrote2023-07-04 10:59 pm
mistressofmuses) wrote2023-07-04 10:59 pm
July 3rd/4th
The more nights I don't post because I'm tired, the more posts I fall behind. Sobcry
July 3
Yesterday morning I went to breakfast with my dad. Didn't realize he was in town until he texted to ask if I wanted to meet up for breakfast, ha. Went to the usual place we go, and it was nice to hang out for a bit.
He's doing well, stepmom is doing well, gardens are doing well despite Arizona heat, current record recording is nearing completion but having a hard time crossing the finish line.
I'd hoped to spend a good part of the 3rd on doing like... personal life admin stuff. (Catching up on posts here, working on getting fic stuff uploaded elsewhere, catch up on habit tracking, some other little stuff.) Alas. We had errands to run - the big grocery trip for the month, getting rent, etc.
Once we were back, I was just dead on my feet and had to take a nap. Napped for about an hour and a half, and then it was time for... early fireworks!
We picked one of the not-too-far-away fireworks celebrations that was on the 3rd to do a test run of how Bella would react. She's gotten very non-reactive toward sounds (amazing, considering how easily she freaked out about sounds [and everything else] when we got her.) But... we wanted to do something on the 4th, so wanted to do a sort of test-run. [Also seemed like a good idea because the weather was predicted to be pretty bad for the 4th, and it would let us get some fireworks if the 4th got rained out.] The event in question does not allow dogs within the park, but there were areas nearby that fireworks were viewable, and we could be within easy return-to-the-car distance just in case she did get anxious or panicky.
She...
Did not care in the slightest. :)
The fireworks were supposed to start at 9:30, but a pretty heavy rainstorm started up at about 8:45. Deciding that they'd better just go for it, they started the show early at 9:00, and almost simultaneously the show ended at 9:15 and the rain stopped, lol. Bella was FAR more upset by the rain than the fireworks, ha.
(Cy has always been mellow about fireworks.)
Bella, backlit by a streetlight.
July 4th
The weather was predicted to include some severe storms, and the event we'd planned to go to did cancel their fireworks display. I was a bit relieved, because I did NOT want to risk going and getting caught in bad hail or the like, so not having to weigh that against missing them was nice.
Count me in the "not really interested in celebrating America's birthday" camp, but July 4th is also Alex's and my anniversary. 14 years!
Despite not having plans to go anywhere, I still made our traditional-to-us fruit salad. [Made of only the fruits we really like, so no bland underripe melon or mediocre grapes.] This year was peach, nectarine, mango, banana, strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, cherry, mandarin orange.
The peach and mango would each have been helped by an extra day or two, and the cherries weren't the best I've ever had, but it was still damn good.
The weather was still very warm and nice early in the day, so we went to one of the local parks for the dogs to run around for a bit. (Less running on Cy's part, but he gets to roll in the grass.)
It's Cy!
And Bella with the best, silliest grin while panting.
We came back, Alex wondered if we should go to the other fireworks event we'd gone to last year since the weather wasn't really doing anything bad. I dragged my feet a bit because I was worried that it still WOULD do something bad, and we sort of went back and forth for a while... and then it pretty suddenly got very bad.
We went outside to watch the very weird motion in the clouds, got unpleasantly wet in the rain, and came back in.
Then some people literally right across the street from our window set off professional-grade illegal fireworks for almost four hours (with one break for another rainstorm), so. [I am SO glad that both dogs don't care at all, because these fireworks were basically eye-level with the apartment windows, very close.]
We also ate our other-traditional-for-the-date-for-us ice cream cones.
The fruit salad makings.
The fruit salad!
At the park with the dogs - I was looking for praying mantises, and sadly didn't find any. But after walking through the garden area, I felt a tickle on my arm, and had a hitchhiker! A crab spider! She was quite cute, but left a lot of silk on my arm before I got her onto a flower, ha.
(I feel like I've had a weirdly high number of surprise!spiders crawl on me this year.)
Some nice white roses!
I feel like this picture of Cy looks like an advertising spread for the BarkBox (TM) Swimmy Jerky (TM) treats in the background, lol. (Though really, both Cy and Bella think those treats are the best. The product placement was just utterly unintentional.)
And I was taking a picture of Cy rolling, and Bella just barely started to photobomb with her nose, ha.
July 3
Yesterday morning I went to breakfast with my dad. Didn't realize he was in town until he texted to ask if I wanted to meet up for breakfast, ha. Went to the usual place we go, and it was nice to hang out for a bit.
He's doing well, stepmom is doing well, gardens are doing well despite Arizona heat, current record recording is nearing completion but having a hard time crossing the finish line.
I'd hoped to spend a good part of the 3rd on doing like... personal life admin stuff. (Catching up on posts here, working on getting fic stuff uploaded elsewhere, catch up on habit tracking, some other little stuff.) Alas. We had errands to run - the big grocery trip for the month, getting rent, etc.
Once we were back, I was just dead on my feet and had to take a nap. Napped for about an hour and a half, and then it was time for... early fireworks!
We picked one of the not-too-far-away fireworks celebrations that was on the 3rd to do a test run of how Bella would react. She's gotten very non-reactive toward sounds (amazing, considering how easily she freaked out about sounds [and everything else] when we got her.) But... we wanted to do something on the 4th, so wanted to do a sort of test-run. [Also seemed like a good idea because the weather was predicted to be pretty bad for the 4th, and it would let us get some fireworks if the 4th got rained out.] The event in question does not allow dogs within the park, but there were areas nearby that fireworks were viewable, and we could be within easy return-to-the-car distance just in case she did get anxious or panicky.
She...
Did not care in the slightest. :)
The fireworks were supposed to start at 9:30, but a pretty heavy rainstorm started up at about 8:45. Deciding that they'd better just go for it, they started the show early at 9:00, and almost simultaneously the show ended at 9:15 and the rain stopped, lol. Bella was FAR more upset by the rain than the fireworks, ha.
(Cy has always been mellow about fireworks.)
Bella, backlit by a streetlight.
July 4th
The weather was predicted to include some severe storms, and the event we'd planned to go to did cancel their fireworks display. I was a bit relieved, because I did NOT want to risk going and getting caught in bad hail or the like, so not having to weigh that against missing them was nice.
Count me in the "not really interested in celebrating America's birthday" camp, but July 4th is also Alex's and my anniversary. 14 years!
Despite not having plans to go anywhere, I still made our traditional-to-us fruit salad. [Made of only the fruits we really like, so no bland underripe melon or mediocre grapes.] This year was peach, nectarine, mango, banana, strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, cherry, mandarin orange.
The peach and mango would each have been helped by an extra day or two, and the cherries weren't the best I've ever had, but it was still damn good.
The weather was still very warm and nice early in the day, so we went to one of the local parks for the dogs to run around for a bit. (Less running on Cy's part, but he gets to roll in the grass.)
It's Cy!
And Bella with the best, silliest grin while panting.
We came back, Alex wondered if we should go to the other fireworks event we'd gone to last year since the weather wasn't really doing anything bad. I dragged my feet a bit because I was worried that it still WOULD do something bad, and we sort of went back and forth for a while... and then it pretty suddenly got very bad.
We went outside to watch the very weird motion in the clouds, got unpleasantly wet in the rain, and came back in.
Then some people literally right across the street from our window set off professional-grade illegal fireworks for almost four hours (with one break for another rainstorm), so. [I am SO glad that both dogs don't care at all, because these fireworks were basically eye-level with the apartment windows, very close.]
We also ate our other-traditional-for-the-date-for-us ice cream cones.
The fruit salad makings.
The fruit salad!
At the park with the dogs - I was looking for praying mantises, and sadly didn't find any. But after walking through the garden area, I felt a tickle on my arm, and had a hitchhiker! A crab spider! She was quite cute, but left a lot of silk on my arm before I got her onto a flower, ha.
(I feel like I've had a weirdly high number of surprise!spiders crawl on me this year.)
Some nice white roses!
I feel like this picture of Cy looks like an advertising spread for the BarkBox (TM) Swimmy Jerky (TM) treats in the background, lol. (Though really, both Cy and Bella think those treats are the best. The product placement was just utterly unintentional.)
And I was taking a picture of Cy rolling, and Bella just barely started to photobomb with her nose, ha.