What Are You Doing Today?

I'm still wearing red, white, and blue.  I seem to have a lot of flag related items lurking in my closet's random niches.  I'm still flying the flag; I might put it out all weekend long.  

I'll deadhead the geraniums which are wilting in the heat.  I'll play mah jong with Scarlet.  I'll listen to the Boston Pops.  I probably won't watch Trump's Self Celebration.

I know I'll be thinking of home.

G'ma made salad and cut watermelon and shucked corn.  Daddooooo lit the charcoal and cooked chicken or burgers or London Broil.  We ate outside, at the picnic table, on paper plates.  We had soda at dinner.  

The grown ups sat in folding chairs, wide, woven strips of yellow and white striped plastic sticking to bare legs even after the sun went down, as the kids collected fireflies and toasted marshmallows, building a mini-bonfire atop the coals with tinder from Daddooooo's curated cache. 

My aunt and uncle and cousins were always there.  They lived next door; our back yards and our lives bled into one another. Kids from the block would wander through; we did have the best swing set in the neighborhood.  

I have those images clearly in the front of my brain.  I can smell the night.  I can feel the humidity. And, on those rare occasions when no one was quarreling, I can remember the love.