Independence Days

July is the month of Independence. Did you know that Canada Day is July 1? Our North American neighbors tell me that they always have to go first....their version of Thanksgiving is in October.

It must be noted however, that their Independence Day was not until 1867. Nearly 100 years later than ours. But I'm not one to quibble. You can be first on Thanksgiving mes amies canadiens.

The 4th of July is ours. The day we thumb our noses at the British (just jokes my empirical friends), eat meat, shoot fireworks and drink too much beer. It's red, white, and blue day in the US of A.

On Sunday we shared our 4th with the Canadians. We figured we could combine our nose thumbing into one long day. Well, that wasn't really a plan but it sure did turn out to be fun. We ate brunch, sipped bellinis, and jumped in the pool to cool off.

Next we ate snacks, drank champagne, and jumped in the pool to cool off.

Then we ate hot dogs, potato salad, and homemade ranch style beans followed by Coke floats for the under 21s, champagne floats for the humans, and jumped in the pool to cool off.

Our neighbor got annoyed with our North American noise and asked us kindly to please keep it down because he was trying to have a civilized dinner sur la terrasse. I'm sure it was mostly that he couldn't stand listening to all that English going on next door. He obviously didn't know it was the 4th of July!

The French have their own day in July--Bastille Day, the 14th (1789, sorry but we were first on this one too).

But it's funny how we all do the same things. They have parties, eat meat, light feu d'artifice and drink too much wine. Well, they probably don't because they don't really do that, but someone might.

We got a notice about this year's Bastille Day celebration on the kids' last day of school. It says something like, 'Come to the celebration with your family. It's a good time to reconnect with your fellow citizens in the middle of the summer holidays.' How nice, huh? I'm planning on it. The color scheme is the same.

I wonder if our neighbor will expect silence next Wednesday night?

Take a moment to lift your glass to the French republic, Vive la France! They did give us the Statue of Liberty after all.