We planned to celebrate 14 juillet by attending the German-French friendship fest. All began well: bumper cars! bungee jumping! mini-airplanes! roasted, sugared almonds! the Tiger feeling horrid on one of those “Himalaya”-style rides (or so they were called in my childhood) that consist of speed, minor up-and-down bumps, and a disco-ball plus smoke machine. (He loved it last year. I take some pride in still enjoying it at 47. I could hardly toss him overboard, could I?)
At 10 p.m. sharp, all the rides, games, and drink stands started to roll down their blinds, much to our puzzlement. Why, we hadn’t even ridden the giant ferris wheel, the one point of consensus in my little family of four! (Evidently some pickle-hearted neighbor – unbothered by the noise of the adjacent airport?!? – had complained after some forty years.) The gal at the whisky stands gave us a generous pour, and then the fireworks began. First the Tiger objected that we were going to miss them. Then he wailed that they were too close. It is not easy to be a small tiger.
And so, since I have no footage of our fireworks, and since any such hypothetical video would be marred by heartrending cries of ”make it stop, Mama, this is SKEERY,” I offer instead the happy patriotic kitten that David Futrelle posted a couple of weeks ago:
By the way, if the images in the clip come from Uzu, as seems to be the case, this program has also been cheap entertainment for my own kittens this summer. Sometimes a light show is best at a safe remove. Ditto for cat claws. I’ll hold my tongue on the complex relation between state power military might, and liberty, since this day is supposed to be one of celebration, after all.
Patron cat of Kittywampus (1985-2001)
Adorable kitten antics! Happy Belated Bastille Day.
Lisa, every time you pop in, I realize that my French sucks! What’s more, I actually know that Versailles ends in an S. (Lordy, I was trained in German history, where “Versailles” is hardly even a French word.)
I should just stop ever using any French word more advanced than “sans.” Forget the various accent marks!
Yes, apart from the Tiger’s future psychiatric fees, it was actually a fun and merry evening. Bumper cars. The Big Slide. And did I mention the whisky stand’s generous pour? Not a traditional French libation, I know, but it smoothed over the evening’s abrupt end …
All that was missing was a real-life adorable kitten. Friends of mine posted on FB today that a half-dozen beauties need a home in my little town. Oh, for an instant cure for allergies!