This was the first time in a long while that I've had a national holiday in America so I forget how overdone they are.  England doesn't get too fussed about holidays, not like America.   Today was the fourth of July, not the biggest holiday, but a pretty big one.  I forgot about this when I first arrived here. I didn't think it was strange to see all the little American flags here after living in Britain where anything even vaguely inspired by something American will have the stars and stripes splashed all over it.  I quite expected this.  It was hard to ignore this holiday though with all the fireworks stands just outside of the Travis and Harris county limits and fourth of july sales on everywhere.

I wanted to go to the fireworks display this year downtown, which is ironically sponsored by BP.  None of my friends wanted to go though because none of my Houston friends celebrate the fourth of July.  They'll sooner protest capitalism than go to a celebration of America. 

So instead I went to a barbeque at my mom's friend Sarah's house.  It was a really cool place, her living room filled with chase loungers, pine trees in the yard and food on the barbeque in the backyard.  Sarah herself wore a stars and stripes shirt.  When I went to the backyard you could smell all the mesquite from the barbeques in adjacent yards.  I asked her friend Pete who was doing the barbeque if they had any meat to which he replied casually, "Well, we've got some steaks" and then lifted up the top of the barbeque to reveal five huge slices of steak.  Each one must have weighed a pound and a half.  And there was another tray of meat to go on.  There were only six of us there!  So much food in addition to the potato salad, beans, olives and pickles, and then a homemade angel food cake with 7 minute icing.  After this I didn't need to eat for two days.  The people at this party were all really nice, and the barbeque was better than I remember barbeques being.

Next we went to my stepdad's parent's house where we watched the fireworks display on the steps of the Capital in Washington DC.  My uncle was there (with an american flag so we can see him supposedly), but it was raining so we couldn't see anything.  The Houston fireworks display came on a bit later, and of course it was bigger and lasted a lot longer.  If people are going to wait out all day in the Texas sun on beach towels and be eaten by mosquitos for hours, they deserve something nice. They played some cheesy music for the Houston one though.  I didn't realize there were so many country songs about the fourth of July.  Maybe I'm picky, but I prefer what they usually play.  Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, and Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever.

Back at my place I watched a bit of TV.  They were still showing fireworks from the West Coast states as it turned 9 there.  The TV documentary on the American revolution was just winding up on PBS.  My stepdad had spent all morning watching it.  I really don't like that documentary though.  It made all the British seem foppish and have bad haircuts, and all the Americans had New Jersey accents.  In 1776? On CBS they had celebrities reading aloud the Declaration of Independence and talking about how proud they are to be American.  Which I guess is really strange.