I awake. rain. Clearing skies, sunny. rain. sun. rain. sun. Weatherman says, "It's gonna clear up for tonite's fireworks!" sun. rain. sun. clouds. sun.
I take eldest son to work, late afternoon, sunny, blazingly hot. Buy fireworks at a little stand, a variety pack, so no one can complain. Skip the sparklers this year, need bigger and louder. Pick son up from work @ 8:30 p.m. clear skies at our house, hit a patch of thunderstorm on Bannerman Road, but clear when I hit the store parking lot.
Nearing dark. I remain optimistic. Each boy says, "I'm not going in the rain!" Me: "Where's your 4th of July spirit? It can't rain out the fireworks, this is a little drizzle."
Drizzle continues well past dark. "Let's go set off our fireworks, at least, if you're not going to go to the park." Alternatively, "look, we can hop in the car and go down to the school where there are no trees. Certainly, we'll catch some of them, there." I hear loud booming sounds of fireworks from the park and see the sky turn lighter, although I cannot actually see the fireworks thru the trees. "Come on!" I urge.
The "Mom must be nuts" look comes from them both. "Then, let's set off some fireworks in the driveway." "Yea!" I encourage. "It'll be fun."
"Mom, it's raining."
"It's a little drizzle, come on," I whine.
We start small lighting a few of the little crackers (can I say that?) Junior son can't get more than one lit. Edler son impatiently yanks the matches away from him to show his superior lighting technique. Three matches later, he says, "Let's get a candle and light it from that."
Yes! a candle. We all tromp back into the house. I get some tissue to calm my sneezing.
Armed with new matches, tucked snugly in a plastic ZipLoc, and a candle, we brush the wet from our heads and forge back outside.
the candle works great! We light three matches simultaneously and each light one of three identical fireworks. They go off. We are happy. No rain can stop us now. Our neighbor's yard is exploding with silver and gold sparks. It's starting to feel like the 4th. The booming from the park has stopped, a shortened version of the annual display.
"Mom, the candle went out."
With the three of us determined, now, we relight the candle. I hold my foot above the flame to protect it from raindrops, as I sneeze into my very soggy tissue. We try to another triple, we get the fireworks lit, but they fizzle and go out. We light the biggest one and it is great, with noise and multi-colors and shooting sparks at the end. Oops, they were kinda closer than we had thought.
On a roll, we try some more. The candle has gone out again. We can't light any more of the matches. We drip water from our T-shirts, as we lean over the firecracker to coax it to spark. Water rolls from our foreheads into our eyes. I discard the soggy tissue and remain silent. Finally, eldest son says, "We really should save the rest of these for tomorrow night, maybe it won't be raining."
But, junior son says, what if it is raining tomorrow? and the night after that and the night after that? You get the picture.
We march back to the fireworks and extract one lone firework from the plastic bag. "You know, maybe we can wait 'til tomorrow," junior son says as he wrings water from the front of his twisted shirt.

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