Happy Independence Day!

I’ve been sticking pretty tightly to all comics-related posts of late, but given that it’s the 4th of July, I’ll let that slide:  Happy Independence Day, all!

We spent the morning of this fourth of July at our neighborhood “parade,” which might be more accurately described as, “flag- and crepe paper-encrusted kids, dogs and bikes travelling around the block several times while someone plays Sousa marches on a boombox.”  It’s great fun.  We get the streets blocked off, do a pot luck/grill-out for the whole neighborhood, and arrange for the local firehouse to send an engine over (in exchange for a go at the potluck table, of course).  Here’s my daughter in her patriotic regalia:

In the evening we finished off the day in typical American fashion for the fourth: grilling.  Here’s an obscenely loaded dinner plate featuring lots o’ grilled stuff: grilled tuna steaks and sea scallops topped with salsa made from a friend’s garden tomatoes, grilled vegetables and corn, and a ripe avocado.

Livin’ large in the USA!