Happy Fourth of July

I think it’s going to be a quiet holiday (figuratively speaking). We’re tired of the heat, so we’re staying in and having Norma Kay’s incredible veggie chili seasoned in part, I hope, with peppers from our garden.

For several years we watched Yankee Doodle Dandy and 1776 on the Fourth. We haven’t done that in quite a while, so those two classics are on the agenda today, along with A Capitol Fourth tonight on PBS.

As you can see, I prefer my Independence Day the traditional way: air-conditioned and without large sweaty crowds.

I also want to spend some extra time with our cat Clark. He had another seizure yesterday and every one of those drives home the point that he won’t be with us forever. We got him and his sister Lois in 1995 when they were but a few weeks old. Clark has been a great companion and one of the sweetest, gentlest souls I’ve ever known.

(Let me stop you right there before you get on your soapbox about animals not having souls. If you can claim some of the biggest assholes in history–Hitler, Stalin, and about half the people in the radio business have a soul–then my sweet little cat sure as hell has one. I am prepared to fight you on this one. So go put that soapbox away. It smells like that goop you’d get out of a Texaco restroom dispenser in 1971, anyway.)

Where was I? Oh, yeah. I intend to do a little writing this morning. My plan to resume the novel is in a holding pattern. I had two columns to write this week (one of which completely slipped my mind) and two stories (one that I didn’t know about until two days ago). The columns are done. Story #1 in 90% complete and will be finished today. I plan for story #2 to be done by Saturday. Then it’s back to the novel.

At some point today, I will sit down with my well-worn copy of the original tabloid size Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, by a true genius and one of my heroes, Jack Kirby. I’ve told the story several times of how that comic, purchased during the summer of 1976 at some roadside store between here and Tennessee, helped me hang on to my sanity during a family vacation. I re-read it every July 4th.

I don’t plan to be on the Internet much today, if at all. Or the phone. If you have a Tweet for me or a Facebook message or a text or an email, I’ll see it Thursday.

Have a great holiday.