The 4th of July happened. Here is my honest review.
I’m Jasper. I told you last week about the fireworks situation and my complicated relationship with them. I promised to report back. Here is the full debrief.
The Morning Was Excellent
July 4th mornings are good. I’ll give the holiday that.
Everyone is home. There’s a relaxed energy that weekends have but weekdays don’t — nobody rushing, nobody has somewhere to be at a specific time. My humans were outside early. The yard got a longer investigation than usual. The weather was good.
We went somewhere in the morning. A trail. Not one of the extremely crowded ones — my humans have learned to go earlier than the crowds or pick less-famous routes. It was a good morning walk. Longer than our usual weekday walks. Worth it.
The Afternoon Had Promise
There was food. I’m not going to get into the specifics of what I was allowed and not allowed to have, but there were cookout smells and some of them involved me getting appropriate pieces of things. This is positive.
There were people around. I like people. I am comfortable with people. Having a somewhat larger-than-usual group of humans in my space was fine, actually good. Lots of attention. Good petting. Someone who brought me a piece of hot dog, which I appreciated.
The pool was open. I was in the pool. Multiple times.
This section of the holiday gets high marks.
The Evening Was a Known Quantity
I had done my prep work (see last week’s post). Safe spot identified. White noise running. My humans calm and present.
It was fine. Not fun. Not scary. Just a thing that happened that I waited through.
The fireworks lasted about an hour and a half. During that time I stayed in my corner and my mom sat nearby doing her thing. We didn’t make a big deal of it. By 10:30 PM it was quiet again.
I was out of my corner by 10:35 PM.
July 5th Was Perfect
Here’s the thing about July 5th: it’s great. Everyone’s had their holiday. Everything is quiet. It’s a regular summer day except nobody has anywhere specific to be and the vibe is still relaxed.
We went to the pool in the morning. I had a long walk. I napped in the good spot with the breeze.
Objectively, July 5th is one of my favorite days of the year.
Overall Rating: 7.5/10
The morning earns a 10. The afternoon earns a 9. The evening earns a 4 (it’s fireworks, they can’t do better than a 4 in my rating system). July 5th earns a 10.
Average: 7.5. That tracks.
Here’s to a summer that’s mostly the good parts. 🇺🇸🐾