Garage Sale Day

We usually miss this, because we always spend the Fourth of July up in Lake Placid, where there is ski jumping, swimming, parading, musicking, and fireworking. But with it falling on a Monday and life snapping right to attention on Tuesday, we decided we couldn’t do the Olympic village this year. So here we are in scenic Hampton Manor, where our forefathers fought so we could try to sell our old junk to strangers at a dime a piece. Every year, there is a massive neighborhood garage sale on this weekend — great because we don’t have to advertise or be set up at any particular time, bad because the neighborhood is crawling with garage sale types. The girls have been dying to have a lemonade stand at the sale, and over the course of the week they pulled together a bunch of stuff they were willing to part with — most of which we ended up selling to their friends, but it’s out of the house, and that’s what counts.

The ice cream truck is taking best advantage of the knots of people, but he has been sitting out on our corner blaring “Music Box Dancer” for half an hour, and if it doesn’t stop soon I’m going to find a garage sale BB gun and climb up on any tower I can find.

Last night we were going to take in a ballgame and fireworks — knowing full well there was a threat of rain, so we brought our raincoats just in case. Good thing. There was about an inning and a half of play, several furlings and unfurlings of the infield tarp (is a “furlong” just how far you can furl something?), and after three dowsings, we gave up the game. So did the players, not long after, so we may go back tonight and see the end — but the fireworks aren’t until tomorrow night, unfortunately. Still, the torrential downpour was warm, it was a Friday night in the summer, and everybody was kinda having a good time, so it seemed like the actual baseball game was just ancillary to the joy of sitting in a stadium (or standing under a staircase, trying to keep out of the rain) on a beautiful summer’s evening.