feel that summer all up in your business.

Summer continues its reign of terror. "You WILL go outside. You WILL get a sunburn (if you don't put on sunblock) and you WILL enjoy yourselves dammit."
So we do.

Yesterday of course was the fourth of July. Or as my Mother says, "Fourth of Jooooooly." (a very long U sound) It was mostly a day spent running around in the garden, doing laundry and eventually eating hamburgers and hot dogs. There was also roasted corn and some s'mores for we must follow tradition. Neighbors began shooting off fireworks in earnest. Our neighbor down the street LOVES firework. A lot. He seems to get his hands on some quality reservation fireworks that blow up big and good. If we put on the portable A/C in Miss Biscuit's room it provided enough white noise to drown out the booms and kapows so that she could sleep. I don't mind my neighbor's firework orgy as he stops by midnight, the show is pretty nifty (the dude seriously has some big 'splodey stuff in many pretty colors and we can watch comfortably from our bedroom window) and he always tidies up the day after. Totally awesome neighbor.
Now some dicks-aplenty half-a-block over did not follow the code of being a hip neighbor. They were blowing up shit like crazy over in the park for god knows how long. This morning I take the kids over to play in the park and in the community sandbox that are leftover bits of fireworks, a great multitude of half-full beer cans, lighters and assorted drunk asshole trash. I was not amused. I cleaned it up because well it needs to be tidied up. I hope whoever did this ended up with a nasty nasty hangover. (which is quit possible based on the cheap beer they were drinking.)
Still. Despite that, the holiday was sublimely relaxed and the food was good.

When not being an irritated person, the kids and I have been making popsicles. I suspect this may turn into a thing for us. Experimenting with different flavors. Today we cooked down some blueberries with some orange juice, pureed it in the processor and then strained it. Because we like to make shit more complicated than it needs to be. It also keeps them entertained for awhile. We may do peach next. We should also find time to pick berries.

I think there will be eggcreams this afternoon as well.

what a bother.

As I read about the Bohemians there are parts I enjoy and I admire some of their proto-hippie ways but the stuff that gets me down is that for their so-called enlightened ways, women still got the short end of the stick. Oh sweet Mary there are times when I want to reach through the book and punch a few people in the face. There was this constant theme of a couple both being artistic types and the guy would encourage the woman to do her thing but first she needed to take care of the house, the children and everything else under the sun. As well as be his muse. Some of the more heart-breaking situations involved women who would get together with guys who would support her particular career and then they would get married and he would forbid her from doing what it was that she genuinely loved and brought her satisfaction because it would get in the way of his art. Also he needed someone to wash his shirts and do the dishes and raise the children. BOTH of Augustus John's wives were crushed down over time by his personality and domestic needs. I should explain a bit about the situation. He was married to Ida John and she spent most of her time pregnant because he liked to hump the ladies and impregnate them. It was like his version of a door prize. Some people get free t-shirts or tote bags with John you got a baby. Maybe more. THEN he brought in Dorelia as his mistress and all three lived together fairly well. And I know what you are thinking, "seriously he just wanted some sister wives going on." Pretty darn much. Poor Ida John's career was gone and she then died from a fever. (she was constantly pregnant, living in shitty circumstances and no time for recovery) Later on he married Dorelia and of course they had a million children too. And so instead of her painting career going on, she was raising all of his children from assorted baby mamas, doing the washing, cleaning and cooking and also the muse gig. She did love John and got to live a fairly exciting life but she was still last in the grand scheme of things.
One of the few who had a fun time with the domestic side of things was Dora Carrington. As the author of the book points out, it helped that she didn't have children. She had a real knack in the kitchen and was lucky to find a creative place in cooking.

It seems like the only way for a number of women to have a career of their own was to avoid settling down. What a hard lot.

I am entertained by the chapter on the love of travel and the haphazard adventures people had with walking around parts of Europe, pretending to be gypsies and enjoying the sinful life in Paris. There was even an attempted walk to China. Kind of a variation on "and then we will take a van to India" mindset.