My fireworks craving was amply fed this weekend.  The Stone Mountain laser show was all one could have wished in tackiness, and followed by a gratifyingly extravagant fireworks display. 

We had received a dinner invitation for the 4th itself, from our next door neighbors, whom we had only met before in passing.  This was a whole new concept for a girl who grew up in NJ apartments--this whole "being neighborly" thing.  I hadn't realized at first that they had invited only us and one other new couple on the block--I had some idea it was a much larger affair and they'd invited the whole neighborhood.  This is approximately my least favorite social situation, right up there with office holiday parties--people I don't know, food I probably don't like, and nowhere to sit.  Luckily, I've been taking "How to Talk to Strangers" lessons from Aaron, and the smaller group setting was a great relief to me.  So it turned out to be a good time after all, and we chatted all neighborly-like until about 8, when we left for fireworks.

The Lenox fireworks display, allegedly the largest in the Southeast (and I shudder to think of the cost) was enhanced by an 11th floor view.  The original plan was to take the train to Lenox station like civilized people, but then I had to go into work at the last minute.  We thought of staying there to see the show, but we had an hour to kill and figured, we were right down the street from Lenox, surely in an hour we could find parking, right?  Ha.  We drove around Buckhead for an hour--as much of it as we could drive around with half the streets blocked off--and finally gave it up and headed back to the office, with two minutes to spare.  This turned out to be a perfect view--we missed some of the low fireworks, but everything else was fabulous.  We even had the radio tuned to a local news station covering the event, so we got the music and somewhat mis-timed booms as well.  Yes, they played that song again, but it was worth putting up with. 

We're going to Stone Mountain with some friends to see the laser and fireworks show tonight.  I've been to the laser show before, and it is an unbelievable paragon of patriotic tackiness, which I can only assume will be even more absurd this weekend, but I am a fireworks fiend.  My secret dream was to have fireworks at my wedding, but when you get married in a big-city skyscraper, lighting incendiary devices is frowned upon.  I've had to settle for as much as I can get when this time of year rolls around.  Despite my Barrayaran addiction for things that go "boom,"  I've never been tempted to set the things off myself (being attached to all 10 of my fingers) but I'll go to any public fireworks display I can get.  The year before I moved to GA, I went to six July 4th displays in six different little podunk NJ towns, every day of the week leading up to the 4th.  This year, in addition to the Stone Mountain extravaganza of tackiness, we'll also be hitting the Lenox Mall display on the actual 4th.

Now, don't get me wrong; I don't find patriotism tacky.  It's giant laser-outlined profiles of George Washington that make me snicker.  And that dreadful, ungrammatical, "I'm Proud to Be an American" song.  Not only is it musically uninspiring, but the grammar: you can't be "proud to be an American, where at least you know you're free," because American isn't a place.  I much prefer the old-fashioned patriotic hymns--America the Beautiful, for example.  Yes, yes, those hymns usually refer to a deity in which I don't believe; but the lyrics and the melodies beat all heck out of ungrammatical feel-good songs masquerading as pop music. 

There's been some discussion of tempering the bad grammar with a holiday viewing of "Farenheit 9/11."