Fireworks

The Fourth of July is always accompanied by displays of bright colored lights exploding in the sky. Most everyone enjoys them. Some who have been in harms way cannot, and for that I am sorry.

And NOISE! The felines of the household do not appreciate the sound and the fury. We have found a type of cat treat which supports stress reduction. They seem to work pretty well, although growls are still elicited when the neighbor's cannon erupts.

I thought to watch the Gasworks Park/Lake Union display which was to be televised from the lake.
The station decided to change their broadcast and instead fit several short sequences of fireworks into a news broadcast. All in all I think I saw 5-7 minutes of the 35 minutes estimated for the display. The fireworks started at 10:20. I was going to watch the news at 11:00. The pre-show from the park started before 10:00 and was a review of the previous evening's talk about what was new and different for this year and shots of the crowd on the darkening park grounds. The news broadcast commenced at 10:22. I was extremely disappointed. Next year I may just watch the early showing from WA DC, NYC, or Boston - all of which seemed (according to the schedule) to have full coverage. BAH!

We cannot see the Celebration Park 4th display from home because of elevation and trees. We can hear it. It isn't far distance wise but is pretty popular and the grounds get crowded well before noon. It is a small display which commenced at 10 PM and was finished  by 10:25. The local exuberance however lasted until nearly 3 AM. It had quieted down around midnight, with the intermittent firecracker going off somewhere. At 1:15 AM there arose quite a racket from just across the street in a backyard 2-3 houses down. We could see the lights, we could hear the whoosh as the rockets went up. We were unimpressed to have been gotten up. If I could have been more sure which house was involved the FWPD would have been called. The cats, who had been settling, were even less impressed than we were.

Someone, however, must have complained to the miscreants.  About an hour later the effects began again - this time from the schoolyard 1/2 a block the other side of us.  Guess they just HAD to finish shooting off all their shells. At least I hope they did and there will be no reprise tonight.