Monday, July 06, 2009

Scruffers hates fireworks (and so do I)!

The heat this Independence Day weekend would have been enough discomfort for my two cats, Giuseppe and Scruffy Gray (aka Scruffers) but they had to endure the bombs bursting in air as well. I had to spend a good part of the weekend consoling my kitties-especially Scruffers who we adopted two months ago. This poor little guy has lived a tough enough life without having to freak out while neighborhood rowdies set the sky afire. But I have to admit that I too spent most of the weekend stressed- worried that my house would go up in flames from some idiot's errant bottle rocket. You know- I love the Fourth of July but I absolutely can do without the fireworks. And many of my friends it appears concur. I see no reason why we even allow fireworks to be sold (can't understand why it is okay for Native Americans to sell something legally that the rest of us aren't supposed to posses-and where is it in Native America culture that fireworks play? If anything-if we are going to allow a certain ethnic group a privilege that is not extended to the rest of society- we should allow the Chinese to profit on firework sales-after all they invented the stuff! But, I digress). Seriously, the Fourth is a great celebration-but blowing up things, terrorizing war vets and animals and setting the countryside ablaze makes no sense to me. Especially this year in the Northwest with our tinderbox fire conditions we allow for such foolishness to go on. As of this morning there were four fires burning in my county-only one of them was from a natural cause. Thank God it is raining today and thank God Scruffers is back to his snugly self no longer in a catatonic state hiding under the guest bed. Peruse the papers today and you'll read familiar stories of firework induced injuries and firework sparked house fires. Not a good price to pay for our Independence is it? Next Fourth of July, how about heading to the mountains to hike, bike, swim, paddle or just lounge around. Bring your loved one with you and perhaps you'll see a little fireworks-the safe kind-and the one kind to set over and over again. Scruffers encourages it-He wishes you all a safe rest of the summer.

1 comment:

Henry Waxman said...

How can you blame fires on fireworks? Everyone knows the real cause of the increase in forest fires is catastrophic, human-caused, climate change. Until we deal with our obsession with carbon we are going to continue to see more of our forests going up in flames with or without fireworks!