How to End Up in a Sandbox Not on Purpose

I'll share my secret in just a moment.  But first I want to tell you about our Fourth.  WHICH WAS GREAT.

I'd been complaining all week about how the Fourth of July--which is actually one of my favorite holidays because you don't have to do much to prepare for it--isn't what it used to be.  Why?  Because (among other things) attitudes about fireworks have changed.  When I was a kid, we used to blow up our street.  And when my kids were kids, we used to blow up our street.  We had friends from New York stay with us over the Fourth once and they had to go into therapy after they witnessed a bunch of young males shooting off bottle rockets, and I remember thinking, "I like you, our friends from New York.  But you guys are weenies."

Well.  Times have changed.  We're all New Yorkers now.  At least in this neighborhood.

Anyway, we spent the afternoon in Bountiful with our son and his family there where my 8 year-old granddaughter showed us how she can turn a cartwheel now.  So I told her I used to be excellent at cartwheels.  Hello.  I used to do a tumbling routine to "Here Comes Suzy Snowflake" in rest homes at Christmas time when I was in grade school.  I was a cartwheel-turning savant.  And I figured I still am, even though I have not turned a cartwheel in a rest home for decades now.

I stood up.  Put my arms in the air.  Took a preparatory jump.  Turned myself upside down.  And landed squarely on my butt in a sandbox.  Which taught me this very important lesson:  just because you could do something when you were younger, that doesn't mean you can do it now.  Not everything in this life is like riding a bicycle.

But the good news is that people in Bountiful still believe in fireworks.  So we lit a few in the street to a playlist that included some Otis Redding.  And I went home, sore but grateful for a day that turned out to be better than good.