This entry is backdated, but I felt that I should post something about it.

I was setting off fireworks with my daughter and one of her friends and a bunch of rowdy teenage boys (about 8-12) were walking down the street and on the sidewalk. This was right before midnight, I was telling them to start finishing up because we were going to be done before midnight.

One of the boys walks right up to me, which made me nervous. I did a quick check and the girls were inside of the fence and it was just me on the sidewalk with them. One of them walked up to me and asked me for some fireworks, I ignored him. I was trying to think of how to say, "Sorry, no, I don't want to be responsible for anything that happens" or "They're cheap fireworks, you could buy them at the store" but figured it was just easier to not say anything.

So, he gets a little angry and says, "Oh, just go right on staring at us." Well, sorry sir, but you're on my lawn. I'm waiting to see what you are going to do. They make comments about race, but honestly even if they were all a bunch of white boys, it would be intimidating to be surrounded by rowdy kids. The fact that they were black was less alarming than the fact that they recognized that I was not.

So, when they cross the corner I had the kids go back to setting off the fireworks. They laugh about the relatively pathetic firework, but hey, the box was $20 and some were big and some were not.

... at which point they set my lawn waste on fire and yell "Black power." What idiots. I had to be an idiot too, and I took out my cell phone, held it over my head and said "I've got a phone here, I can call the cops" while running towards them. They had already ran away full speed, so it was pointless.

I told the girls to go inside and call 911 and handed them my phone, but J wanted to use the home phone. I told her, "Whatever, just call" since I was nervous. I didn't want a big grass fire to spread and the fire had already gotten to the size of a large bonfire. Then I told my daughter's friend to go inside, get my keys, and then go into the garage and get one of the blankets that was on the shelf in there. We keep a bunch of dirty old blankets there, and that might help with the fire. They aren't able to get into the garage, so I just tell them to clean up the fireworks in the back of the house since we're done for the night.

In the mean time, I looked to see if we had a faucet in the front, then I went out back and unhooked the hose, then I went into the back and tried to get enough water pressure to be of any use. I eventually managed to get the fire out with a pathetic stream of water, which luckily just made everything wet enough that the fire did not spread, and then put it out when I got a bit more pressure. (I had the hose in the back since I was keeping it ready in case the grass caught fire in the back due to the fireworks, little did I know that I would need it in the front.)

Eventually, I heard a firetruck coming around. I got a bit nervous and asked the kid, "What did you tell them?" She said, "I just said some kids set our leaves on fire." Apparently, she didn't tell them anything outrageous, but I was still nervous about it all. What happens when you call the fire department but you manage to put the fire out yourself?

They first stopped down the street at another house that was setting fireworks, since there was no obvious fire on our street. When they came down the street to us, a guy in a car asked if I had reported a fire. I'm telling him, "Oh, I am really sorry, I got the fire out but I just wanted to make sure" and I pointed at the charred husks of three bags of leaves, with two or three other bags still there.

Well, the fire department nodded, smiled, told me "That's why you pay taxes" and "We were already out for all the fireworks" as I'm apologizing. I thank them for coming.

I go back inside, still a little irritated with how racist that makes me sound "A bunch of black teenage boys set my lawn on fire, but I couldn't identify any of them, because I didn't get a look at them." But, honestly, I couldn't identify a gang of white boys either. I can generally tell you hair color, approximate height, skin color, clothing. When it's a group of 8-12 teenagers with all of those characteristics matching, well, not much I can do to tell you "Him, but not him."

I have spent way too much time reading jessicapierce's blog. I remember running across her entries on e2 now and then. I used to lose myself to e2 for hours upon hours, just wandering about from topic to topic. There were a few people that would manage to catch my attention enough to just read every entry that they had ever written. I remember jp's entries and I'm glad to see them in blog form.

I especially love how I read her stories about the children, and every now and then I catch myself thinking, "My, that's something that J would say." I am so proud of my kid sometimes. Sometimes I'm a little sad that she's growing older, she's losing some of the innocent goofiness and is becoming another person.

Sometimes it's a bit sad because she's developing an older, different style of humor. She's almost a teenager and she's developing some taste for potty humor. I'm still a bit too uptight to entirely enjoy potty humor, so that's where we separate in tastes. She's her own person, though, and that's amazing by itself.

Every now and then whenever I get into the mood of self-pity I can convince myself that people could do without me for a while. The nagging moody voice in the back of my head can almost convince me that everyone would learn to cope, even J. I mean, what is it that I ever really do to help her out? I work too late, when I am home I play games or sleep.

Then J will do something simple. She had an assignment to write an essay about something she feels gratitude for. (Right around Thanksgiving, of course.) She tells me "I wrote it about you, Dad. You want to see it?"

I'm still not entirely sure what I've ever really done for her. Honestly, I think I do need to read it, maybe she could explain it to me.