Friday. Awoke at fifteen minutes to six. Not bad, as I'd taken longer than usual to get to sleep last night, and so listened to Democracy Now! as usual, but then set out driving to breakfast at twenty minutes after seven, twenty minutes early, thinking I wanted to arrive early and see how their now serving breakfast on the patio turned out, see where I might be seated and how close the spacing between people. Arrived to park up across the street as all the parking spaces were taken by work vehicles.

I ended up sitting at the very back of the closed off dining area rather than at a patio table, as I was indeed early and they hadn't moved tables out to the patio in preparation for the opening at eight and so ended up eating in the back again, farther back behind a curtain where I couldn't see or be seen from the front patio entrance. Happy with that as I realized how worried I was as to how this was ultimately going to turn out. We'll be doing this from here on out.

The two strips of bacon, scrambled eggs, country potatoes, toast, fruit cup and coffee for no particular reason, finishing up after nine, not seeing any customers eating out at the patio tables, although there may have been some earlier. A shot of the plant I've been photographing this last week, then across the street to document the six cent a gallon rise in the cost of regular at the station, back to the car and straight home to take the selfie before settling in here at the computer and start on this.

Later. Tired and so lied down for a while, up after two in the afternoon to walk over to the lake, having heard what sounded like drums and voices in the distance, to find a Juneteenth celebration in progress with people barbecuing and the like all around the lake. Took some hasty not very interesting pictures and returned to the apartment. Lots of people, even if they all had masks, make you think.

Evening. The local news program mentioned there are thousands of people celebrating Juneteenth circling the entire lake and so they've evidently celebrating into the night, the fireworks starting after seven with a continuous series of detonations similar to what I've been hearing lately after nine. Only more. Many more.

The number and intensity of the explosions has continued until close to midnight, more so by far than I've ever heard on a Fourth of July in these last twenty years, and so I'm guessing we now have two American holidays celebrated with fireworks, maybe three with Chinese New Year. The young me very much liked fireworks and I broke the law many times in buying them and shooting them throughout the year when I was living in Yonkers. The old(er) me, I'm afraid, would rather cut the noise and get to sleep.