Canada Day

Spent the afternoon and part of the evening with extended family that keeps on extending, most recently (and unexpectedly) from Eastern Europe to East Asia in my grand-nephew who arrived just three weeks prior to today, Canada Day, its father's eighteenth birthday. Our two mothers came for lunch at Isabella's sister's, as did their aunt; mixture of German and Romanian at the table but predominantly English. Wandered next door to my brother's to see the other nephew (the sensible one, that is to say, seven years old) and niece, and their swimming pool; then back to be serenaded on guitar and recorder by the teenage nephew and niece (the niece is sensible). And I don't know what possessed me but I think feeling guilty for always trying to edify the nephew, most recently with a DVD rental of Fellini's Amarcord (since the niece had a project on Fascism), which he watched to his credit with only a little complaining at the beginning -- but feeling guilty, as I said, I went to GenX and returned with Mars Attacks! which I thought would be a suitably escapist piece of entertainment for a rather blithe young man on his birthday. And all I can say is "Ack Ack! Ack Ack Ack!"; our heads almost exploded.
It's muggy. There was a too brief shower. Sounds of fireworks in the distance. And it's raining again.