We've been decidedly non-lazy today; as soon as everyone was awake and fed and assembled (a lengthy process with a one-year-old involved) we drove up to Central Park in San Mateo. It was packed with people doing 4th July picnic things, but we dodged excited kids and wandered through the Japanese Garden at some length. I sang to myself in Japanese very quietly part of the time, and thought about whether or not I would really enjoy using the map they had posted to identify all the different sorts of trees. Gabrielle seemed to like touching leaves and staring at the plethora of koi which hung out by the centre bridge, but I'm not sure what Kevin and Pam thought of it. It was hot, but there was a lot of shade.

From there we walked over to the rose garden, which smelled lovely in the heat but was rather bedraggled. This made me wonder why it is that Japanese gardens never have flowers in them -- all the Japanese literature I've read goes on and on about cherry blossoms and plum blossoms and the iris festival and the hollyhock festival. Is it just that I only see these gardens at midsummer and everything blooms in the spring?

After the roses and another round of dodging kids we got back to the car and drove to the Pulgas Water Temple. The gate was closed, but we parked by the side of the road and wandered around anyway. It was hotter, or maybe there was just less shade, and it was a little too windy to get the wonderful reflective effect in the picture I linked to, but it's a beautiful place regardless. Jim and I sat on the grate in the middle of the temple and laid down on it to see the water rushing past underneath. It smelled absolutely wonderful; I could have sat there for hours. Maybe sometime I'll go back with Jim and we can have a picnic on the grate, as some friends of ours apparently used to do.

From there we went rather tiredly to dinner at Su Hong, where there was adequate Chinese food. Gabrielle was extra-cranky from lack of nap; Pam spent most of dinner walking her around instead of eating. Everyone was pretty worn out from the heat and the driving, so there wasn't a lot of conversation. I was feeling pretty good, though. At some point during the day my residual shyness had vanished and I was actually able to contribute to what conversation there was (mostly giving Kevin a hard time and commenting on Gabrielle) without feeling self-conscious.

Then home! Collapse on the couch for a while; Jim took a nap, as did Kevin (who, as I keep forgetting to mention, has been running a fever since yesterday morning), and Gabrielle slept a little too. I curled up on the couch next to Jim while he slept and started The Lyre of Orpheus, which is the third novel in Robertson Davies Cornish trilogy. I'm not sure what I think of it yet; it's more like the book of his that I liked than the one I didn't, but the random sex fascinations still bother me.

After about an hour of sleeping we all picked ourselves up again, put on warm clothes, and went towards Shoreline Ampitheatre, where rumour had it fireworks were going to occur at some indeterminate time after sunset. We took advantage of my workplace's parking lot, and walked from there to the opposite side of the gigantic SGI building on Charleston and settled on the grass. Apparently many other people heard this rumour as well, for great hordes of them gathered nearby; some climbed the hill towards the ampitheatre itself only to be shoo'd away by people on horseback. Then there was lots of waiting, and lots more waiting; we'd arrived around 8:30 and the fireworks ended up starting around 10pm. Eleven minutes of truly breathtaking aerial explosions, and then we were done. Next year I'll know to show up around 9:45; sitting on damp grass in cold wind is less fun, no matter how beautiful the fireworks may be.

And now finally, home again; everyone is crawling off to bed and I think I'll do so as well.