la la la

So today is the 4th of July. I thought about that on my way to work this morning. I thought about parades and fireworks and things like that and how I would not be wearing a jersey (meaning sweater) if I was at home. But even if you are listening to NE Ohio news via the WKSU daily podcast, it is kind of hard to forget that you are in Johannesburg when you casually roll up your windows before certain intersections to avoid the onslaught of guilt because you refuse to give money to blind beggars every 500 metres.

So by the time I arrived at work and was confronted by a crisis as soon as I walked in the door, I had forgotten that it was the 4th of July. I remembered again slightly later in the day as I was adding a booking to one of our artists' diaries that, oh yes, it is the 4th of July, which I had been threatening to take off work on principle, and of course hadn't done because I completely forgot about it. However, I decided to drag up the sympathy vote and pointed it out to my collagues, who promptly said, "ah yes, independence day..." by then the phones were ringing again and there was plenty of work to be done. So once again the date was set aside.

On my drive home, I remembered yet again that it is the 4th of July. And then I remembered, actually heard in my head, "ah yes, independence day" and I realised that my history was a little rusty. What happened on the 4th? Was it before or after the war? And then I thought about trying to explain independence day to my housekeeper. I mean, across Africa, independence days are less than a handful of decades old and I struggle trying to explain to her that yes, there is unemployment in the US and yes it does get hot there. Its not that she can't understand, its just that it violates her frame of reference. Then I thought to myself, does South Africa have an independence day? There are a heck of a lot of holidays here, which one is the national holiday? I went through the possibilities - 27 April - Freedom Day (good possibility) , 24 September - Heritage Day (good possibility) and 16 December - Reconciliation Day (good possibility). There seem to be an abundance of others, but they are all pretty easily ruled out, like women's day & worker's day. So which one is the national holiday?

But, again, as I got home, I had forgotten all about the date and the rest of my questions and announced that I would be going to sell a teddy bear as soon as I got the phone call, whenever that was... The evening progressed and of course the 4th of July was sort of transparently present in the back of my head. And after I went and sold the teddy bear, I ended up playing with Felix for a little bit (Oscar was promptly put to bed - it was late for him). He's beginning to get the hang of singing, he can do a little Death Cab and Postal Service, but tonight the only song in my head was an old 311 tune that starts like this:

The fish who keeps on swimming is the first to chill upstream
I want your fish right by me, thats just how it has to be...
The songs I sing, they don't mean a thing if you're not there to hear them...

Well the idea of singing about fish was just wonderful to Felix, who really only understands songs about stars and birthdays, only his version of the fish song goes like this:

I want your fish and I want your song
I want your swimming fishy
La la la...

I was crumpled up with laughter and he was very proud of himself. And after I put him into bed, I remembered again. Its the 4th of July. For as American as I am these days, I feel that it should really mean something, but it doesn't. At home I think it would mean a day off work and having a couple of beers, which I can do on any one of the numerous SA holidays - but generally choose not to, as parenting really kinda gets in the way of drinking. So it was the 4th of July and there is little more to say, except the official national holiday in South Africa is... La la la... Freedom Day - which was the date of the first democratic election in post-apartheid South Africa. Who knew?