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Every evening for the past week we have been going down to the lake to play. The breeze coming off the lake is cooled by the water, so much that it almost feels like Fall as the sun sets, but the heat rising from the sunbaked asphalt dries our suits by the time we reach the car on our way home.
On the curb sits a five foot-high pile of empty fireworks cartons, colorful and littered with tall exclamatories and hazard signs. The head of a black cat, on one box, hisses at us; he is the hero atop the technicolor caricature of a trashpile, much like the head of a lion in a taxidermist shop.