Back when I used to travel back and forth between Strasbourg and Houston (basically when I was a medical student at Université Louis Pasteur), I would schedule my flight to Houston so as to avoid Independence Day and Bastille Day celebrations (the latter being on July 14th, if you are not familiar with Frank O'Hara's poem "The Day Lady Died" - and frankly, who's not familiar with this poem?). So yeah, smack dab when the Houston heatwave would start, but at least, I would avoid the silly display of vulgar patriotism. Somewhere along the line, I got screwed and am forced to witness the more vulgar one every year.