The Wake-Up Call: Elves, Belly Painting

It's less than a week until the Fourth of July, which means fireworks go on sale today. The website for TNT Fireworks lists over a dozen booths in Elk Grove alone. Is there such a thing as safe home fireworks? We're not sure, but we encourage y'all to be careful out there.

Here are a few other things happening today:

In the Patch:

Moms-to-be gone wild. (which despite the name is located here in town) will host a at 7:00 tonight, at which expectant mothers can have create models of their stomachs or have them decorated Indian-style. Cost: $5 per belly.

Ents, dwarves and elves. Who's yummier, Aragorn or Legolas? Could Gollum have been saved? Debate these and other pressing questions with fellow Lord of the Rings fans at a of Return of the King: Extended Edition tonight at 7:00. You don't even have to leave the Shire to go: it's right here at the Century Laguna 16.

Outside the Patch:

Dream a little dream. Mandeep Chahal, a U.C. Davis honors student and political asylum applicant who came to the United States at the age of six, has received a one-year stay of her deportation sentence after a frantic campaign by family, friends and immigrant rights activists. She'll be speaking this week in Washington, D.C. at a rally in support of the Dream Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for people brought as minors to the U.S. on our sister site, Davis Patch.