Yesterday was a blast.

First, I attempted to sleep in. But Libby the Wonder Poodle had different plans. Plans that included going outside to “hunt for wabbits” at 12:20, 3:30 and 6:15. And then at 9:15. (Sort of like this morning too. I really hate when she gets into these patterns.) I finally gave in and started making tidying up around here.

Rousted the boys out of bed around noon and left for the movies at 1:00. We saw “Ratattouille”  which is a great film in the great tradition of “Toy Story” and “Cars” etc. etc. It really was a good film. I however was never quite able to anthropomorphize the rat colony completely and got a bit of the willies every time they swarmed.

One interesting note. We’re moving into another phase. The one where all the kids behind the counter (at the movie  theater for instance) are friends of my kids. The girl selling popcorn was a classmate of DS1. It was pretty funny. She was all 16 yr old flirty and giggly and he was all monosyllabic and no facial expression. I did get a bit of a reaction when I turned followed “Oh! You know DS1 from school?” with “Hey look, DS1, she has a job!” and a wink, of course.

After the movie we came home and I started the ribs and chicken into the oven and made a pitcher of Palomas (which I shouldn’t have done because I was the only one who drank them and so now I have essentially 3 servings left-over from a 4-drink pitcher. Kind of a waste of good Tequila.) Folks arrived around 5. Z&A brought S and RS showed up around 5:20.

Popped the par-cooked bits on the grill around 5:30, the corn into the boiling water and set the table.

Now here’s why I love these friends. The conversation was far ranging and included work, politics, church (which is the same as work for all of us), politics in the church, dating (I shared my getting stood up story while the boys were upstairs,) Harry Potter, looking for work, movies, family, friends, youth-group canoe trips (aka work), Lyme disease, 4th of Julys of yore/childhood, ‘back East’ (they’re all transplants; Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia someplace in Connecticut, respectively), parenting (none of them has kids, yet),  and and did I mention we talked about work?

But it also included two dramatic readings. You heard me correctly. Dramatic readings. I read the Langston Hughes poem I posted yesterday and A read Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address.

Anyway,  after dinner we talked a bit more. DS1 talked me into skipping fireworks with us and going to a friends’ house. And at 9:00 we carpooled over to the river to watch the downtown display from about a mile away.

The crowd was smaller than years past and I’m not really sure why. The weather was beautiful and there were no mosquitoes to speak of. You could see a whole lot of “illegal” personal fireworks going off.

(In MN, you can have ground displays and I think bottle-rockets, but anything that actually shoots up in the air and resembles a ‘real’ firework is over the limit. This is relatively new - since Gov. Jesse Ventura. Before that, even sparklers were technically banned. Personally, I don’t care as long as you don’t start my house car or yard on fire. And I wish that people who thought they were smart enough to buy and set them off were smart enough to keep kids from blowing themselves up with them. And maybe, just as a favor,  you could stop blasting them off after say, 1 AM?)

Possibly people stayed home, preferring the thrill of dismembering themselves or starting their house on fire to going to the public park to rub shoulders with the riff-raff. The grass was complete crunchy. We’ve had virtually no rain for almost a month now and the parks and my lawn look like it’s the end of August, not the beginning of July. The only green stuff is weeds and even they are starting to crisp.

DS2 brought some card games to pass the time until 10. (Rat-a-tat Cat and Slamwich) and RS, Z and I played with him while A and S laid back on the blanket and chatted.  We sat around and waited for traffic to clear a bit after the display (which was fine, but it turns out DS2 would have preferred to watch closer, where he could have heard the booms. So, remember that for next year, mom! Oh, that’s right. Next year he’s with his dad. sigh.)

Just before we picked up and wandered back to the cars, S summed up the evening very well as she lay on the blanket looking up at the stars and the clouds and smoke from the firecrackers around us.  “This was just as good as being with family.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Today, I’m back to my adventures. A little LN time in the morning, lunch with Sr. N to talk about job search, shopping with ME for the choir school in the afternoon and then in the evening, a walk at Elm Creek Park Reserve and a bite to eat with Mr. Hockey (the guy I saw Oceans 13 with last week.)

Sounds like a full day, huh? We’ll see how it goes.

A year ago on This Journey I helped a friend celebrate the life of her husband. Oh, and a year ago yesterday YM and I went Raspberry picking with my mom and sister.

— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…

a celebrated life 2006

— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…

a celebrated life 2006

— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…

a celebrated life 2006

Posted on July 5th, 2007 under food, friends. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.