Fourth of July. Independence Day. Fireworks go off, people cheer, adults drink cold beer (along with various other things) while us teenagers grab a coke, everyone gathers around for a barbecue, and we enjoy each others' company. Today, my parents and I tagged along to a street party in the neighborhood where we used to live (our friends had invited us). The street is a downhill dead end, which makes it even more fun, and even a bit private. So as we began our walk down the street, we stopped as something shiny caught our eye. My dad bent down and picked up a big silver hoop earring, just laying on the street, and we looked at it and started laughing. Of all the things that would be there! This kind of thing would only happen in the city.
In the city, you can never really know what to expect. In fact, one day as I was taking my dog for a walk, we walked past this one-story brick house. Sitting in the driveway on an old beat up lawn chair, was this 40-something man. So I was just walking along, minding my own business, I honestly had no idea who this guy was, so I ignored him. Then I hear him yell "TANYA! Hey Tanya!" There was no one else around. My mind froze, but it was a knee-jerk reaction to keep walking and just ignore him, so I did. But the yelling kept going. "TANYA! Where you going? Get back here, Tanya!" I then began to walk just a bit faster. Even if he had followed me to see why "Tanya" was leaving, (even though he didn't) I figured he would've realized it wasn't me who he was looking for. Do I even look like a Tanya?? I don't think I do....
Anyways, the fourth of July barbecue was lots of fun. We met the newest residents of our previous street, all very friendly people, and we told them stories of our move and what's been going on. The only really good one I had was the story of my bed tipping and breaking through a bit of the bottom that was holding it up. We had gotten this bed from IKEA and it was beautiful! It was completely padded and had a great black and white floral print on it. The people at IKEA said that if you had a box spring already, all you needed for the bed to hold up your mattress was a solid metal midbeam, which we bought. However, a couple nights after the bed was put together and had been slept in, something very surprising happened. It was about 3 am, and I was climbing into bed to go to sleep. All of a sudden, I heard a loud cracking and crunching noise. I looked under the corner of the bed nearest me and sure enough, the corner of the box spring had fallen through.
My mind quickly went through what I needed to do. Surely, I was NOT going to sleep on a tippy bed that would move every time I did. So, I figured I would have to move the bed over against my wall (Only the headboard was against my wall and the bed in the center of the room) and move the mattress onto the floor so I could sleep. However, the feet of the bed were not padded, they were just metal, and we had a gorgeous hardwood floor that we didn't want to mess up, but we had recently bought some pads that would go under the feet. Unfortunately, those were out somewhere in the house. So I took my cell phone and, using it as a light, I searched through the house trying to find the pads, and eventually I did (remember, this is 3 am, my parents are sleeping, and I'm trying to accomplish all this without waking them up). I put the pads on the feet of the bed and began to move it, inch by inch. Every time the bed moved, it made a screeching sound from the new pads against the floor, and every time that happened, I shushed it (SHH!!!). Eventually, my mom woke up and opened my door, and I could have laughed so hard (had my dad not been sleeping) from looking at her standing there in her pajamas, eyes barely opened, and all she said was "Go to bed." I explained my situation and told her it was all going fine. She went back to bed, and I completed my mission.
That was the only story I really had worth telling at this thing, so I was mostly listening to other people and watching the kids (or "hooligans" I had called them) run around and jump into the tiny blow-up pools. One girl had a pretty, sparkly, pink princess dress on, and she was completely adorable, running around in little red heels (play heels, of course). She was fun to watch, lifting her dress going up steps, just marching around like she owned the place. At one point during the barbecue, I was talking with a friendly dad when all of a sudden, this ear piercing scream is let out, and I turn my head to see who it was, and sure enough, Miss Princess Hooligan was screeching her heart out. Immediately after she finished, her parents were telling her not to do it again, and I was so glad they did. I'd rather not lose my hearing.
Later in the barbecue, just chatting with other people, I see this brown blurr dart out from under my chair and through the grass, around someone else, and back around behind a tree. Only as it got further away from me did I realize that it was a squirrel!!! This little brown rodent had gone bezerk and sprinted through our gathering. We all laughed about it afterwards, and you could hear people across the street saying, "Did you see that? It was a squirrel!" This made everything a bit more entertaining ;)
The food was great as well. After we had finished eating, my parents and I headed back with our friends to their house on the street, and we hung out in there and had a couple brownies that they hadn't taken out to everyone else. One of our friends (we'll call her Josie*), the maker of the brownies, was upset because she was shamed by other people earlier in the day. She had picked up some watermelon to bring down earlier, only to find that someone had brought an entire cooler-full. She was going to bring down some brownies (the ones that were left for us to eat ;] ) to the gathering, but people had brought decorated cakes and homemade cookies. Poor girl. In the end, though, it was better for us, because those brownies were GOO-OO-OOD. Yes. I made it three syllables :)
When it was finally time for the fireworks, we went out on Josie's deck and took our seats. Some other people from the party had gathered together some fireworks (smaller ones, of course) that they could shoot off from the middle of the field across the street, so we had what we called the "sky box seats". At first, these red, white, and blue mini-fireworks went off from the ground, and I guess they lit them too quickly because a couple went off straight to the side!!! We were so afraid that the field was going to catch on fire! But it didn't. Thank goodness. More loud ones went off, and some quiet ones that didn't quite work, but all in all, it was fun because we were all together. Plus, Josie's roommate's dog, Bella, kept lettin off farts to keep us annoyed. THAT was my LEAST favorite part of the evening.
In our car ride home, we were talking about how shooting off fireworks in our city was illegal, and how it was funny that we didn't see any cops. My dad mentioned about how some people can be idiots and think "Oh, let's shoot off guns up in the air! They won't hit anybody..." and he goes on to say, "What goes up, must come down." Then he apologizes for being a "science nerd" and saying he's not nearly as bad as Bill Nye, the ultimate science nerd (and guy!). Then he continues his monologue to say "You know, he's not even a real science guy. He's just an actor." I then say, "But he actually makes money for what he does. You're just sitting here telling us." My dad says, "Yeah, he's a professional I guess." Then I say, "Yep, he's a Pro Faux." We all finish our night by singing "Bill Nye's a Science Lie!" So I think my fourth of July went pretty well overall and ended perfectly. Toodle-oo!
* = Not a real name
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