Fourth of July

Things I associate with this time of year are the following:
The musical "1776", particularly the original cast recording on LP record.
Inappropriate Rain
Appropriate heat
Fireworks displays from a variety of vantage points
Carnivals

On this last note, I must point out that I'm the kind of kid that showed up at the breakfast table dressed in my best Red White and Blue outfit with my face already painted. Holidays mean dressing up! Holidays mean face paint! Holidays mean celebrating!

I know that I have to have gone to the Kirkwood festivities more than once, but the total experience crowds together in my memory as one of those perfect days. Games booths that had interesting prizes! A dunking booth that people stood in line for; both to throw and also to be dunked. I was dunked, but probably only once. (Dunking water is not so clean. Ew.) Music was everywhere, mostly Sousa marches of course. And then we'd all head out to the field to watch fireworks. I can remember watching the fireworks from that field with the neighbor kids and a neighbor who was my mom's good friend. I was staying with them that summer while my family went to Michigan. I remember having a great time talking and laughing and goofing off with the kids and taking turns wearing sunglasses to watch the fireworks.

To be fair, to me the fireworks aren't a huge deal. I like them, don't get me wrong. I have no objection to them whatsoever. I'm just not someone who needs them to feel complete about their fourth of July celebration. What I don't care for is watching them amongst complete strangers in a big crowd and then dealing with driving home afterward in the crowds. *That* I can do without. Interestingly, my SigOther hates carnivals and festivals and those kinds of crowds but will go to extreme lengths to see a fireworks show. He is nostalgic about when he lived in Florissant (Before we were together) and he could sit in his back yard and watch the show without driving anywhere. That's nice, and I probably would be more passionate about fireworks if that's how I got to see them, myself.

So if there's a big group going to see them, I'll cheerfully tag along. I'll bring a bottle of booze or more likely something to hydrate with since the weather is so awful this time of year. I like the show, and I like looking for my favorite types of explosions, too. (Hint: The ones that go all swirly right before they die...)

But for me, I like the festivals better. The parades. The music, oh, the music. Give me a marching band playing some awesome classics and I'll go wild!

"Sit down, John! Sit down, John! For God's sake, John, SIT DOWN!"
"Though the shell may belong to Great Britain, the Eagle inside belongs to US!"
"Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

One other thing:

If I can scare up a copy (via netflix, perhaps) of the musical 1776 on DVD, I'll cheerfully put it up on the screen in the heat of the afternoon on the 4th.

Give me a call if you want in on it.

(at least) One more July 4th story for today.

So no sh*t, there I was. :)

I came up with a harebrained scheme with less than 24 hours notice. Vinita Park was having a neighborhood parade and anyone could join in. WHoo! I haven't done a parade in years and I've never *driven* in one.

They were clever, because there were two categories: Cars/floats and Bikes. Cash prizes! All we had to do was show up at 9am, and participate in the parade. Now, I've never even bothered to watch the neighborhood parade, because I'm either not in the state at the time, or more likely at work. So I really wanted to do this.

Enter a Draconian friend. I asked bakadragon if she would be willing to come to my house at OHGODITSTOODAMNEARLY and help me decorate my truck. She giggled and agreed. Then we all went to dinner and I forgot that the stores that sell the things I would need would be CLOSED at 11pm when we got done with food and fun.

Whoops.

So there I was at Schnuck's last night, picking up American Flags on sticks, and streamers (since mine are all gone away) and these napkins with american flags printed on them. Oh, and poster board. (For the out-of-towners: Schnuck's is the name of one of our major grocery chains here in St. Louis. It's like a Kroger.)

For I had a plan! It's the year of the Dragon, right? So I dug through the attic and found my Big Dumb Weird Thing, which has done double duty as a dragon for years. It's a long, technicolor snake puppet (we think) that was likely a carinval prize or something. I snagged it at Goodwill several years ago and have really gotten my money's worth out of the thing. I thought, "Gee, why don't I put it on the truck and do some Year of the Dragon crap! Yeah!"

Mainly I figured that I didn't have time to make anything more elaborate than that.

So she came over this morning and we stuck a bunch of random crap on my truck. To be fair, there is no one on the planet that I'd rather partner with to take random crap and use it to decorate artfully than bakadragon. :D

So we painted some signs that said "USA" and "2012" and "Year of the" and "Dragon" and taped them all over the sides, front, and back of my truck. We also tied the dragon to the roof of the cab and draped his body through the truck bed and left his tail sticking out the back end of the truck. She painted cute dragons on the signs, too, and I realized that it was past 9am and that I might not get to be judged for the contest. I took the streamers and tape and scissors (and napkins) and headed out to the meeting place.

Turns out that I was right on time despite being 20 minutes late. Heck, I even had time to add streamers and napkins to the whole shebang and set up my Ipod to play patriotic music really loudly through my speakers.

Before we lined up to go, a handsome young man walks up to me with something in his hand and says, "Where do you want it?"

I, um. What?
"The ribbon. Where do you want me to put it?"

I...
I have a ribbon?!?
I managed to PLACE in this contest?

He grinned and said, "Yep. First place!"

Blink. "Put it right up there in the center of my windshield!!!"

Now, let's be fair about this. It's a little bitty hometown parade, and the only announcement about it that I saw was delivered the day before. And I looked at the other cars, and basically what we had was a bunch of random vehicles (around a dozen or so) with streamers stuck on them randomly. One truck had a bunch of kids in the back and a ring of fire (Done with a hula hoop and some construction paper, very nice) and another had a big ol' American flag mounted in the back. Mostly, though, it was a bunch of cars with minimal effort to the decorating. Then they saw me.


Oh, right. Professional artists. LOL.
We had our lovely little parade down Page and up North and South to City hall at the border of Overland on Midland. They gave out little flags to the people who braved the heat to come out, and water to the kids on bikes and in the backs of pick up trucks. (I brought my own water. I also handed out sunblock before we got started. NOT my first rodeo. LOL.) I was called up during the award ceremony and received my cash prize!

Found it!

I'm not even going to get into how I found this (though it was quite a fall down the YouTube rabbithole), but I finally rediscovered one of my very favorite comedic bits.

It's a cute british woman with an adorable monkey puppet. Naturally, it all goes horribly wrong.

Bwa ha ha ha ha!!!

I *WISH* I were this clever. Holy COW!

Ooo! An even better version here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E25ebRjx8w0&feature=related

Though it isn't quite as... er... blue. LOL