July 5, 2013

• 4th “fun”

  In which the house of sunshine is not very bright.

  July 4, 2013 will go down in the annals as worst ever. Truly. Well, maybe Gettysburg was worse. Anyhow. The day dawned dry and bright. I had had a lovely evening the night before celebrating my freedom from work. My kid had her first ever driving lesson and nobody was hurt or angry and nothing was broken. Looked like our Biblical rain was going to stay away for the fireworks and we were happy folks.

  Except that that feeling in my gut wasn’t from nervousness about the kid driving. We’ll just skip to the chase whereupon this 47 year old somewhat grown up woman had an epic hangover to rival the great hangover of 1988.  Yes, I do name them.  Mojito= from the devil.

  Anyhow. It became clear that my exciting plans for the 4th (and I really do love my plans for the 4th) were nixed. Gone were my dreams of taking a blanket to listen to music all afternoon for free while the kids whine about listening to music all afternoon for free.  Gone was my “Stars and Stripes Forever” played enthusiastically by the community band (which has been my dream of joining since i first found out about it.) Gone was the overpriced greasy carnie food. And the most wonderful fireworks I have ever seen. Yup. I was bummed. Spawn was ok with this for some reason- which should have given me a clue for what was to come, but since she’s such a recluse these days, it didn’t. LLO was not. Very emphatically not.  Temper tantrum not.  Obnoxious temper tantrum not. 

  Well, spouseman is less immune to the temper tantrum than I am. Or perhaps he was thinking of my comfort. Or perhaps he was thinking that not everyone should have to suffer because I made an error in judgment. So off they went.  I assumed they were having a nice time eating overpriced greasy carnie food while waiting for the fireworks to start.

  And so the fireworks began.  I was listening on the radio.  Spawn and I tried to see the fireworks from the front of our house. Not so much.  So we settled in just to listen and be stoic and stuff. Then the phone rang.  LLO, who sounds incredibly adorable on the phone, was checking in to say that she never got her lemonade and that they were at the hospital.  WHAT?  Because Spouseman fainted 3 times before the EMT’s decided a little trip in the ambulance was necessary.  She naturally wanted me to pick her up (and get her lemonade- her current selfishness is going to be remedied I can assure you.) 

  I did the first thing that I do in every emergency. Panicked. Because we are a one car family and he had it. And 4th Fest is insanely popular. Traffic is horrendous. Not city horrendous, I’ll admit. But crazy, nonetheless. And who in the heck would I have the balls to call to give us a ride into that mess? Or who wouldn’t already be in that mess? Once I finished panicking, I decided the only thing to do was to go get the blasted car. Keep in mind that I’d only been vertical about 30 minutes after the morning and it feels a lot further away maybe than it is. Anyhow. Spawn volunteered to come with me. Thank goodness. Off we went. Along the way, we saw a few of the fireworks and some set off by crazies in the neighborhood. And heard the finale.  She asked me how I knew it was the finale.  Golly, that girl is blond sometimes.

  Anyhow, walked against the flow of the hordes. I got attacked by a tree. The tree won, but I escaped. Found our car- thank goodness we always park in the same illegal place. Then began our quest to get from campus to the hospital. Not far, but not the direction you want to be going as 4th Fest is ending. We had to use blinking lights and drive on the road all by ourselves (going the wrong direction from all other traffic). And there were traffic cones moved for us and just all kinds of groovy things. Felt a little like the President.

  We made it. And had a lovely time waiting for the docs to release him. 1 am is not fun in the hospital with children. Ever. Obviously he’s fine or something like that. Snoring at this moment, in fact. For which I will forgive him.

  There’s still the possibility in my mind that that kid who barfed for me last week gave us the flu. The only one in the house today who isn’t low key and miserable is LLO. And she’s just miserable. Because she couldn’t find the remote.

  Ok. whinging done.

  • 1:30 pm
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