7.5.10 - Missouri Summer 2009 Chronicles, Entry 2

And the lovely weekend continues.

Yesterday after writing my last note I met up with Jack for lunch (sushi) ((delicious)). I came home and started baking spinach sausage loaf for Mike's party. Given the time, the right music, and the nice weather, and baking is a lot of fun. I had extra bread dough so I also made cinnamon rolls for the first time, which were surprisingly easy, amazingly delicious, and made the kitchen smell wonderful. Somewhere in all of that Jack got back from work and I tried to get him to go take a nap, but he insisted on helping me clean up instead. Eventually we laid down to doze off to The 10th Kingdom but we didn't end up staying there long.

We brought the spinach sausage loaf to Mike's party where there was a plethora of other delicious food, including Tiffany's "Monkey Bread" (so named because you have to pick at it like a monkey to eat it). It was filled with chocolate. There was also fruit salad displayed in beautiful and suspiciously familiar watermelon bowls, and a taco salad with Italian dressing.

Mike's house has a huge backyard bordering a small lake, and thus is perfect for shooting off fireworks.

Everyone launching/watching others launch fireworks into the lake.

Nearly everyone there spent a long time firing off increasingly large numbers of bottle rockets at once, among other colorful and/or ridiculously loud fireworks. I just took pictures. Some of the boys, including Mike, Steve, and Jack, got especially into making bigger, more dangerous explosions. 

Launch!!

And thus singing his fingers, which he was quite proud of.

Don't stand too close.

Looking casual.

And of course there was some fire-breathing, which Jack took part of for the first time. Makes me nervous, but it is cool to watch.

Jack did it even with facial hair. Great.

It started to rain suddenly, and pretty hard. We hurried to cover Mike's stereos and other equipment with trash bags, and then we all went inside and played the ever-amusing Apples-to-Apples. I think my favorite was when I played the card "Emotional" and Julie put "Cold Pizza".

Mike also enjoys rubbing Julie's head.

The rain stopped long enough for Mike to set up his much bigger, brighter, display fireworks. It started sprinkling again, however, as he began his show. We ended up watching fireworks in the rain, something I've never done before. It was warm, summer rain though, and it made for more reflective fireworks. Overall I'd say it was awesome.

The pyrotechnic Prince

Steve's head exploding in blue sparks.

After that most of the party played beer pong on the deck, but Julie, Denny, Jack and I watched my first Pauly Shore movie, Encino Man. It was pretty amusing. Even though it wasn't that late at that point, Jack and I were tired enough to head home. He lazed on the couch watching An Extremely Goofy Movie, also with Pauly Shore, and I hung out with David and Everett watching them take my facebook quiz. Somewhere in all of that I finally passed out. A highly successful fourth, I believe.

7.4.09 - Missouri Summer 2009 Chronicles, Entry 1

I worked open to 10:30am on Thursday and then allowed myself the luxury of two very long naps throughout the day, because I knew I'd want to stay up as late as possible that night. That afternoon I spent a very long but often hilarious time in the jeep with Neil hauling all the way to Berkeley in traffic and then all the way back via completely wrong turns so he could apply for a job. The weather was beautiful and the conversation was excellent (obviously) and I'm glad I got to spend more one-on-one time with him since he couldn't come back to MO this summer. I'll see him in a few weeks, but still.

I stayed up very late cleaning the majority of the house, packing, and of course messing around on facebook. I started to make a playlist of hilarious cover songs including "Gin & Juice" by The Gourds and various Richard Cheese songs. I didn't go to sleep until roughly 2:30am.

I got up about 2 hours later to get ready to leave. Neil was kind enough to get up with me even though he didn't have work on Friday, and he drove me all the way back over to East Bay for my 6:45am flight out of Oakland. The trip was very smooth because, as planned, I slept pretty much the entire way. Fell asleep as we taxied out, and woke up without opening my eyes thinking "Have we really STILL not taken off? What is the hold up?" only to open my eyes facing out the window and see clouds everywhere. You know, I've flown literally 100's of times but I can still be stunned by some of the gorgeous views from the plane. I don't bother to try to take pictures of them; the camera never captures it. It was still nice.

So I fell asleep taxing out of Oakland and woke up landing in SLC. I also slept for about half the trip from SLC to StL but for my waking hours I worked on what is going to be an epic playlist for my upcoming road trip from StL back to San Francisco.

Jack picked me up from the airport. :)

We went back to Mom's house, hung out with everyone (including BALD JULIE), and bought ingredients for spinach sausage loaf, which I will make today. We showed Everett the literal version of Total Eclipse of the Heart (which everyone should see) and watched some Dan band videos, laughing pretty hard.

Then, in the evening, Jack and I drove down to the MO river waterfront for the fireworks show. It was supposed to rain so the place wasn't quite as slam-packed as it had been last year. Jack found a great parking spot and we walked to the center of the crowd and to the edge of the water, found an open spot to sit. The weather was great--overcast but not dark, breezy but not cold, and there was a band playing various bluesy-songs in the background. 

July 3, waiting by the MO river for the fireworks show.

We just sat next to the river talking and people-watching. I think if I ever have kids one of my favorite parts will be re-experiencing the holidays through them. Seeing other families setting up their blankets, wearing red white & blue, playing with glowsticks & eating funnel cakes--it all reminded me very much of 4th of July in Folsom when I was a kid. There were also little ones getting excited about throwing rocks (really clumps of hardened dirt) into the river. I was not as thrilled about this because each toss left a spray of dust in the air and all over my face, so I told them to go away. Otherwise they were cute.

Awhile after it had gotten dark Julie, Denny, Tiffany & Aaron showed up (that is, Denny and half of Hellion). It was good to see all of them; I hadn't seen Denny in months. We joked around until the fireworks 
display.

JULIE IS BALD. It's fun to rub her head.

The show was excellent. We were near enough that we felt the booming in our chests. We were near enough that the ashes fell all around us, and we had to look nearly directly up to watch some of the fireworks. Somewhere vaguely in the background there was patriotic music playing, but mostly you heard the fireworks and children screaming (delighted, cheering screaming, not terrorized screaming. I think.)

Overall it was a great night. Great to see Jack, great to see my family and other friends, great to visit the familiarity of the suburbs and experience actual weather. There are supposed to be thunderstorms today. Missouri thunderstorms. San Francisco never really has thunder storms. Should be spectacular.