InsaneJournal

Current location:	Fourth Floor Apartment on a Hill
Current mood:	chipper
Current music:	Leverage

The 4th of July Special
I have had a few memorable Independence Days. One year Magni had his appendix removed. Yes, on the 4th. A year later, my uncle had his appendix removed. I have experienced a lifetime of Independence days, and actually, the most beautiful fireworks show I've ever seen was not on New Years or July 4th. It was at DisneyWorld during GradNite.

But here, across the country in Seattle, people began to celebrate on Friday. Or at least in my part of town. I didn't know quite what to make of that. During the day, at night, didn't matter. You could hear booming in the distance at least since Friday. Now, in retrospect, I think fireworks were going off all week. Those booming sounds Magni and I heard and thought were gunshots were probably just more fireworks.

Now, I don't know about Friday night. That night Magni and I met up with Marjan (a coworker of Magni's) and her friend Karlina at fadó--and Irish pub and brewery that had a ladies night with all 80s music. Needless to say there was much, much fun to be had. The night ended early, unfortunately, because Marjan had to go pick up her parents, but we sang along, we chatted and I even danced a little bit. They even put on Gloria Estefan!

If I recall correctly, when my brother and I did get home, there may have been some booming in the background, but we were distracted by some Little Big Planet.

Saturday, there was more odd booming in the background in the middle of the day, but again, we were distracted by some White Collar (the new season just started!) and then we got ready to see the new Transformers movie. Personally, I think it's the best one out of the three. Great story and the characters are stronger, especially Sam. Sam finally comes into his own in this film and it's wonderful to watch. Definitely my favorite of the three.

Afterward, Magni and I headed to a "zombie fest." I know. A zombie festival? What is UP with you, Seattle? It makes the postcard I sent Amaris of the Seattle Zombie Apocalypse even funnier. Apparently, Freemont is famous for this zombie festival. They even had people available to paint your face like a zombie if you weren't already dolled up, and they took pictures of everyone who was dressed up so they could enter the World Book of Records for the most zombies in one location or something like that. Pretty epic.

Now, I'm not one for zombies. I hate zombie movies, I don't like to watch them. They give me nightmares. But comedic zombies are usually somewhat okay with me. Shawn of the Dead is a movie I like. So going to this thing was all right because it takes away the scare factor to a degree for me. Seeing a bunch of zombies eating pizza completely diminishes how scary they are to me, haha. That and all these zombies are actually pretty nice people. And nerds. Oh, the epic nerdiness. So there was food, a boogie box, beer gardens, a stage with music and then there was a ZOMBIE WALK. Yes, that's right, all the people dressed up as zombies started to walk or shamble up the street and then down it.

I kept thinking, my buddy Amaris should be here. She'd love this.

After that, Magni and I headed home for some relaxing and to hear some more booms out beyond our walls.

Sunday, more booming. That was when it finally hit us that all this booming has been fireworks. We could see some later that night. Sunday was our chill and watch TV and play Magic day. And puzzling over the fireworks that have been going off all weekend.

Then yesterday, the actual 4th, was pretty busy. We cleaned. Magni invited a couple people over last minute, saying "Hey, Jacoby, Luisa, you guys doing anything? Come over by 2pm!" This was at almost noon. Still, we cleaned and got dressed and he went to the Albertson's for some meat to grill. And boy, did he! He grilled some mad steaks and shish kabobs. Made some corn on the cob. I made some wicked garlic mashed potatoes. The couple of guests we had brought beer and booze. Luisa, Magni's coworker, just recently got married to her fiancee and they, only a couple of days ago, bought a house. So we got to meet her husband Jose for the first time. Luisa is Colombian. I met her when Magni took me bowling with the BEHN (Boeing Employees Hispanic N-something...), but she grew up in Miami. Jose is Venezuelan, but also grew up in Miami. Needless to say there was some fun Miami reminiscing--especially about driving in that nutty town. Jose eyed my dominoes with much desire. So we played. Jacoby brought a friend of his name Mahut from Sudan. He's played dominoes before too, but both Jose and Mahut are used to playing dominoes only up to the double six. Magni and I play up to double nine. We switched partners around, Luise and Jose played with each other while I played with Mahut. Magni played with Jacoby against Jose and Mahut. Lots of laughter and yelling. Dominoes is a great game like that.

What amazes me is that here we had two Cubans, a Venezuelan, a Colombian, a Georgian (yes, from Atlanta, Georgia born and bred--Jacoby is a fun dude), and a Sudanese and the only one who had never played dominoes before was the Georgian. Three different Latin countries and an African one all shared this thing in common. And, boy, did those men get LOUD. Luisa and I were sitting on the balcony and just listened to them yell and laugh and shout. What a ruckus. We couldn't help but laugh.

Eventually, though, Jacoby and Mahut left, and Jose, being domino deprived for too long it seemed wanted another game. This time, it was the siblings versus the married couple.

My grandmother would be so proud.

Jose had gotten all cocky from playing random with Luisa and beating me and Mahut, and then playing better with Mahut and beating Magni and Jacoby. Magni asked me to cover Jose, because he had issues passing the guy. So I did.

We gave them a pollona. They didn't make a single point that partido. A partido is when you play dominoes until one team gets 150 points. That means, Magni and I got 150 points and they didn't get one. Jose immediately had him and Luisa switch seats. HA. Apparently I made him pass too many times for him to be comfortable. It didn't matter though. Magni and I hit them up with another pollona. Now here's the thing: to be fair, neither of them had played in a long time. Magni and I just recently had some practice against the parents, who, by the way, kicked our ass. Because, well, they're they PARENTS. Magni, Alain and I have been trained long and hard for years and years in this game. Intensive, trial-by-fire kind of training. I didn't realize the extent of our training. I mean, when you're up against the big dogs, it's easy to think of yourself as the puppy still being taught with much, much to learn. But with Jose and Luisa, I mean, yeah, Magni and I had the advantage. It's our game. Double nine game versus Jose's double six game--that he hasn't even played in four years.

But Jose was cocky. He played Magni and I separately with different partners. He felt he was in his groove. That him and Luisa could take Magni and I on no problem. Yeah, Magni and I don't play much, after all, there's nobody to play with. But years and years and years of hours and hours of brutal domino playing since we were kids playing up against our great grandmothers who had the devil's own luck... For the first time, I saw the result of this training.

Four partidos. Two pollonas. Next two partidos were closer, they got a good amount of points, almost won once I think. But Magni and I ended up winning the next two as well. It was no contest. Luck played its hand, and yeah, they were out of practice, but the easy motion and plays and understanding that Magni and I had came from all that training that has been ingrained in us definitely had its effect. Jose may have thought, oh yeah, these two are out of practice like me. We're on the same level. But those four games... Magni and I demolished.

I felt so... Cuban.

We were still in the middle of these four partidos when the fireworks started at 9:30 PM. We got a little distracted. The thing is, we were going to go to Gas Works Park to see the fireworks, or go into Everett somewhere. But we quickly realized that from our balcony... We had an 180 degree, panoramic, firework-watching perch of awesome. We could see fireworks going off from one side of our peripheral vision to the other. A horizon of fireworks all going off. Beautiful ones too. Epic, giant ones that you only see AT shows. And they were going off from South to North right across the horizon we could see. Fireworks went off right next to us and behind us, in our own complex and in the complex next door.

We watched for a while until Jose was not-quite-too-subtly trying to get us back in to finish the games. So we did. Afterward, Luisa and Jose finally took their leave and I gave them the open invite of whenever they wanted to come over and play dominoes, the door was open.

Then Magni and I sat outside for a while longer, watching the fireworks. I have never, in all the 4th of Julys I have experienced, seen fireworks go on and on and on and on like I did last night. The fireworks started at 9:30 before you could even see them clearly because there was still LIGHT outside. And at 11 PM they were still going.

Never. I've never seen anything like it before.

It was beautiful.

Now, as to why this town has been blowing fireworks all WEEK before the 4th, I don't know. They really like to celebrate I guess. Or, maybe there is no reason, or reason has nothing to do with it. They just had the fireworks and figured, might as well blow them ALL WEEKEND. It's not just Independence Day. It's Independence Day WEEKEND. I don't know, but all in all, this past 4th of July was definitely one of the best I had. The day was beautiful, the food was great, the company was surprisingly good, the domino playing was epic and so was the fireworks display from right outside our damn windows.

Never been happier to have a fourth floor apartment on a hill before. And Magni, with quite a happy sigh last night, said, "This...is what freedom tastes like."

~~~

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism." ~Erma Bombeck