Ch. 185; Vol. 10

Saturday on a Thursday.

Four day weekends.

48 deviled eggs.

Theodore, The Bear, and Izzy discussing all the amazing restaurants in the city and surrounding suburbs with cigars on the deck.

Puck got back – wet red Chucks – playing in the park creek, ready for promised Minecraft, barefoot.

Gloria set cream and berries on the counter, gave me the Gloria Special Pen & Paper map of her family history. Which is always interesting. I like culture networks.

The Big House.

25 folks representing about nine different families and four or more different states from Iowa City to Memphis. Friends and Family.

Gloria hauled in the hand-crank ice cream bucket for vanilla with strawberries and blueberries. She commissioned The Bear and Red Strike to crank, then Red Strike’s girlfriend…

“Oh, she’s my kind of stock,” Gloria laughed. “Are you sure you’re not from…”

“I watched a lot of Davy Crockett and Little House growing up.”

“Oh, of course!”

Only Francis was missing for awhile, stuck at work.

Fire crackers. Badminton. Just about everyone got a piece of that. Puck taught Grandma how to play Minecraft. Joe serenaded the party with his own medley of show stopper tunes, including: Rock Monsters, Elvis’ Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, ridiculously horrible Saxophone covers for My Heart Will Go On, etc.

Of course, by the time Francis did get back from life guarding and mentally stacking instructions to watch Ivy’s cat, Maxwell, the following week…

Explosions.

Of varying magnitude.

Paper airplanes – those were surprisingly dangerous.

An apple.

Plastic Bucket.

Plastic trash can… sort of.

[Puck always in a safe place.]

And other probably incredibly dangerous duct-tape wrapped stunts.

The neighbors weren’t too far behind.

Shoonk… POW!

“The Romanians have declared WAR!” Carrie teased.

So something past a Mastercard commercial, these kids know how to live.

Fireworks displays are the sort of things you forget about almost all year. All year until the day they’re going to happen, and really until the hour it finally gets completely dark and the fireflies are out. Then you remember how cool they are. And considering that this year it was almost cold – Cherry left the outing with a blanket wrapped Hawai’ian-dress-style around her person – it was a good start.

Showering-Fizzing bursts of gold with an echoing thump that makes you feel a little shorter. Like someone took a mallet and punched you into the topsoil.

Earth Shakers.

Our age-old name.

Everything erupting in a four-part finale that would have shamed the District of Columbia. Much applause and “ooooh-ing”.

“I think my beard was actually shaking,” was The Bear’s official comment.