Independence Day

This past weekend was a great one, in terms of parties: my "1776" party on Saturday night, and then a 4th of July / Independance Day party on Sunday, down in Clearlake at Scott Buford's parent's place.

Right after church on Sunday, I hurried home to gather Rob up and get on the road to Clearlake. The party started at 3 p.m., and it was just before 1 when we finally got onto the road. We brought our appetites and swim trunks: those were both explicitly noted on the invitation. Of course, we also brought along the Longbottom Leaf. After all, we'd spent most of Friday night and Saturday stoned, why would Sunday be any different. In fact, we started out on the 1st, because I had been paid, by getting 3 gram bags from Teena. That was Thursday. So, we celebrated Rob's finishing the first summer session at Blinn College (and he kicked some ass, too!), payday, and the oncoming party holiday weekend by using our new Leaf. And it was some of the most amazing Leaf we'd ever had. Very good start.

Because of some thick traffic, we got to Scott's place at about 3:30. When we walked into the house, we saw about five people standing around the kitchen table. The table was laden with a great spread of food. The people all had partially eaten plates in their hands. [Is that how we really talk? about a half-eaten plate??] It looked like the party was about to end. Well, with Rob in the house, even a dead party like this one can come back to life. But when you throw both of us under the influence onto a party, the results are unpredictable!

There were a lot of pregnant pauses. And you know how it is - we all knew what was going on. We all were trying to think of the next topic for discussion, or joke to tell. We all heard that there was no music filling in the gaps in speaking. And, yet, nobody acknowledged the gap. I began to interrupt the "gap" and throw it at Scott, saying, "You're the host, man. When the conversation dies, the ball's in your court." That didn't help.

After more of this, I was just vamping; making stupid comments that I thought were funny. Rob was the recipient of looks from the other guests, as if saying, "Is this guy for real? When's he going to shut up?"

Eventually, the party developed enough energy of its own to sustain itself. We played water volleyball for a good long time; continued to eat snacks; tried some video games on Mrs. Buford's [Debbie] X-Box. She was so proud to point out that the video game setup was HERS. Hilarious.

Well, the last thing of note was the viewing of fireworks. We had a plan to go down to the Space Center to watch. I understand we'd have had a pretty good view. We travelled in three cars: Scott and a few guests, followed by Josh and Andrea [I liked Josh because he was freakin HOT and had one of those swimmer tummies that looks like he's holding it in - and Rob liked Andrea not only because she has the same name as his new girlfriend, but she was a fun girl, too. And pretty.], followed by Rob and me.

The roads began to be quite congested with moving cars, not to mention cars that were parked on the side of the road. As we seemed to be getting close to our destination - "seemed," because we kept getting slower and slower - Josh pulls into an apartment complex, complete with a gate and cop. We followed, but since Buford was ahead of Josh, he didn't make the turn.

As Josh pulls up to the gate and talks with the cop I pull up behind him. At that point, Rob starts to geek-out a bit because there is a cop, and here is our/my pipe setting in the truck's drink holder. I was oblivious to the potential for Bad Things to happen. Rob quickly cleaned up the pipe and we pulled up to the cop. With a little discussion of, "we're with them," we pulled into the complex right behind Josh and Andrea.

We wove through this place: around cars, around buildings, through gates for a really long time; all the way looking for two places to park. But this place was completely PACKED with cars. It was a huge complex, too, so we drove for a long time until we finally came upon an area that was open. We parked and started walking through the complex in the direction of the flashing lights in the sky. The fireworks had started.

There were about three places along the path of our walking where we could see a good portion of the sky, and had a decent view of the fireworks. Josh kept on. We kept following. Once I spoke up to say that, "We have a pretty good view here. Why don't we stop?" Josh said, "There's a little park up ahead that should be a good place to stop." A park would be nice - all of the places I thought might be good viewing locations were just concrete parking lots and sidewalks with apartment buildings looming an most sides.

We approached the park by walking between two buildings. The sky opened up to our view and we saw what looked like the most perfect location! The perfect location not just to view the Clearlake fireworks display, but also three others! We could see four fireworks displays all at the same time from this park-on-a-hill which overlooked the water. Wow! Josh had really come through!

As the Clearlake show neared its end, another display in the distance could be seen. That made a total of five fireworks shows that we could see. Incredible.

* * *

When it was all over, we walked back to the cars, said our goodbyes and drove off. Rob and I didn't see Scott, or stop at his folks' house - we just hit the road for home. That reminds me that I haven't thanked Scott, yet, for the party. I need to do that.