I love my country. My rambling drunk girl at a party of a country. I don’t always like Independence Day, though, because it’s always on the swampiest day of summer, and hanging around sweaty, drunk ‘Mericans rarely comes through on the promise of awesome that it implies.
I spent my last 4th of July in the States alternately taking care of my sick mom, grilling and watching war movies with my dad, and making a baby quilt for my nephew, who was due in mid-July. It was great, as I haven’t always been big on celebrating. In and around my college years, the 4th of July weekend was yet another reason to get Star Spangled Hammered for 2 days straight. But, for the last 5 years or so, I almost always had either an injury or house sitting gigs that kept me in the comfort of my own air conditioning, not getting eaten by mosquitoes and hornets. And it was awesome, because humidity sucks and some of us don’t like sweating and sunburn and getting heat stroke. Also, being hungover at work on July 5th is terrible.
But I have to admit, seeing the pics of everyone dressed in their red white and blue, and their cook outs and their hanging out in grassy back yards, grilling and drinking cold beers and wearing shorts and flip flops pulled at the ol’ nostalgia strings in my heart. Especially as I put on another layer of clothing and turned the space heater up a notch. For a hot minute, I actually missed the stupidly hot days of an East Coast summer, and all my drunk ‘Mericans.
But then, I remember how I’m a fan of not sweating through my clothing, and I felt much happier with a winter 4th. I gladly put the heater up on full power and relished my mosquito bite free skin. Ahhhhh.
We paid tribute to my forefathers in the Continental Congress by drinking American beer, devouring bacon cheeseburgers with American style bacon, watching Mark Whalberg movies, and getting down on some Red White & Blue cobbler while sitting under a blanket and huddling around the space heater. It was awesome.
There are three different liquor stores, or “bottle shops” close to our apartment. At these three different stores, 4 different American beers can be found: PBR, Sam Adams, Budweiser, and MGD. I was going to get some MGD for Joel, who requested it, which meant I had to make a special trip to the bottle shop furthest from us. As I grabbed cash from my wallet, I thought, “Should I bring my ID? Nah.” Fun fact, I’ve been here for 10 months, and I haven’t been asked for ID once when buying booze. However, yesterday, I was carded when I tried to buy some shitty American beer. I thought about trying to talk them into it, trying to convince them that I just left my ID at home and I promise I’m 30, but I didn’t want to add more layers of sadness by begging for them to sell me MGD. I sulked out of there, happy for once that I didn’t add insult to hobo injury by wearing sweat pants in public. Clearly, Sam Adams won out.
My first wintery Independence Day among countrymen who are still in cahoots with the monarchy we told to piss off was a grand success. We didn’t have fireworks (which was a first) but Jesus, Freedom, and America was felt from sun up to sun down. And I think we’re both diabetic as a result.
Hope everyone had fun endlessly sweating! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get another sweater.
Audpodge and Blither Blather 