the best holiday (pageant) ever

the fourth of july is my favorite holiday. in case you were wondering. and what better way to spend it than hangin in our nation's capitol? it started with a huge pancake breakfast at a friend's house, complete with fun run and patriotic costume contest. bonus points for wearing costume the whole 6 blocks.

quinn and adri

of course, no holiday would be complete without a trip to the container store where melanie, melinda and i found some fabulous luggage tags. my personal favorite: "i'm pretty sure this isn't your bag." and then i took a nap. but not at the container store. i went home.

now. how to watch fireworks in our nation's capitol? becuase you must watch fireworks on the fourth. it's the law. i decided. well, you could leave at 2pm and fight for a spot on the mall OR you could make a split second decision in june to go on a cruise and watch them from the potomac with the washington and lincoln memorials as a backdrop. you can also pretend like you're jack and rose on the titanic while your friends play art director and other friends and random people you don't know take pictures. yes. this is a good idea.

joe, if we're ever stranded

in the middle of a frigid ocean

(or the potomac)

i'll share my door with you.

of course, there's always an after party, where many people pile onto a couch and watch a random movie and eat ice cream. i think we watched maverick because it's clearly patriotic. i'm not sure, though. i had to go to bed because the fine holiday fun continued on the fifth, too! i know, right? it's totally blowing your mind.

from the left: sam, kim, annie, cool girl, jim, kyle, chareese, tim

so. i'm a pretty lucky girl. or as manda used to say, i'm a yucky girl. speaking of manda, i had to catch my bus early early in the morning to meet said sister and friends in nyc. this was a delightful extension of her and her friend abby's trip to see me in dc. first stop was mcdonalds. i needed some o' that sweet sweet nectar of the gods, which is really the only acceptable reason to go to micky-d's. that and to use the restroom. diet coke in hand and properly relieved, we went to see grease. one of manda's friend's sisters played cha-cha (the best dancer at st. bernadette...with the worst reputation) so that made the production even more enjoyable. i parted with manda and co for a few short hours to meet up with my friend mary, who'd come up from dc the night before with her mom, niece and cousin. we went to a touristy pizza place just off times square and my lovely roommate from undergrad met us there. i hadn't seen jessamine in FIVE YEARS. that's a lot.

while in new york, one must visit the hard rock cafe. i think it might be a law. actually, the law is to go to serendipity, but i'd already missed that momentous event, so manda, et. al., jess and i rocked hard and annoyed the waitress. actually she annoyed us. she wasn't very good and messed up everyone's orders. and she was slow. but we gave her a good tip anyway.

from the left: jess, lauren, hannah, tatem, abby, amanda, annie

jess' ride back to brooklyn overlapped with ours back to the girls' hotel, so we got to hang out a little longer. i chilled with the girls for a few minutes and then manda hailed me a cab to penn station. my cabbie wasn't too pleased to find that he only had 20 minutes to get me across town and that i still had to buy a ticket. mary called wanting to know if i was going to make it. i had about 7 minutes. the cabbie's update: we're about 2 minutes out. mary offered to buy my ticket and hold it for me on the train so i'd just have to find her. unfortunately, the cabbie dropped me at the WRONG STATION. officially late and certain the train had already left, i sprinted the couple of blocks to penn station anyway. i jumped onto the train, praying it was the right one, just as the doors shut behind me and it started chugging away from the platform. but i couldn't find mary. she wasn't in the car i'd jumped on. but the conductor was. and he was punching tickets. crap. while he was on the upper floor, i walked through the lower floor, hoping to spot mary. my cell didn't get service. curse T-mobile! so i waited in the hallway, hands shaking and heart fluttering, hoping the conductor wouldn't a) throw me off the train, b) give me a citation for not having a ticket or c) all of the above. i didn't have to wait long; the next stop was only a few minutes away. and i had service! (oh blessed bars!) i called mary and we both ran out on the platform. she was in the next car over. i sat down, exhausted and shaking with adrenaline. we stayed that night at a friend's house in jersey and drove home to dc the next morning. i was supposed to prep my sunday school lesson in the car...but i slept instead.

the end.

ps. why the fourth of july post in the middle of october? it came from this list and was renamed by sherry carpet. now vote!