Fourth of July Weekend Roundup

Fourth of July Weekend Roundup

On Saturday we headed up to Suffern, for Mike J's parents' BBQ. Afterwards I felt a bit sick. I can pretend it was the heat, or I can admit it was due to the potato chips, celery with vegetable dip, cantaloupe, watermelon and strawberries dipped in Bacardi-flavored whipped cream, raisinettes, peanut M&Ms, chocolate pudding cake, strawberry jam cake, potato salad, coleslaw and hamburger the size of my head that I ate.

On Sunday I played with the kiddos inside while Geo barbequed some chicken skewers for his parents. Some random TV things I learned is that Shaq has an elevated, ROUND, 15X30 foot bed with a Superman logo on the bedspread. Oddly enough, the house itself is really nice. By nice I don't mean luxurious, I mean kind of classy. It is, of course, extremely huge and luxurious but not tackily so. I mean the bed is a bit much but he IS like 10 feet tall. I guess since he's so tacky I expected his house to be tacky and I was pleasantly surprised. Also, the top 3 winners in the World Hot Dog Eating Competition were 2 guys from Japan and this little Korean-American chic. I guess this means we as a people are diminutive and skinny but can pack it away like horses. I almost puked myself when this fat black guy (the World Matzah Ball Eating Champion which is just about the grossest-sounding event ever.)

Afterwards we headed over to Tony's house for a block party BBQ. They closed off his cul-de-sac and all the houses prepared food together. It was pretty cool. But that kind of shit only works in the suburbs. If they tried that around here every crackhead and his mom would be hanging out at your grill. You'd run out of food fast as hell and every single person you actually invited would still have an empty plate. Tony's BBQ was fun though. His mom knows how to throw a party. We ate lumpia shanghai (Filipino eggrolls), dried squid with garlic, vinegar and soy sauce, hamburgers, pancit (Filipino noodles), ginataan (Filipino dessert, it's like milky rice pudding with fruit), cake, spare ribs that I swear was flavored by the cooking gods and some drink with sago (tapioca balls.) It was just like I thought heaven would be like. Actually, heaven for me would be a Filipino BBQ in Barnes and Noble. In the evening we played Spades. My partner Abel and I lost for what was apparently only the 3rd time in history (he keeps count) so now we're like 61-3 which disturbed him. I had horrible horrible hands so we went blind (guess your books before you look at your cards) three times and the third time we didn't catch it. We were just off that last round, I thought he was sandbagging and he wasn't. That just tells me we need to play Spades more!!!!!!! I think that is the one thing I miss about not having any responsibilities. I don't miss the clubbing or drinking but I miss the nights playing Spades from 9pm-7 o'clock in the morning. Those nights rocked.

On Monday we tried to enroll the girls into swimming classes. The classes were already full until September so we putzed around until we could reach Paul since we were in his area. We hit up the mall so I could get a haircut and the psycho barber chic chopped off about 5 inches more than what I'd asked for. She might have gotten stabbed with her own scissors except for the fact that I am appalling used to bad haircuts and they don't even faze me anymore. I even tipped her for her awful haircut. When we walked out I was bitching to Geo about how short my hair was (it's about to the middle of my chest now) and he was like "No, short is to your chin or something. If they had done that I would have started screaming at her." It almost makes me wish she had cut it that short. It's fun to watch Geo lose his temper since it happens so rarely. I think the last time he wilded out on someone was when some stupid bitch at the vet couldn't control her pit bull and it attacked our lab puppy.

After the mall we stopped by Paul's for awhile but he and his wife were about to leave for dinner. So we hit up Babies R Us then Chili's. Geo wants me to tell you about our waitress at Chili's. I ordered a salad with sesame ginger dressing. I poured it over my salad and started eating it, but it was really sour and disgusting. I showed the waitress the empty dressing cup and told her it was the wrong salad dressing (I thought it may have been Italian but it was something called Honey Lime Ginger which is restaurant-speak for Nasty Ass Dressing.) She says she'll fix it. After she leaves Geo asks me how much I want to bet that she only brings a cup of dressing, even though I showed her that it was already all over my salad. I decline to take the bet because it's a bet only a fool would take. The waitress comes back and of course, is only holding the salad dressing. I ask as politely as possible for another salad since mine has the old dressing all over it already. She looks confused for a bit then finally says "Okay I'll go ask them for another salad." Um okay, thanks.

Overall though it was nothing to complain about. If you want something legitimate to complain about, eat at a chain restaurant in the ghetto. Like Red Lobster in Union. Although I'm convinced that Red Lobster has the worst collective service in the history of the food industry, the worst of the worst works at the one in Union. It's like the reverse-Top Gun of the Red Lobster Corporation.