Our Fourth of July (mis)Adventures!

So on Saturday, I had had a long day. Ran the garage sale with my sister-in-law, got in a blowout with my brother, and came home feeling a little down. I texted Jackie to see if she wanted to go head down to the Old Market and chill by the fountains down there and yak since that’s what we do best. I needed someone to kind of talk to, poor Eric didn’t know exactly what to say about it all, and I just needed to chill after three days of running the sale. Jackie met me down by 10th and Douglas and we walked and talked, April in her stroller enjoying the ride.

Jackie had to head out for a party, which was fine, I knew she had places to go anyway, and we split up down by Rick’s Boatyard, which was having a pride festival going on. I told her I was gonna walk around, thought maybe I’d check out the pedestrian bridge since I hadn’t been on it since it opened. I wasn’t quite ready to go home and was enjoying the walk with April. Ended up walking down to the bridge and hearing lots of people talk about the Rosenblatt fireworks, and it sounded like a lot of the people on the bridge were waiting for them to start at ten. It was nice out, nice breeze, beautiful weather, and April was having fun, so I figured we’d wait on the bridge until 10 for the fireworks to start and watch them while we were there anyway. It was a beautiful view from the bridge—amazing fireworks, April loved them (I taught her to say “oooooh!” and “aaaaah!” whenever they went off! LOL) and it was a nice way to just relax after a rough week. After the show, walked back to the car, and realized there were a TON of people walking around! That’s when I realized that the Justin Beiber concert was getting out, which explained all the little girls…hahaha! Between that, the pride festival, Rosenblatt and the regular Old Market traffic on a weekend, it was crazy, and I didn’t get home until about 11:30—April konked in the car ont eh way home, of course.

I got to thinking that the bridge had an excellent view of Harrah’s casino, which I realized had a fireworks show going on the next night. I didn’t know if Eric was going to want to go anywhere, but had it in my mind. So yesterday (July 4th), Jackie texted me late afternoon asking if I wanted to meet her again at the Old Market to catch the Harrah’s fireworks. This was my sign—I was destined to go. I told her to meet me here, and Eric jumped in the shower and we all got ready to go—the initial plan was to just sit on the balcony and watch other people blow up their hard-earned cash. But this sounded better.

We headed out, and I told them how the pedestrian bridge was probably an awesome view for the fireworks, and Eric and Jackie had never been there, so that was the plan. As we were standing on the bridge waiting for the fireworks, I told Jackie we should go for pie afterwards at Village Inn. This was because, back in the day, we used to go down to the fountains at the old market and yak for hours, and then go to VI for strawberry pie afterwards when we were in high school. Oh, the good ol’ days…

Eric didn’t want pie, and I said that’s fine, I’ll drop you and April off at home and Jackie and I will go get a bite to eat. Watched the fireworks (which were blocked by a horrible cloud of smoke due to no wind and the humidity) and then headed back to the car. On the way there, Eric said he would go to Village Inn, but he was getting steak. LOL April was more than ready to eat, since she hadn’t eaten since lunch and it was going on 11.

We head out of the Old Market and Eric mentioned going to IHOP instead, since it is right across the street from our place. “They have pie there, too, and steak!” he said, so we thought, what the heck? Well, driving in that humid air with firework smoke everywhere was HORRIBLE! Oh Lord, you could not see ten feet in front of you. Driving in that was so nerve-wracking—I was scooted up to the steering wheel and driving under the speed limit just so I could see. We headed down Parkview Boulevard to get to the IHOP on 84th, and almost hit a guy that was out on the road lighting fireworks. Scared the piss out of me, but the fog and smoke was so bad, he came out of nowhere! Our windows were down, and Eric yelled out as we passed, “NOT a good idea, dude!” LOL

By the time we got to IHOP, I was stressed and ready to eat. We unloaded out of the car, got settled, and noticed that there were absolutely no pies on their menu. No biggie, we thought, we’ll get something else, since they had quite the selection. The waiter comes by to take our order, and Eric starts, and the waiter goes, “We’re out of steak. Actually, we’re out of a lot of things today—we’re out of…” and then the guy rattles off this list of every other ingredient you could think of. Short of eggs and pancake batter, it sounded like there was nothing left in the kitchen area! They were even out of cheese. CHEESE! So that ruled out omelets or anything to that effect. We all kind of looked at each other, the guy apologized up and down, and Eric said, “Maybe we should go down to Village Inn…” I pointed to the drinks we already had, and the waiter said, “no worries, it’s on us, I probably should have told you we were out of that stuff before you ordered.” We dropped a few ones on the table anyway, and then headed out the door to go to VI down the street. April was so excited to eat, I thought she would pitch a fit that we were leaving, but she seemed to accept that we were going elsewhere.

We drive down to Village Inn (along the dangerous, foggy streets) and pull up. It’s 11:50. Their sign says they are open until midnight. Ten minutes?! We go in, they mention that the kitchen will be closing in ten minutes, we said that’s fine, we kind of all knew what we wanted anyway. They seat us, we get our drinks, and are surprised that they have a “limited” menu this time of night. Which didn’t include anything we wanted, except for Eric’s steak and eggs. So Jackie and I just decide we’ll order the strawberry pie as originally planned, and April would munch off all of us.

The waitress comes up, we go to order, and she says they don’t have any strawberry pie. WHAT?!?! She said they had it for, like, four days in April and that was it. Jackie and I look at each other, stressed and appalled at this point, and I go, “well, then, I’m not getting anything.” Jackie didn’t want anything else either, and now Eric was left holding the menu feeling bad. LOL He didn’t want to be the only one sitting and eating while we watched, but at the same time, April had to be fed. The waitress apologized, and Eric said to send the check for the drinks and we’d head out. The lady said not to worry about it. So we ended up leaving Village Inn with hungry, tired April with us, only to sit in the car and be pissed about the fact that no one seemed to have decent food tonight.

“How about we go to Denny’s?” Eric asked. NO. At that point, it wasn’t worth risking our lives to go feed ourselves. Hell, at that point, I wasn’t even hungry anymore, I just wanted to go home! If it wasn’t horrible driving and if we didn’t have April, I probably would have said to go to Denny’s, but it just didn’t seem worth it anymore.

So we came home. Tired, hungry, and wanting food. So Eric and April had some Eggo Twists from the freezer to eat, and I didn’t eat anything because I wasn’t even hungry anymore. After that, we all went to bed. And that was our Fourth.

Exciting, huh? LOL