A Happy Fourth of July in The Past

I had an interesting day today, went out to Maili’s in-laws house… they were doing a big Fourth of July thing with their friends and family and wanted us to come too. At first I was dead set against it because I don’t like spending my time with alcoholic gossips and people I don’t know, but it was really important to Pat that we go, and he and Maili got into a fight because of it… she didn’t want to outright tell him that I was dead set against going and he couldn’t understand why she was so reluctant to say anything about it. But I thought about it this morning as we were driving Maili to work… and figured as long as I got a solemn promise from my Mom to take me home at the moment I wanted to, no questions asked, I would go and try to have fun.

I’m bipolar and have some really fun anxiety issues. I don’t like feeling trapped, at all. If I even begin to feel like I’m at a place and I can’t get away from it for any reason, I start really bugging out. With the fact that we four were all going in one car, I was afraid that if I told Mom that I wanted to leave I’d be told that I wasn’t allowed to go because we had to wait for Maili and Patrick and they didn’t want to go yet. And that freaked me out. But Mom did promise that I could determine when we left and I felt better after that.

The food was amazing, Bridget can be sort of childish, and a gossip, but damn can she make one hell of a 7 layer bean dip. I don’t even like guac, and I loved it in this dip. Her potato salad was really yummy too, and I had plenty of both of them. Maili was the lord of the Grill and made us all hamburgers and oh god, those were good. She also worked really hard to get me to relax and have fun, by plying me with drinks. Ended up with two strawberry daiquiris and a really, really good hard apple cider. I don’t even know what brand the cider was, I forgot to ask, but it was the best cider I’ve ever had, the first one that still tasted like apple cider instead of just tasting “hard.”

The company wasn’t bad either, once I realized that Bridget was exactly like my Aunt Jan… she’s one of those people who think that just because you knew someone twenty years ago, that you’re still interested in everything that’s going on in that person’s life. Easy enough to ignore what she’s saying and make the right head nods and such. She did get a bit preachy as she got more and more pickled, but I didn’t mind that as badly as I thought I would. There were a couple of other really neat people whom I talked to. I admit that I spent the time doing maile, since I only have 12 days till Lakefair. I almost got a whole dragon done and did a couple little projects for people. They were pretty impressed with the dragon, and the fact that I did him while they were watching pretty much. It was nice and soothing.

Weirdly, the part that I hated the most of the whole day was the fireworks. I don’t know why, but this year I didn’t like them. I think it’s the fact that it was so loud and sulphery and Maili and Pat bought whistling bottle rockets instead of regular ones so the shreaking just really got to me. I got one hell of a headache. The tanks were fun though, I always enjoy watching those, even though I didn’t set anything off myself.

Maili and Pat seem to be having a great time, having had us over at Bridget’s. She did say something that I thought was really telling and that made me feel good that I decided to go and visit… Pat and Joseph (his twin) had never been apart on 4th of July, it was always a family thing, and this year they were both fretting about the fact that it would be the first year they’d not be able to celebrate it as a family. The reason why we were choosy on where we’d go and what we’d do is that this is the first year in 8 that Mom’s had July 4th off and us girls wanted to spend it with her. It was good all around though, I’m happy.

Last updated December 25, 2016