Happy Fourth of July! As my independence day celebrations generally tend to be amusing, I figured I would recount this weekend.
On Saturday, some friends & I were going to go to Haymarket to the market to get vegetables, but then we rerouted and decided to go kayaking on the Charles! We had the best weather imaginable so it was a great adventure. Renting kayaks from Paddleboston, based out of Kendall Square, is actually quite affordable, at $18/hr for a double or $12 for a single cockpit, $1 drysack rental. A nice spot of exercise with fabulous views of Boston for about the same price as going to the movies. After that we never really made it over to Haymarket, but we walked back through Cambridge/Somerville, encountering a wild turkey yet failing to encounter the Union Square Farmer's Market. O well. That night, we had a bbq/fire pit which slowly devolved to the point where we were chilling on a porch with the 2 Irishmen who are subletting from one of my friends, trying to get them to remember our names and make their jokes slightly less offensive to women. Typical night for Slummerville, I suppose. The firepit was awesome though.
On Sunday, I refused to do anything productive all day except read Kim Barker's "Taliban Shuffle" (still haven't totally digested how I feel about it) until I went to a catering around 8. I thought it rather odd that a dinner was starting that late, especially since it was a holiday weekend, but it made more sense eventually. Apparently, it was for an Armenian Awards Convention of some sort. I'm not entirely sure the details because all the posters were in Armenian. At least initially, I ended up serving food to the room they had set aside for all the kids, which was a terrible idea because it got rather rowdy. I felt like I was in a video game- dodging small fast moving objects while trying to get to a certain point. Or maybe babysitting. Definitely not your run of the mill catering experience. Kids running around, all the gorgeous adults drunk, a bunch of people making loud speeches in Armenian, a hooded religious figure, kitchen staff creepin' (Señorita, I love you!): it was rather chaotic. Dios mio.
Things got even more wild once they started blasting music with a live band. It reminded me of a Bollywood score, speed up, with extra string instruments thrown in for good measure. Eventually, everyone was dancing in a circle and then all these guys started breakdancing and then dancing with carrying men on their shoulders AND carrying another guy around the waist. Then they started waving various flags. By this point, it looked more like a mob celebrating election results than what I'm used to as a dance party. Quite unexpected but a good reminder that life is to be enjoyed. a lot.
So then it was time for independence day. I decided to be nice to America and spend a day without criticizing stuff, which is hard because pretty much all i do is read about reasons one should criticize american power and influence. (We know you can be better!!!) But anyway, turned off my brain & threw on some red white n blue & went to a bbq (i ate veggie burgers though). Then we watched fireworks over the Charles which were AMAZING. it was quite good & far more laid back than my all night partying yeah yeah Chilean independence day. but 2 independence days in twelve months? Maybe I should make that happen more often.
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