Last night I witnessed the biggest fireworks show west of Chicago! That little fact was repeated about 349587 times, so there was no chance of me forgetting it. We like fireworks, but that’s not why we went to Americafest at the Rose Bowl. Oh no, we went for the marching bands. My friend Lisa and I love marching bands because we were once part of one, but it goes beyond that. They just make us happy.
I expected to have a good time, but I was surprised to have an awesome time. My inclination is so often to sit at home instead of going out into the world to do stuff with huge crowds of people. And, yeah, there was traffic and noise and people everywhere and huge lines for the bathrooms and outrageously priced food, but none of that subtracted from the fun I had talking to my best friend, watching awesome bands, and enjoying the biggest fireworks show west of Chicago!
Here are some highlights from yesterday:
- The first thing we noticed after we parked and got out of the car was that we were surrounded by young guys with really nice tans and no shirts on. The population of these types was so high that we actually had to comment. Everywhere we turned, there they were. We attributed it to the fact that we were in Southern California and it was a kabillion degrees outside. But, later when we were inside the Bowl, we noticed that we were no longer surrounded by these hot guys, but instead old people and children, all of whom were wearing shirts. We finally figured out that the hot guys were band members, and they weren’t wearing shirts because they hadn’t changed into their polyester uniforms yet, which, if you’ve ever been in one, you know don’t protect you from the cold and make heat unbearable.
- These were not actually full marching bands we were watching, but rather drum cores that consist of only brass and percussion. During one of the performances, I turned to Lisa and said something about a drum core, and she replied, “What about a drunk whore?” We almost died laughing. I guess we live in a culture where “drunk whore” is a more common phrase than “drum core.”
- Lisa and I always fear that someone will overhear one of our conversations and think we’re serious. It would be easy. We sounded serious even as we were making up a whole story about how there’s drama between the drum cores, and this was a showdown to end all showdowns. You could feel the tension in the air as the warring bands passed each other.
- The guy sitting next to me laughed when I proclaimed a little louder than I meant to that “Cedric Diggory is the perfect nice guy name!” Thank you J.K. for naming your characters so well.
- One of the drum cores was actually named Phantom Regiment and dressed in all white. This is serious stuff.
- I bought a beer without being carded. That’s always a shock to me. Up until a year ago, I was carded and then looked up and down suspiciously. People always thought I was 16 and not 23. But, since I lopped off my long hair and dyed it brown, apparently I look 30.
- Lisa surprised me with some 4th of July-themed rainbow chip cookies. We’ve been talking about them for a while, because I just discovered recently that you can use the rainbow chip cake mix to make cookies, but I didn’t want to try it because I’ve been on a diet and I cannot handle having an entire batch of cookies around. I didn’t know if I’d like them, because, forgive me, but sometimes I don’t like cookies. Anyway, nothing to worry about. They were amazing! I ate more than I really want to admit, but today I’m back to being healthy.
As I was sitting watching the fireworks last night, a wave of happiness washed over me, and it motivated me to take care of some of the things in my life that I’ve been avoiding. I’m generally very happy these days, but I let these little stresses and worries pull me down when it would be easier just to face them. So, that’s what I’m going to do today.
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Unless you were in Disneyland, I really doubt that the fireworks show you saw was the biggest outside of Chicago. Because Disneyland KNOWS how to do fireworks, and they don’t disappoint!
I’m glad to hear you had a really good Fourth of July! I would have been swooning at all the hot guys without shirts.
You should share the cookie recipe!
I always liked watching my high school’s marching band more than the actual football game.
It does sound like you had a great fourth. Someday, you’ll miss being carded trust me! I love that picture though; I miss bands like that.
Ok just pretend it’s July 5th and I’m not stalking you by writing on your every blog half a year ago. I have to comment though because you’re very interesting and a great writer. You’ve captured this audience and that’s hard to do with me.
“there’s drama between the drum cores, and this was a showdown to end all showdowns. You could feel the tension in the air as the warring bands passed each other.”
Wow! If I overheard this conversation I would have busted up and spit out cookies all over the other people in front of me. I remember there was drama though. Especially against my marching band. We had these uniforms that were tuxedos. Black and white tuxedos nearly like the real thing but much more attractive! Yea we were hot, literally. The other bands talked so much trash about us being rich when in reality we were not anywhere near rich. Unless you call a household income of $40,000 rich. We got a kick out of that. They thought we were just rich snobs from Colorado. I wish I could have showed them the neighborhood our school was in.
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