Independence Day

The weekend before July 4 was a cacophony of firework explosions, and let me tell you that fireworks sound suspiciously like gunfire, especially the illegal cracker ones. So it's possible that people were celebrating but it's also possible that a war was raging outside our apartment. I signed up to work every morning over the weekend and by Monday I was really struggling with the 7.30am starts. Sunday spoiled us with torrential rain, drenching me on the walk from 53rd to 51st street. Because no-one was stupid enough to come to the park on such a day, Durell the groundskeeper and I setup the laptop and watched The Eagle. On Monday the weather was gorgeous but the park was still empty so we watched Blade 2 and Sanctum. So I can't really complain about working so much, as I didn't so much work.

Timon collected me from work on Monday afternoon and we headed to Trader Joe's to stock up on party food. We'd invited Timon's old boss Erica, my boss Scott and friend Sydney over for some dinner, kitten love and a screening of Independence Day. What could be more appropro? We grabbed red/white/blue corn chips and all the fixins for chilli and went home to clean the house.

NB. Our fridge died. And we got a new one. There was some awkwardness when the delivery guys came (a day late because they broke the first one in the warehouse) and demanded a tip for lugging it up 5 flights of stairs. Timon refused - because we didn't buy the thing and surely it was the landlord's responsibility? It worked out ok, moral ambiguity aside. Now we have a sparkling new fridge that keeps food cold where I could put all the fixins.

Erica arrived promptly and we drank our way through some episodes of Family Guy. I'd been down to the liquor store earlier and was reminded of how truly awesome the USofA can be - 1 litre bottle of whiskey and a bottle of sangria for $22! Scott arrived hours later but decked out in my favourite purple tie-dyed kitten tee. The most mortifying part of the evening arose when Erica asked me, very politely, if the chilli had meat in it. I stared at her for a while trying to figure out the nature of the question. Oh. Erica is a vegetarian. Crap. Luckily I was able to sate her hunger with a Jack's strawberry salad and cheesy rice, but nonetheless I felt pretty sheepish, even now. The main main event was Independence Day, an epic alien invasion flick populated with a devilishly handsome and nerdy Jeff Goldblum, a devilishly handsome and cavalier Harry Connick Jnr, a less-devilishly handsome Bill Pullman and Will Smith. Erica and I cheered and gasped and hooted while Timon sat stoically and Scott slept. Apparently he'd had a rough weekend in the Hamptons. We finished up the evening with sea-salt sprinkled chocolate brownies and Chopper, Scott's favourite Aussie film.

We didn't do fireworks and we didn't do BBQ but I think we did the 4th of July in the best possible way.