Boom!

Happy 4th of July! I hope everyone is enjoying family, friends, good times and good food.

In order to protect the innocent, I'm doing quite a bit of editing on the events of festivities we attended for the holiday, including what day we actually celebrated. I hope I've also edited out virtually anything anyone might find objectionable, controversial, irresponsible (that's kind of a biggie on the edits), and anything else someone might find offensive.

Note to any readers: please stop reading NOW if you have any intention of sending email or calling then lecturing me about the dangers of fireworks. Yes, any stooge knows they're dangerous, even a stooge like me.

We were invited out on a very small boat, heck it was practically a rowboat, headed for an out island called "mystery island." The boat was called "the party zone" (fictitious to protect interested parties & partiers), captained by Captain Joe (again fictitious, you're starting to catch on now, right?) There's a "few" other people on the boat, because its so small it could've been a canoe. I swear I didn't know a soul, and wouldn't recognize any of them should I be called to testify.

After I, and "a few" others settled in, the boat (so small it could've been a kayak) departed for mystery island. I noted there was one very tiny colorful box on the vessel, which I think was educational material. Certainly there was not an overflowing cache of fireworks and contraband. No, that would be wrong, controversial, irresponsible, offensive, and yikes maybe even worse than any of that.

The water was very calm, the breeze was soft. It was a blessing to be out on the water.

Once we arrived, Capt. Joe dropped anchor. It was then that I notice, for no apparent reason there appeared to be dozens of other vessels around. Imagine that! Great minds think alike is all I can say. It WAS a great night to be out on the water.

We ate. We drank. We listened to music and we laughed. I made some interesting observations, but thanks to my mental "edit" button, this paragraph is particularly short.

At one point, a smaller vessel motored asided "the party zone" with its own Capt. Invisible and mates. They took the very small colorful box of educational material and motored over to mystery island. Darkness arrived, and then oddly enough, for about the next 1.5 (or more) hours, we were treated to one of the best private fireworks shows ever. I'm not kidding, this was some ****. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! Yay and lucky me!

Not too long after the fireworks were over, the same small vessel and its mates motored back to "the party zone" and re-boarded. Captain Invisible from that other vessel vanished into the night. I couldn't figure why, but the very small box of educational material was gone. There was, however, lots of trash in bags. I thought that was right nice of Captain Invisible and his mates to go out to an island at night and pick up trash. How community minded of them. See what I mean when I say I live in such a great place! I felt a little bad though, I mean, they probably missed a lot of the fireworks what with all the trash they were busy collecting.

About that time, Captain Joe and crew began packing up food, beverages, and counting people on board (it was only a few, and we were practically on an inflatable raft, really no reason to worry someone might get left out there, no one would be silly enough to go in the water at night, that might be irresponsible). The anchor is hoisted in (really, its a small anchor, about the size of a paper clip since the boat was made from a cardboard box), and off we go slipping through the water in the darkness. One odd thing, most of the other boats left too. Weird coincidence I guess.

All things considered, it was a fun night. Capt. Joe has the necessary skills to safely maintain control when chaos seems to be the order. He's a true professional, even if the "few" people on board might be getting a little rowdy.

I got back home far too late for my working world, but made a mental note to hit the delete button in my head should anyone have too many questions about things at a later time. So, this blog entry is my official statement, strike that, I mean my story about where I was and how I celebrated the 4th this year.

Two other important, fun facts. There were plenty of awesome vegan cupcakes for all, and the temperature dipped to about 75 degrees at one point. I swear I thought it was going to snow. Island girl says brr.

Happy 4th of July everyone. Let freedom ring.