Fireworks!

Actually, I'm irritated in an old geezer you-kids-get-off-my-lawn way about blown-up-in-my-backyard fireworks right now.†

Huh. I've already digressed and I haven't even started talking yet.‡

There are three great things I saw this weekend that I wish to share, plus a bonus of two happy things that happened:

1. I landed home Saturday afternoon and flipped on the TiVi.§ There was a baseball game right in front of me, which I was just about to turn off, when I noticed the player up to bat was Angel Pagan.¶ I wish I could have kids so I could name one of them Angel Pagan.
2. Driving to Jerusalem Restaurant for a very patriotic Third of July dinner, I passed the giant convent/Catholic convalescence home in the 'hood. There was a Barbie-pink scooter waiting at the giant gate to make a left onto 29th. "Wish I had a camera," I thought. "This would be a great blog bit." Then the scooter pulled in behind me and it was a bearded guy in aviator sunglasses and that made it all the better.
3. On the same drive, I was at a red light and across from me were two of the whitest, yuppiest, Chanel sunglass-wearing, designer polo shirt-clad 30-something dinks# ever seen, playing a vuvuzela and waving a South African flag out of the sunroof on their BMW. I'm not saying they *couldn't* be South African, but if they are, they're on the wrong side of the popular political tracks and maybe shouldn't be displaying the equivalent of one of us wearing a loin cloth and a feathered headdress and doing the Tomahawk Chop out of the windows of our BMWs.

Then I got to Jerusalem and the ever-so-adorable chicklet who took my order asked what my shirt meant.

"Rock-paper-scissors... lizard-spock," I replied to a peal of delighted laughter.

Then she cooed and exclaimed over my emergency wallet.††

It was a good day.

And that was a totally elegant segue into a package% from my not-so-secret-pal Jo.‡‡ Because my emergency wallet looks like this:




And Jo, not knowing a thing about my emergency wallet,§§ sent me this soap:




Which was an adjunct to that month's subject prize, the washcloth¶¶:




And came with a bonus soap dish:




And totally bath-related pirate cupcake set##:




So thank you, Jo, both for your patience and for the lovely gifts.

Give me another two months and I should be caught up.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): But real fireworks, performed by professionals, are one of my favourite things.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): That may be a record. Lyda's going to be so proud when she sees.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): As one does.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): I took Spanish, so I know it's pronounced "ON-hell pa-GONE," but he'll always be Angel Pagan to me. Plus? If you Google "Angel Pagan" (even without the quotation marks), you don't get a single religious reference for pages.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): And I mean both in terms of "Jebus Cats, what a couple of dinks" and "Double Income No Kids."

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): The wallet that goes in my pocket in which I keep my driver's license, debit card and a small chunk of cash to hold me over when I leave my purse somewhere three times out of ten. Usually home, mind you, but one should have the necessities with one. If that one has juvenile onset Alzheimer's like this one does.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): I'm smooth like peanut butter. Note how I not only tied it all together with the Cute as Hell theme, I managed to not let on that this package arrived two months ago and I'm just getting to it now.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Who just revealed herself to me per the terms of our year-long swap agreement, in which I was totally wishy-washy and said, "Oh, let's be secret for six months, then not-secret for six months." I am fair, if indecisive.

§§FOOTNOTE (sssupposedly): I think.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (two heads better than one): Which was hard to photograph adequately, but does, indeed, have a black skull motif rampant on a black background.

##FOOTNOTE (that's the symbol for shock): Why? Where do you eat your cupcakes?