The Fourth

Every year the beautiful and serene Riverside Park becomes trampled with trailers, portable stages, tents, tarps, food stands, bouncy castles, sticky cotton candy children, cigarettes, wagon pulls, and hundreds of people to commemorate the day the young, angsty, ragamuffin (5 points!) America signed a big piece of parchment that said “SCREW YOU, Great Britain! You’re not the boss of me!” and independence ensued.

(TJ = Thomas Jefferson. I think that’s what the other founding fathers probably called him.)

Now, 234 years later, we have Riverfest in La Crosse. Complete with patriotic garb that would make Stacy and Clinton from What Not To Wear actually explode.  My favorite was a man in a polyester button-down short-sleeved shirt with an American Flag background, and a flying bald eagle holding on to the handlebars of a motorcycle. It was too gruesome to take a picture of, but I went through the trouble of doing a Google search for "Harley," "Bald Eagle," and "American Flag" and made a collage that is frighteningly similar to the real thing, in case you needed a visual...

(American Flag + A simple motorcycle picture + a National Geographic picture of an eagle diving for a fish + a little layering = a level of kitsch one cannot experience without a gas mask.) 

I hit up The Fest (that’s what us regulars call it) rarely, and for the past couple years it’s been either beautiful or so freaking hot. This year, however, we had rain.  Not only did we have rain, but it was also sweltering. My protective NorthFace jacket was doing a bang-up job keeping the rain out, but the ideal of my personal dryness was just a ruse (5 points!), apparently, because despite the rain-resistance, I was sweating underneath like Mel Gibson at a Bar Mitzvah.  

(I’d like to apologize for that last joke. Not to Mel Gibson, but to Comedy herself. I was having trouble coming up with “Sweating Like A…” jokes, so I looked some up online. What is wrong with me?)

The patchwork of tarps placed hours before on the sublime grass of Riverside had puddles galore as far as the eye could see. Who knows if the owners would be able to enjoy their prime spots to view the fireworks later.

I had no plan to stay at the fireworks—nor The Fest, for that matter—for long.  Only one thing did I need. You say “Fest,” and the salivating starts for me. I cannot help but follow the intangible force that is the call of Tom Thumb Donuts.

(Mission accomplished.) 

A Simply RADISHing Day

I already regret that title. Ew. A lot of my puns always sound so good before I say them, and then afterwards, could make even the Get Fuzzy comic writer Darby Conley go give me a sideways glance.  (“You’re a cat with a dream to be a dictator? What are you, Benito Meowsolini? Fidel Catstro? Adolf Spitler?”  ShutthehellUP, Darby! You used to be so good!)

[I miss the days when you used to make me laugh, instead of make me regret the days I ever started loving you.]

Anyway, I picked our first radishes today, which is really the only reason for the janky (5 points!) title. They’re almost all full grown now, spicy as heck, and we have (as one of the most irritating people I’ve ever met says…) a veritable shmillion of them.

[Aren’t they pretty?]

The weather channel couldn’t stop warning everyone around here that there is a SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING coming tonight, so to appreciate all of the precious time we had left on this earth, I went to Riverside with my good friend who I call “Tego.” We also got some candy and other delicious things at the Pearl Street Soda Fountain.  

 And speaking of fountains, the one in Riverside was freaking going kuh-rayzaay in the pre-storm wind.

[If only I had a kite.  I shall get on that.]

Oh, and I stopped my car, made an illegal U-turn on a busy street, and frantically searched through my car for a quarter to buy a lukewarm glass of green Kool-Aid from a kid selling it in his yard.  It would have been more worth it if I had brought my damn camera.

And yes, the Weather Channel was right; it's raining, some would say it's pouring, and I'm pretty sure, at this time of night, some old man somewhere is snoring. If the rest of that prophetic poem also comes true, I feel very sorry for the old man's family.

A Day with My Dog

When the freaking roofers were making so much freaking noise in the house that I just couldn’t freaking take it anymore, I decided to take my dog Maggie to Riverside to get away from it all for a few hours. Ben, my poor cat, had to remain at home.

[Just look at that happy face. That means stop staring at my dog's butt, sicko.]

I don’t know whether it was the beautiful weather, or the rush of doing something illegal (there may or may not be an indiscriminate, miniscule yellow sign that says “No Dogs Allowed In The Park”), but Mags and I had a wonderful time.  I sat and read while Maggie sniffed the air, barked at the occasional passerby, and was chastised by me for barking at the occasional passerby.

Things were going well, I thought, when she sat down. Perfectly, in fact, when she laid in the grass. Amazingly when she saw a squirrel and only pointed silently.

["I'm going to politely kill that fuzzy-tailed twerp." 5 points for my well-vocabulated canine!]

My jaw dropped and I realized Mags was in heaven when she started chewing on a stick. And I, reading the overly-lovely Eat, Pray, Love, couldn't be happier. 

I’ll return to talking about normal things when I stop being distracted by cutesy-wootsy puppy-wuppy things. Goodness.