The Fourth of July

Yesterday was, of course, the fourth of July, America's annual celebration of all things that are so, so quintessentially American, like plastic flags that are made in China and flag T-shirts worn by overweight men, also made in China (the T-shirts, not the men. Although, you know, who knows, really?) and, of course, loud banging whizzing wheeing noises. At some point when I wasn't looking, the 4th of July turned into a week long celebration, because there have been fireworks in my neighborhood every night for the last six days, reaching a crescendo on Sunday night, when they went on until 3:00 a.m. and every animal in the neighborhood was walking around looking like a survivor of the Somme. I even had a small shell shock clinic going on in my house: my neighbor's dog wigged out, got loose, and scratched at my front door around 1:30 in the morning. She had a hopeful look on her face which basically said, "Hey there! Everyone at my house is asleep, and I saw your lights were on and hey, do you have any more of those milkbones? Mind if I come in?" So I kept her overnight and she ate half of M's Magic cards and then considerately regurgitated them on the living room rug in a colorful and odoriferous half digested heap.

Last night I went out with my posse, a.k.a. the usual suspects, my girlfriends J and J and S and S's friend S from New York, where everything is better than it is in Asheville, as has already been covered by my brother the New Yorker. That brother, by the way, is sitting holloweyed on my mother's couch, saying "Family. Day 13. How long can it go on?" and one feels quite sorry for him, to the point where it seems wisest to back away slowly making soothing noises. However, he does not enter into this story proper. This story is about how the Biltmore Avenue parking deck is the, the primo place to watch the fireworks, partly because you can sit underneath it drinking beer at the New French bar until the last possible moment and partly because it's practically directly underneath the fireworks. My new camera has a fireworks setting: documentary evidence and some freakin' cool photos are here. The other thing that's great about sitting at the New New, as we call the New French bar is that it's next to the ice cream place, which is mobbed every 4th. Angry families, all in line, desperate for their chocolatey fix make a great spectator sport for those of us who prefer our calories alcoholic. One year I heard a paterfamilias exclaim "I could go get the car, drive it up to the North Asheville Ingles, get two pints of Breyers ice cream, bring it down here, park again (this is saying a lot, on the 4th) and give you cones and it would be cheaper and faster than this line!" His family said, "Hush up daddy. The line's moving again." Which leads me to my no fail business plan: an ice cream cart.

Yes, an ice cream cart. I happen to own a creaky, cranky, vaguely electric ice cream maker that I picked up at the Goodwill one year, and it's even patriotic, since it has an ersatz brass American eagle on it. I could make ice cream and then sell cones from a little cart to the crowds waiting to get into the Marble Slab and voila, profit. Except for the part where the health department, fascists, would shut me down, because obviously I'm not going to go get all those permits and other unamerican stuff. I'm too American, and it was with the deepest reluctance yesterday that I put back the antennae headgear made of shiny stars and dangling glittery blue and red stripes and instead picked up a tiny little flagpole and a tiny little red white and blue noxiously faux tasteful flaglet. I put it up in my front yard and it's exactly the right proportion to my garden gnomes, so it looks like they've had a fit of patriotism. Because gnomes are American. And icecream. And Chinese souvenirs. And fireworks, even though they're Chinese too, and all of them say Shoots Flaming Balls on their wrappers, even the ones that don't. Because what could be more American than shooting flaming balls?