My Independance Day

Yesterday I woke at the unheard of hour (for me) of 6:15a.m. Aren't holidays for RELAXING??!!!?!?? We got to the parade grounds, dropped my brother off to march with the rest of the Boy Scouts and managed to find our friends who were graciously saving us a place and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. Greater love hath no one than this.....


I loved the military men and the people in impressive costumes on horses, as always, and quite enjoyed the High School Bands, successfully recognizing three students from church. I watched as one school marched by, led by a row of students carrying letters spelling out the school name and couldn't help but pity the boy carrying the blank sign separating the words. What dreadful thing he must have done to have deserved to carry a blank sign.

I would've enjoyed two hours of soldiers, horses and High School Bands, but most of the time I was left wondering just what was so patriotic about the Bob's Dental Services wagon full of random people waving cardboard fans and looking extremely bored. *shrug*

At four o'clock we showed up at the park grounds to report for duty at Dan's Famous Indian Taco Stand. You see Dan lives in Arkansas but sets up this stand at the state fair and at the Fourth of July festival every year and the Homeschool choir traditionally runs the stand for him. What do we get out of it? It goes straight into our tour account: i.e. We don't have to fork over the entire college savings fund to go to Washington D.C. next spring.

It was pretty fun. It took me a while to get the hang of properly fixing up an Indian taco, successfully frustrating my supervisor on more than one occasion, but I had all the way till dinner time to find my niche, which I did. Our shift ran through the firework show, but since nobody buys tacos during the fireworks anyways we got to enjoy the show as well.

It was actually the first time I ever remember not watching the fireworks with my family - I have to admit it was fun to sit with Carolyn and Michael and shriek "I'm hit!!!!!!" every time there was an extra loud explosion....

Here is a listing of the award winners for the night:

In the category of making tacos

Best part: Stabbing the plastic fork in the finished taco

Worst part: The sanitary gloves, hands down. Can't you just feel the excitement of spending five whole minutes wrestling on a pair of gloves to have them both rip wide open in the process?

Hardest job: Keeping the beans in constant motion so they don't burn / continuously shaking
the cheese bucket so that the shredded cheese didn't become a solid lump of cheese. All this happens, of course, while you are making more tacos.

In the category of cleaning up afterwards

Best part: Eating all the leftover fry bread

Worst part: Crawling around on my hands and knees scrubbing grease and june bugs off the floor.

Miscellaneous

Most frightening moment: When the metal pan full of spatulas flew down from the sky and clouted me over the head. Which still hurts by the way. What does a concussion feel like exactly????

Strangest order: "One taco with cold beans, then lettuce, tomatoes and cheese, and one jalapeño without the stem upside down in the center of the taco." I had to wonder - do these people sit around thinking up ways to make my job more difficult???? Whatever. It's your $6.50.....

Strangest rule: Never, never, never under any circumstances put tomatoes on top of a taco. You may not even give them tomatoes in a cup for them to dump on top - bottom line: no tomatoes on top. I wish I were making this up. You can put lettuce, beans, cheese, onions, jalapeños, or even the fry bread on top, but never tomatoes. Why? No clue. Something to do with initiating a tribal war of the Indian taco sellers (and apparently they're serious). I never fully got that part - I was too distracted by the threat of boiling grease being dumped on me if I refused to comply....







= DEATH





Here are some pictures Ell and I took at the parade yesterday morning

God Bless America,

Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Through the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.