Fire and Brimstone and Happy Birthday USA

So, this weekend was the old bitch's birthday. That's right, the United States of America celebrated her 233rd birthday. Truth is, she looks like shit these days and making it to 234 is no longer a given.

So, we took out kids out to my parents for the weekend. I know, you're thinking "Floogin you dumb shit."

Let me add to your thought - "why would you go there when it makes you crazy?"

(I know you think I'm a dumb shit and could care less about anything else )

We went because, well, I don't know why. But we did.

Spent the bulk of Saturday in the pool, laying around the back yard, watching my kids swim and play. It was rather nice and made all the more enjoyable by the freeloader family taking an hour and a half away from the house. That was the most peaceful, quiet time of the day.

They took 3 hours away on Sunday. It was so nice that my mother, who never sits outside, spent the whole time outside with us. My sister, upon returning, was truly puzzled about this and I explained it this way - "it's noisy and chaotic when the kids are here, they were gone, making it quiet and enjoyable out here."

My sister then pointed out that my kids were here the whole time.

"Oh, they don't scream like loons all day long, stopping only to cry whenever they don't get their way."

She told me to fuck off.

Truth hurts.

Anyway, it was most pleasurable and when they returned, the shit went south immediately. First, the idiot husband said he was going to play golf. This means my sister needs to pay attention to her kids and not read her book and bask in the sun. So, she did what she does best, she put her daughter in front of the tv (3 PM on the nicest day of the year) and she let her son swim with my daughter. My son took his first strokes without swimmies. He'll be swimming on his own in a week or two. Just turned 4 and he didn't just do that doggy paddle thing, he went face down, breast stroke, for two or three strokes and then stopped to take a breath. Fucking awesome.

Anyway, I promised him a present if he swam the length of the hot tub, which he did, and my mother promised him a candy bar if he took off the swimmies so, when the other family returned, she asked him if he wanted to go get his prizes. (she clearly wanted out of there). He said yes and then my attention craving nephew, who's 7 1/2, said he wanted to go get presents too. My mother told him this was something special for Floogin jr and he started to cry. Then he asked if he could make s'mores since they didn't make them the other night and my mother told him it was too windy to have a fire out back. Full of fucking weep fest. My sister screamed at my mother for telling him he couldn't light a fire in the backyard and my mother was guilted into taking the whiny bitch with them.

They came back and I'm playing scrabble with my wife (she kicked my ass, revenge for the night before when I made up an 85 point deficit with a nice triple word score bingo) so my mom sits down with us, seeing if she can't help my wife trounce me (all vowels, not like I was outmanned or anything). My daughter is swimming, my son hands me his new toy, some spiderman action figure, which I open up for him. He's perfectly content with his toy, playing in the yard.

The whiny boy comes out with a dive toy my mother had to buy him. He walks over to my sister and asks her to open the toy up, handing her the case and a scissors. My sister tells him to ask grandma to open it. Grandma is 10 feet away, sitting with us. He walks over and asks her to open it for him. My mother looks up and I laugh and ask him why his mother couldn't do it. He says she's busy reading. My mother says "my hands are full (she was eating), tell your mother to put her book down and open it." He walks back and my sister goes postal. She's screaming about how she hasn't been able to read a page of her book all day and my mother is inconsiderate and selfish and my mother, in a shocking twist, tells her to shut the fuck up.

It was gorgeous. If it wasn't family, I'd have had a chubby.

My sister is yelling about how hard she's working and we're just sitting there playing a game and I interrupt and say "perhaps you should tell your husband to not play golf if you don't want to watch your own kids."

Fight over.

A short while later, we're talking about the kids in general and how my kids look so much like me or act just like my wife and my sister jokes about how she knows her son got the smart genes from her. I then add that he clearly didn't get the skinny gene from either of his parents to which my wife quickly responds with "Deadbeat (his real name) was rail thin as a kid." She then added " not sure what happened there."

"He ate himself" I explained, adding, "along with several cows, a ton of cheese and, if you aren't careful, he'll eat your furniture."

Cruel but funny. Anyway, I've yet to have the weekend update conversation with my mom - she called, I was busy. Can't wait to hear her talk about the apparent weekend long fight she was having with my sister.

And what, you ask, does this have to do with Fire and Brimstone?

Nothing.

Saturday night we went to town to freeload off the local country club's fireworks show. The club, located right across the street from a church, at the end of the main street through the town, is an old fashioned country club. This means, oddly enough for this town, no jews allowed. That's right, no jews. They hire the same folks who do the NYC fireworks, primarily because the Grucci family used to have their factory in the town next to this one. The show is always amazing and the jews, who aren't allowed to join the club, watch from their homes or, for those who cannot see from their homes, the church lawn. So, off we went. We had dinner and found a nice spot, perfect viewing and with a whoooooosh and a bang, the first red explosion announced the start of the show. My daughter covered her ears, the explosions, apparently, scaring her. Disney fireworks were ok, these were not. Go figure.

They really don't hold back. Huge explosions, bright colors, shapes and even a smiley face lit up the sky and what? what's this? fucking dust falling on me? My wife, at one point, said a dead bird just fell out of the sky. I looked to where she was pointing and a large piece of exploded firework was sitting there, two feet from our blanket. The show raged on, bits of dust and paper settling down and then another large chunk of rocket landed in the lap of the guy in front of us. I told my wife not to worry, nothing is burning and then we looked up and about 1,000 little burning embers were drifting down on the crowd. Most people didn't notice until a few folks behind us, out of the danger zone yelled "look up."

People started running everywhere. Grabbing their shit, their kids and moving away from the firebombing.

We were in a safe spot, nothing came near us but the fear of trampling was enough to get me to stand up and block the family. Burning embers rained down on the crowd in front of us as well as across the street in the parking lot and a few blocks away.

As the show ended we heard the first sirens. There was a fire or two going on somewhere near our show. Presumably, this was a result of the firebombing the club subjected the town to.

When my daughter asked why they exploded the rockets so that they'd fall onto the people watching, I explained that the club was trying to tell the freeloading jews to back off their good time.

No other explanation seemed to work.