Friday: A somewhat distasteful day at work that ended crummily. The restaurant life ain' a joke! To sum it up, after miscommunication, I was told to clock off an hour early and therefore lost an hour of pay. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of seeing my still-best friend. I hand't seen her in 10 months! I had began to think she didn't care about me or didn't want to make time for me. But truth was, we both have our priorities set on school, jobs, and our future careers. And since we live an hour away from each other, visitations haven't been so easy to schedule. Our friendship is very much like those teenage posts on social media that talk about strong long distance friendships.
Ariel and I met up at an equidistant proximity. The funny part was that we both lied about the time we left our houses, as we are both girls and we both needed extra time to get ready. Our excuses were traffic, even though the freeways were empty. It took us both approximately 25 minutes to get to the bowling alley, although we claimed it took us at least 35 minutes. (I still haven't confessed to her that I lied.) I'll save it for our next get-together.
We played an hour and a half of bowling, but we talked more than we bowled! There was so much to catch up on. From guys, to jobs, to family, to crises, to simple "girl-talk," one would believe we hadn't seen each other in years. While we were conversing, I remembered to myself how much I have always enjoyed her company and the laughs we have been able to share. Together, we are as much care-free and exuberant ladies as we are thriving and career-driven women.
I honestly think we were talking so much in between rounds, our lane and computer began to malfunction. At that point, we stopped competing for the highest score and took turns bowling even if it wasn't our turn on the screen. We could have told an employee, but the game wasn't that serious. Before our 2 hours were up, we called it quits and looked up food places that offered light menus. (That's another quality I love about her: she's semi-health conscience.) The downsides of that idea was that most places near us were closing for the night, and the "mom and pop" type places had closed long before 10pm due to the holiday weekend.
Luckily we managed to find a shaved ice parlor that was still open. Neither of us had tried it before, so we gave it a try. No more than a 5-minute drive on the same street, we arrived. After sampling and critiquing half of the gelatos on the bar, we decided on Birthday Cake. It complemented our shaved ice and strawberry, mango, and peach toppings perfectly! It was a beautiful concoction. We carried our conversation from the alley to the parlor quite easily. As we began to see the pit of the bowl, it became apparent that we couldn't sit still without shivering, that the room was entirely empty, and that we were full.
Because we both understood the restaurant business life, we neatly consolidated our mess to the inside of the bowl, stepped outside, and thanked the people for letting us stay so late. Yet it didn't stop us from finding a new place to continue our conversation. Before I knew it, it was already midnight, and we saw a coyote heading in our direction before it strayed away. Ariel shooed me away not long after because she reminded me I had to wake up early for the next day. I wanted to rebel, but at the same time, I didn't want a painful and tiresome morning. We said our goodbyes and promised we wouldn't wait so long to reunite.
Saturday: it came too soon. I felt like I had barely slept--which wasn't entirely false. At first I was hesitant to dedicate an entire day to two events that each needed their own day for celebration. But then I reminded myself that I was going to start taking advantage of my life that remains and fill it with fun, adventure, and take daring risks. 6:09am that morning, I felt psychotic for deciding to go to Six Flags Magic Mountain with some friends, and then going to my grandparents' house for an Independence Day party. Although my family has held this annual party longer than I have been alive, I had never planned to do anything so extreme hours before that.
It was a hectic morning, to say the least. Or maybe not. (I'll admit I'm just exaggerating because I wasn't the birthday girl driving left and right trying to get people together to leave on time.) My brother, his girlfriend, and I left my house around 7:15am to pick up my boyfriend from his house. From there, we drove to Bekah's house (the birthday girl) and waited for 20 minutes, which was around the amount of time it took her to drive back home. We had tried to wait patiently for everyone to show up, but oddly enough, cars were leaving her house. Once Bekah showed up, she seemed more annoyed than my impatient brother. She told us there was going to be a change of plans because her parents were already near the theme park, her brother and his friends were heading in that direction, and her boyfriend's sister and brother-in-law weren't ready. And that we were better off driving to her boyfriend's house to leave from there. We waited in front of his house for 5 min--which was when I began to feel embarrassed for all the driving around my brother had to do. Although he volunteered to drive, I felt embarrassed because I had to convince him to go with us, and then this quagmire had to happen.
It was around the 10th time that I saw Bekah come out of the house when I finally had the courage to tell her that we were going to take off because we were waiting too long. She seemed fine with the idea because I think she had realized her "meet at my house at 7:15am" plan had failed at 6am when her parents took off.
At 8:05am we headed North. We made it to Valencia in an hour. I hadn't even entered the park yet and I was already feeling sick. I think it is safe to say that my brother drives wild enough to feel motion sick, but safe enough not to cause an accident.
Within minutes, Bekah and the 3 people she rode with met up with us in the parking lot. The 8 of us waited for the other 7 to arrive at front of the park's entrance. It was already 9:20am. The sun was heating up my shoulders, and the line of people waiting to get into the park grew bigger and bigger. And still, no sign of her family, even after we were told to go to will-call and pay for our tickets there.
Finally, at 10 something, her family showed up. I thought Bekah was joking when she said her grandparents and great uncle were also going to be joining us. We greeted each other and made our way through the Six Flags entry gates.
The greatest thing about going on July 4th, was that the park was relatively empty! We didn't wait more than 30 minutes for each ride. Taking our time, we were able to ride Viper, Tatsu, Jet Stream, Riddler's Revenge, Canyon Blaster, Roaring Rapids, Tidal Wave, and X2. I don't know what was more amazing: the fact that Bekah's 70-year-old grandparents rode Tatsu, that my brother--the most fearful of roller coasters, and whom I was proud of--rode the majority of the rides we all got on, or that X2 was the most thrilling and hilarious way to end our day at Six Flags.
Since my brother and his girlfriend skipped the last ride due to feeling woozy, they were already waiting for my boyfriend and I at the front of the entrance with the truck at 4pm. From there, it was another hour-long drive to La Puente where Part 2 of our Independence Day laid ahead.
When we got to my grandparents' house, our parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins were happy to see us. Although worn out, we said hello to everyone and told them about how much fun we had but were glad to be back home and be able to eat in peace without having to get on another roller coaster afterward.
I think the four of us (my boyfriend, brother, his girlfriend, and I) were semi-disoriented after the whole morning and half of the day spend out and about. But we soon regained energy, or at least just enough to light up some fireworks.
The majority of the fireworks on our block had finished; but that didn't mean the fear was over for four-legged friends. A frightened Chihuahua had made itself into the house where many of us were keeping warm. It was shaking and sh-pooping all over the dining room. Poor doggy smelled worse than his feces, and his nails were as long as those in fashion right now. He must not have known where else to go to hide from the blasts and booms going on all over the place. The glassy look on his bulging eyes said everything. To avoid having him roam loosely and scared on the streets, we thought we did the best thing possible by keeping him in the small laundry room with a towel and fresh water overnight. The next morning, my grandma let him go. I hoped he knew where his house was. That, or a nice family would find him and take better care of him than his previous owners.
By 11pm, both my boyfriend and I were knocked out on the living room couch waiting to go home. Unfortunately, we both had work early the next morning, and were in need of a prayer to keep us functioning through Sunday.
Sunday was so bad for me, I'd rather not write about it. But I did end the day on a good note after work. I napped, swam for a bit (first swim of the summer!), shared hysterical laughs with my future sister-in-law, and relaxed by watching a movie with my boyfriend.
This is going down as one of the most memorable 4th of July weekends, ever!
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