Star-Spangled Singles

Since Cap'n Shack-Fu was busy flying over Miamuh in a Blackhawk on the 4th of July, Squiggly was actually able to host a Singles get-together at her place. You see, usually, if Shack-Fu is around, Squiggly's place is off-limits; not that Shack-Fu has anything against Squiggly, mind you -- no, it's more that he has something against his throat closing up and preventing him from breathing, which is what happens if he spends more than a minute or so around Squiggly's cats. So, without having to worry about accidentally killing everyone's favorite Rescue Hero, Squiggly was able to play hostess.

In addition to the few class members who were actually in town and able to make it over, I was very happy to find out that the guest list included Magic Pants and The Cardinal, both of whom I hadn't seen in many moons. We hung out at the pool for a while, and then Squiggly grilled some chicken for dinner. Before we headed out to the fireworks Fluffy got a call from Shack-Fu, who had decided that he would head back down to Denton to enjoy the 4th with us and just head back up to OK early the next morning. When he got to Squiggly's we all headed out to the poolside so Shack could enjoy eating the chicken without worrying about the whole keeling-over-and-dying thing. After Shack-Fu vacuumed down the food like any good military man would, we headed over to UNT for the fireworks display.

Some of my favorite moments of the day:

• Squiggly's cat Andy almost giving himself a heart-attack knocking a bucket of potato chips off of the counter top
  
  
• Fluffy being driven to frustration mere minutes after being around The Cardinal. "Don't you miss me?" he asked, grinning from ear to ear. "I did until I was actually around you," she retorted. Good times, good times.
  
  
• Finding out that, while most everyone in my group has banned the play of Encore, Magic Pants and The Cardinal have actually created their own upgrades to it for their own personal amusement: Encore 2.0 requires you to find songs with phrases instead of single words, such as "hit me" or "look out," while Encore 2.0 requires you to mix and match categories, so that you have to conjure up lyrics to a song that mentions, for example, a boy's name and a color. Most everyone who heard this looked at them like they were crazy; I, of course, was merely envious.
  
  
• Shack-Fu had dropped off a couple of rolls of film of flooding pictures at Wal-Mart before heading over to UNT for the fireworks, and then had to go pick them up, which meant that Squiggly, Fluffy, and I had to occupy his empty parking spot to save it from the mass of drivers looking for such an opportunity. Surprisingly enough we didn't get any verbal abuse from any of the drivers, and if we got many dirty looks we didn't notice because we were all studiously facing the other direction as much as possible.
  
  
• While guarding the spot, I got a phone call from Cap'n Disaster who, apparently enjoying playing the stalker rather than the stalkee for once, merely said "I can see you."
  
  
• Shack-Fu's unbridled giddiness during the pyrotechnics which made me wish I had my notebook with me so I could record all of his oh-so-technical names for the different types of fireworks like "I really like the crackly ones," or "ooooo, the sparkley ones are cool!"

But, really, my favorite memory of the day came as Magic Pants and The Cardinal were leaving Squiggly's apartment. I was in the living room area, and a phrase The Cardinal used caught my ear: "it borders on the Adriatic." When I turned towards him, he was responding to the blank stares his use of the phrase had occasioned by saying "Didn't any of you watch--" Before he could finish that thought, I burst into song:

Albania!
Albania!
You border on the Adriatic.
Your land is mostly mountainous
And your chief export is chrome.

This time I was the one greeted with blank stares from all but The Cardinal, who rushed over and gave me a high five. Yes, being the first person outside of my family to ever reference this clip



just once again confirms what I learned on the night of much mohoohoo: The Cardinal is, indeed, One of My People.