Instead of fighting thousands of other cars leaving the city Wednesday for the holiday weekend, I had a mini anxiety attack and decided golfing with my Aunt's 70-something year old boyfriend at 7 in the morning the next morning wasn't worth the trouble. As it turned out, we have had a far more interesting 4th at home here in Chicago so far.
After dusk, the crackity crackle noises became a low roaring noise... I tore Adam away from his video hockey (on the 4th of July!!!) game and we climbed up to our neighbor's porch on the top floor who was away. All around us, we were surrounded by fireworks, all the loco neighbors that annoy us through the rest of the year with their loud sooped up "ghettobeast" cars and Elotez trash on the sidewalks and gutters, and the snotty neighbors with their BMW's disguised as Jettas who look at us like we're hillbillies from Detroit, have given us somthing back: they were the ones that drove to undetermined locations to buy fireworks and give us our own 4th of July extravaganza show for free. We sat on Kim's back porch with a beer in one hand and a smoke in the other and enjoyed the show. I'm glad I stayed in town, I think it's the first year I've been here. Well worth it to discover that my crazy immigrant neighbors are either extremely patriotic or obsessed with lighting things on fire and making them go "BOOM". Gracias neighbors!