well, i suppose it will be passe by now since i'm sure everyone's doing it ... but i think i'll gripe about the fourth of july anyway.

now, if your fourth is anything like mine, you spend about ten hours sitting out in the hot ass sun watching the kids swim. why are you watching the kids swim? shouldn't their parents be keeping an eye on them? YES THEY SHOULD. however, since most of the adults chose rather to consume mass quantities of cheap warm watery american beer and play volleyball, my sisters and i were tasked with the lifeguarding.

at some point, my mom somehow gets custory of the youngest child there that day, this little 7 month old girl. she is completley adorable and sweet and good-natured, so we're having a ball playing with her. we yank her out of the pool because she's wearing a disposable diaper. if you're not familiar with the consequences of a disposable diaper that has been submerged in water, you haven't lived. these things disintegrate, creating this gummy gel that gets stuck all over the poor kid and floats out into the pool. if you haven't noticed, we haven't mentioned anything about this kid's mother yet. that's because she's nowhere to be found. we get her kid, change her diaper, find some clothes to put on her, find her a toy to play with, and a few hours later when she starts crying, we find her some food to eat. no mother anywhere in sight.

kid's mom finally mosies over to where we are sitting. she doesn't know us from adam, but has had no problems leaving her kid with us for a few hours. start talking with mom and find out she's pregnant again. about 4 and 1/2 months. let me retrace for you here. this baby is 7 months old. born nov. 20th. mom is due with second baby in 4 and 1/2 months, roughly nov. 26. do the math people. never mind, i'll do it for you, this baby was just over a month old when mom got pregnant again. (trust me, pregnancy is 40 weeks -- i don't know where this 9 month's bullcrap comes from) now if you're not familiar with how hard pregnancy is on your body, let me just tell you that, too. most vitamin levels in mom's body take about one full year to recuperate after the baby is born. not one month, no siree.

SO after revealing this crazy piece of info, mom goes and gets in the hot tub. yet another faux pas. fetal brains and temperatures of 104 do not mix. and she stayed in there for a looooooooong time, too. it was all very disturbing.

it only got worse once the sun went down. i was sitting back away from the fireworks action, but close enough to watch the super drunk guy who was shooting all his fireworks right out of his hand. yup, why bother setting them on the metal drum hauled out for the occasion when you've got that perfectly good appendage right there?! don't ask me. and no, unfortunately, he didn't get his hand blown off. but i guess there's always next year ...