Controlled Chaos

Mike, Kristin and I all got up this morning and headed to the D to go to Nathan’s hot-dog eating contest.  By coincidence, we met Emem and Thor at the train station, but after an awkward exchange, we ended up not spending the day with them.  It was a long ride, but not as long as Sye’s, who took the D from one end to the other, and met us there.  When we got there, we found a place to stand (up on the curb), and proceeded to watch.  I took pictures for Kristin, but I dunno what others could see.  Joey Chestnut and Kobayashi ended up tying at 59 dogs, and for overtime had to race to eat 5 dogs.  Chestnut won, but it’s worth noting that Kobayashi had an injured jaw…

After the contest, we went and bought food.  I bought a knish, and Kristin bought, then dropped, a hot dog.  After we got our food, we walked out to the beach, laid out a blanket, and ate.  After that, Kristin left, so she could borrow stuff from work and head to Dave’s for the July 4 party we were gonna attend later on.  Mike, Sye and I sat there for a while just talking and wincing.  Eventually, we took the blanket closer to the water, and I went shell-hunting while they talked.  When I got back, I read the 25th chapter of Catcher in the Rye aloud, but then refused to read the last chapter, which was only 1.5 pages.  Eventually, we headed back, and Sye and I went to the freakshow, then we took the train back.

I took the N all the way to Dave’s.  When I got there, things were already happening, but contrary to what he’d suggested, his balcony had no view of the fireworks.  We went up on the roof, but still couldn’t see past the adjacent building.  Ah well.  I never see NYC fireworks.  I ended up getting into quite the argument with a Democrat staffer friend of Josh’s, who was both drunk and a champion of the rights of arab women…or so she seemed to think.  Ugh.  Eventually, I rode home by myself.

This morning I got up and headed to 219th street.  When I got there, I bought some dunkaroos, then found a fruit store down the street and got healthier food: peaches, blueberries, dried mango…I got them all and took them to the corner of 219 to wait for other people.  Eventually Stephy, Dieynabou and Sye showed up, and we walked down to the park, where we found Luis and Rachely in swings.  Castro was there too, as were a few others (8 in all), but many people didn’t come.  Thus, I ended up being in a rowboat all by myself.  We pushed in to the Bronx River, and spent the day canoing down.  All of my fruit was eaten that day, and I had to canoe with Chandy’s gifts in the canoe with me, since she didn’t come to the movies and now wasn’t here for this.  After we finished the trip, we all broke off for lunch, after attending a eco-friendly bathroom that uses foam instead of water in the toilets.  Adrian, Sye and I went to a pizza place and ordered a Sicilian pizza, not knowing any better.  During the time it took to cook, Adrian and I traded characters and joined a group battle in FFTA in my attempt to steal his blue mages’ abilities.  It didn’t work.  And our pizza didn’t work out too well, as it came very late, and caused us not to go kayaking.  But it *was* very good, and I ate the four leftover squares over the next several days.  We walked back, and found out that everyone was done because we saw Andrew driving out with the kayaks.  But as we walked further along, we ran into Chandy, and presented her with her gifts.  She was thrilled.  After that, we all parted ways.