Patty's Mammie Grams

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Thursday, July 5, 2007

July 5 Independence Day Fun in the Sun

Nothing going on here except that it is VERY hot. One of my friends came to work this morning and asked - "So, what I want to know is - when is ever going to get hot here?" It was only up to 110 or 111 degrees today. The air conditioning at the salon went kablooey - I left before it was fixed - don't know if it was a compressor or if it just froze up. If there is too much humidity with the high heat, the compressor has to work too long and too hard, and ices up and quits. Just seems wrong, doesn't it? It was up to 80 degrees in there before we realized what was happening, and we were very glad to see the repairman and that the end of the day was coming.

We had such a great Fourth party here in the Ridge. This year was the 50
th anniversary of the Indian Ridge Swim Team, and we had some pretty special happenings at the parade. I forgot to ask anyone if we were in the paper this morning, as there was a photographer and a reporter there for the festivities.
We had a lot of prizes donated and then awarded to parade participants, for best float, best car entry, best bicycle, best stroller, probably about 10 categories in all. The Swim Team donned their t-shirts and marched, led by the coach and assistant coach. (Some of the swim team, I should say.) There was the Star Spangled Banner sung by one of our older residents, a small amount of 'speechifying' and lots of swimming and cooling off of very hot bodies in the pool, along with lots of watermelon and our very own Tucson's
eegee's -- a sort of Italian ice kind of thing that we all know and love.

You have all heard about our nightgown relay we have every year, and so many people were bugging out because of the heat, I didn't think we would have even one whole relay team. We scrounged and I begged and we ended up with 3 teams of 4. We had a new team of winners this year - 4 young Indian Ridge Swim team members! They really beat the last two or three (which is it Rob?) or maybe four year's winning team, led and plotted and masterminded by Rob, who loved and took very good care of the trophy for the entire year.
I made two dolls with a boy swimmer wearing a little swim cap with sequins and flowers and removing his nightgown, head to head with a girl swimmer ready to take on the nightgown. I personally think it is an amazing piece of artwork! (
hee hee hee)
So, this is how it works: the first swimmer dons the (dry
this time only) nightgown, steps up to the block and I start the race. They dive in, swim to the the other end of the pool, get out, trade the (now wet and very hard to get out of and put back on) nightgown to the next swimmer, who dives in and repeats at the other end, then again.
Last year I made swim caps to add to the changing part of the race, and that is now my very favorite addition to the craziness. These caps are so cute - they are the
lycra 'stretchy-clothish' kind of swimcap. I sewed a Mohawk of flowers on one, a little round top knot of flowers on another, red and white striped strips of cloth tied in a knot so they hang all floppy-like with red sequins sewn in tasteful and artful arrangements on the third, and the last cap (we only have 4 lanes, so need only 4 caps) is solidly covered with quite beautiful silver paillettes. I love them. The caps come off when they dive in or while they are swimming, the nightgowns are very hard to change out of and into when they are wet and there is much competitiveness. I have to take the nightgowns home for repairs every year. It is too, too funny to watch.
I swam one year only, and I misjudged where the end of the pool was when I went to grab the edge, and snorted a lot of water. I think the next year I was in funny blue shoes from the podiatrist after bunion surgery, so I got out of swimming, and now I have way too much fun being the starter and telling the "Swimmers, take your mark" then I always tell them "Swimmers, step down" just cause it sounds so important and cool, and then they all holler at me, and then they finally get the real "Swimmers, take your mark.......Go!"
After the big kids finish and the new trophy I made last year gets awarded, then the
littles get to have their watermelon relay, and they have fun, fun, fun. They just have to get the watermelon to the other end for the next swimmer to swim back to the other end with it etc. and if they don't watch where they are going we have a crash like we did this year - one coming and one going and they each were very little littles and each had a swim helper/partner so they wouldn't get lost. No one was injured or watermelons broken, so everything worked out great, except that I was watching that and forgot to watch to see who came in first!
We all have a ball, and the Rural Metro Fire Department comes to help us out - they drove a big rig (ladder truck only this year) in the parade. Sometimes we get an ambulance or two, or an additional fire truck -- we had 3 or 4 vehicles I think, one year.
The Firefighters used to be allowed to swim in our nightgown relay, until one of them dislocated a shoulder swimming the the last leg of the relay. Yes, that team did win, but after the other firefighters took him to the hospital, and then workman's comp got to take care of his injury, they were instructed to stay out of the swimming pool. Darn!
Anyway, we all go home and shower and then lie down for a nap, to get over the heat. This year we were invited over to friends for dinner, and to sit in their driveway to watch the Country Club fireworks show in the next neighborhood over. They had the best ever fireworks this year - they seemed to go on and on and the grand finale was spectacular! Our whole neighborhood gets on the rooftops or in the street or in the driveways to watch- we have better than front row seats! We don't get the stinky smoke and the boom-a-
lahs aren't quite as loud as they would be at the club.
Ahhhhh, ain't life grand!
The only thing that would have made it better, is if Sara had been here, too.
I miss her. She is on her way (traveling with her grandparents
LeCompte) to Olympia for her Camp Vet Experience with Uncle Dr. John and she is very anxiously awaiting it and very excited about it.
She has really helped me out with this blog, then figuring out how to put a guest sign-in with it. Thank you very much, Sara!
I liked my 4
th of July - How about youse guys? Love, Patty : )

2 Comments:

At July 7, 2007 at 4:07 PM , Blogger RonnieCat said...

Cute little small-town parade and then no fireworks (too windy) and didn't get to set off the sparklers after all and all in all very disappointing and I missed my own 4th of july at home very much.

Do I know the people who won? Did Rob come in second, or Dad?

 
At July 8, 2007 at 7:23 AM , Blogger MARIANDGEO said...

We were very proud of how well Sara made it through the dissaponting Independence Day celebrations in Montrose CO.

We think she was pleased with last night's performance of "The Rainmaker" at the Hale Center Theater in SLC. It is a handsome stadium-seated 'in the round' venue. Our seats were in the center of the fourth row. And to top it off we got back to camp on the confusing freeways we missed when we arrived by daylight.

LOVE from Grandparents LeCompte

 

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