Light a Roman Candle with Me

Grad students are the best part of grad school. Most especially when those grad students are your friends. And when those grad student friends of yours throw a partay? Man, you’re living the life.

My friends J and Nan did just that yesterday. Now, these girls don’t mess around when it comes to hosting parties. I mean, just look at the spread of food they had.

Not even close to all the noms.

This party would have made George Washington and Thomas Jefferson proud. Especially since we all dressed up in our Red, White, and Blue Finery. Victoria, a first-time Fourth of July celebrator, was giddy from all the talk of rebellion against her oppressive empirish homeland.

Bedecked in patriotic garb.

We ate all the food, drank all the dranks, and then decided it was high time to sing the national anthem. So we did. There was much flag-waving and off-key-singing to behold. And once we had paid adequate homage to the bombs bursting in air (which we were actually starting to hear as the burn-ban-breakers were slowly driven outside by their pyromaniacal urges), we played croquet. I nearly won, but then I lost.

Nighttime croquet playin’.

The finale of the night came when J offered us the opportunity to potentially burn down her house and entire neighborhood with a potent pack of wedding sparklers she had lying around. We then acted out our dreams of being Harry Potter wizards and cast spells on each other with our magic sparkler wands. But thankfully no one said the Incendio spell, so the house and neighborhood were saved from a fiery destruction.

Wizards in training.

It was a great night.

How did you celebrate the Fourth of July? Did it involve rampant American nationalism and setting things on fire?