friday. my day was made complex by the fact that the minivan had a minor melt down on thursday. conking out on 22nd st. literally in front of a automotive shop which burned down about three months ago was funny, having n- from the clay co behind me at the light was lucky. she was kind enough to lend me her aaa service and found a car shop. s- came by and helped us move the car out of traffic. we had some fun mosquito infested converstaion while we waited by the burned out auto shop for the tow truck to arrive. i had to commute the next day to sarasota so my parents came and got me and i so i could drive their car to work the next day. my luck seemed to continue because the problem was minimal, fixed on friday and i was able to get out of work early to go and pick it up. definitely best case scenario. with a little help from friends and family what could have been a real mess was made bearable.
friday night loading with j- ended up taking a little longer than originally planned. when we finished up at 2:30 am we decided NOT to start at 6 am. first turn up was at 9 am. s- and r-sensei were firing rudy inside. they had started at 6. we had taken good notes during the last firing and this time everything seemed to stay on a similiar schedule. around 6 pm s- and r- headed out. it started to get dark. i knew that we were looking at an estimated soda time of 1 am and though i was looking forward to the fireworks we would see after the sun went down i was starting to feel a little clausterphobic. i’ve never been a big fan of dusk. day is great, night is awesome. dusk is clasuterphobic. but once the sun fell i started to get my second wind.
once the fireworks started going we climbed out a second story window to the roof where i could see fireworks going off for 360 degrees. the best show in my line of sight was coming from down town st. petersburg. seeing fireworks definitely makes me nostalgic for tokyo. there’s no fourth there of course, fireworks are a summer long thing with different areas hosting shows. most are free, some you can pay a fee for good seating (ash and debris falling on your head good) and some you have to brave psychotic crowds to see. in the event listings each event has a number next to it, so and so thousand for example. knowing that the sumida river event was the biggest of the year i incorrectly thought that the number was the amount of folks in attendence. i felt very silly when i finally realized the number was the amount of fireworks being fired off. sumida river, the last time i went boasted 20,000 fireworks. crazy. regardless of the numbers thoug there is something about all that sparkly light in the night sky. it’s breath taking. j- said she’d considered becoming a pyrotechnician. that would have been awesome. just like judy chicago.
around 12:30 am we got everything ready to soda. shot in some soda/sawdust chalupas, sprayed and then added some wood for good measure, let it burn and then shut her down. i finally made it home around 2.
just as the exhaustion threatens to settle in, it’s time to soda and just as you think you’re going to drop from the heat, and dehydration you’re done and it’s time to start wondering what’s going to come out.
christmas or halloween??
can you see the cones? rough, since it was taken with my cell phone.