I Suck At Flag Day

saturday was quite the interesting day.

in what has almost become a tradition with my friends, quincy held the flag day parade on saturday. now, i suck at flag day. according to my friend, wikipedia, quincy has the longest running flag day parade. for anyone curious, quincy began the flag day parade in 1952. in fact, on this 57th year of the annual parade, the flag from the world trade center was supposed to be featured.

anyway, to follow the annual tradition in lockstep, my friend (jen) usually organizes a get together with a bunch of friends. she has been doing this gathering for quite some time now... as far back as i can remember.

needless to say, i tend to cringe whenever flag day comes. sadly, i have never been a fan of parades. watching people go by has never been my thing.

as well, i was not really looking forward to flag day this year because at this time last year, karen and i were joyfully telling a bunch of our friends (who gathered together for the annual flag day tradition) about karen's pregnancy. granted, it's not flag day's fault that the day is a general reminder about my son (braden) who passed away. it's just one of those unfortunate associations.

as if one bad thing weren't enough for flag day (assuming you don't include the parade itself), i learned my friend's (aimee) mother passed away. so right now, flag day is looking more like black saturday if you ask me.

that said, i feel a little annoyed with myself for thinking that way. after all, jen looks forward to this and she always does a great job organizing the event. and in fact, the flag day event was very good. jen did a great job. i had fun.

a bunch of us gathered at jen's parents' house for a cookout. all of us had fun hanging out, eating burgers and hot dogs. probably the highlight of flag day for me was when my friend (hot amy) got angry with me about a certain publication.

hot amy came up to me asking about my involvement with a certain publication. at the time, i had no idea what she was referring to. it turns out, the publication she was referring to was the "hough's neck bulletin", which is a local community paper for residents of quincy who live in the hough's neck area. upon learning about the hough's neck bulletin, i immediately cracked up because i then realized what she was referring to.

for anyone curious, i stole hot amy's stuffed animal, wally, from her car to see if she would notice his disappearance awhile ago. even though i had wally for quite some time, i planned on returning him to his rightful owner. and so, the day came when i was going to return wally.

naturally, i had to take one more jab at hot amy (because that's what i do... i instigate). thus, i contacted the hough's neck bulletin knowing full well that she had previously warned me to never contact them.

to be honest, i was quite surprised that the hough's neck bulletin even printed my announcement. (the hough's neck community council does not have the current issue on its website yet, so i can't link to it.) basically the gist of the announcement was a congratulatory statement that hot amy was being reunited with her beloved stuffed animal, wally.

when i had contacted the hough's neck bulletin, i had inquired if they would even print a silly announcement about a stuffed animal reunion. granted i may have exaggerated the truth a bit by saying that hot amy really really loved her stuffed animal. nonetheless, i never heard back from the hough's neck bulletin about whether they would print it or not.

as it turned out... they did! it was fantastic! just the look on hot amy's face was priceless. and the funny thing is... i never returned wally. i still have the stuffed animal.

anyway, i spent the rest of the flag day celebration partying with my drinking buddy (kelley). it was good because we got to skip out on the actual parade portion of the night.