4th of July

Sorry for neglecting ya'll but my life has been pretty busy lately.

One of the ladies from work, Natalie, invited me out to her house in Queens for a 4th of July BBQ. Needless to say I jumped at the chance to not be by myself and to really see what these northern folks called BBQ. She picked me up in her old neighborhood in Brooklyn and we headed to the butcher to pick up the holiday fixin's.

Now you have to imagine Natalie, she is Italian and straight up Brooklyn! She moved out of the neighborhood because too many Manhatanites were taking over. First we went to get "Cwawfee" (coffee) and then headed to meet Carmine, the butcher. This woman talks about her butcher all the time so I just had to meet him. I walked in and there they were, 4 Italian men standing behind the counter. Carmine, the owner, Tony his brother, Vinny a worker and Mike, the one legged man. Yes and he even has a one legged dog, he showed me a picture. They all asked for a hug and you know me, I'm from the south, we ain't afraid to hug. I think they just wanted to see if "they were real", if you know what I mean. Gotta love Italian men. Anyway, they talked shit, we talked shit and got our meat to go. After leaving the butcher we stopped and got the paper at the corner store then headed off to Queens.

I had such a good time. Natalie's husband kept feeding me Vodka and Lemonade, and I had my first official Italian sausage and peppers sandwich. We had meat on a stick, ribs, burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, macaroni salad, and cole slaw. There was no BBQ chicken, which is just a sin in my book, but all in all this group of Northerners did pretty darn good. Shoot I would of been happy with just the Vodka :)

Sunday I took my first trip to the Jersey Shore. I did my research and Long Branch beach was the easiest trip to take by train. The train station is literally 3 blocks from the beach. You have to pay to go on all the beaches up here, so I paid my little $5 and settled in. I am not really sure what you pay for. Supposedly to keep the beach clean but I snuggled up next to an empty Corona bottle and quite a few cigarette butts, so I am not really sure where my hard earned money is going. I was just happy to hear the waves, read my book and of coarse people watch. Which leads me to my story...

So I officially know why people make fun of Jersey Girls. As I was walking to the beach there was this chic in front of me with high heels on, big ass gold hoop earrings and her Prada sunglasses. First thing, she nearly ran me over on the sidewalk, only to step into the street and almost bust her ass trying to walk in her heels. Why you wear high heels to the beach, I really don't know. I digress. We both paid for our beach passes, she took off her heels and proceeded to walk down the beach to find a spot. Now granted it isn't that hot up here, but the sand can get kind of warm. Next thing I heard her on her cell phone telling her friend how her feet were burning in the sand. Why the hell didn't you wear flip flops then. On top of that the sand is not that clean, and I know flip flops don't really help that much but it is peace of mind in my book just to know I am not stepping on cigarette butts with my bare feet. Anyway I saw her put her stuff down and made sure I walked quite a bit past her. I just couldn't handle it. Now I know why people make fun of Jersey Girls, some of them are a hamburger short of a Happy Meal!