Ain't no party like a Grandmas-only party because a Grandmas-only party don't start

We had an ultra-exclusive 4th of July party at my house this year. You weren't invited? Well, there's a reason.

Before you could get into this 4th of July party, you had to meet the following requirements:

-- you must remember when the Lucille Ball Show wasn't in reruns
-- you must have bought gas when it was less than 40 cents a gallon
-- you must be a grandma
-- more specifically, you must be one of Evey's grandmas
-- extra bonus points if you walk with a limp, oftentimes misplace your glasses or sometimes call people a series of different family member's names until you get it right.

That's right, it was a GRANDMAS ONLY party at the Jones casa. My mom ("Noni"), Adro's mom ("Grandma") and Adro's grandma ("Memow") all came over. Evey was thrilled. Me, I'm always happy to be able to say I'm the best basketball player in the room.


Sadly, with this crew, Evey was the best Uno player in the room. Of the eight or nine games we played, Evey won FOUR of them (notice how she's humbly holding up a "No. 1!" with her hand?). Maybe she won so many because she was the only one not drinking? I don't know, she had the cards... sure, we helped her play, but she won all her games fair and square.

I make jokes about the requirements for getting in, but it really was great to have this group of wonderful ladies with us at our house. I was especially happy to have my Mom there, as it's still weird to not have my Dad in the room with us for these things. We talked about last year's 4th, I remember it well... Dad was having headaches at this time, but we had no idea it was something so serious. We grilled at our old house on Pennsylvania Street (photo of my Dad that day included). Me and Dad walked to watch some of the bike races downtown afterwards. Hard to believe that was just last year.



...Anyway, it was a memorable 4th of July, even though no one wanted to do a keg stand with me.

***

So, about those first three photos? Can you believe the disparity in quality? I took these three photos, boom-boom-boom. Blurry, focused, blurry. I'm taking the camera in to get it serviced, I think something is wrong with it (but I realize it could just be me).

The camera got screwy on me in Texas... and I still haven't taken it in for service yet. I'll try to make that happen soon.