July 4
Getting up at three am wasn't any fun at all. I'd gotten used to Meghan's alarm going off at its normal time in the morning, but I wasn't prepared for it and I jerked up in bed, smacked Meghan with a wing, and was backing out of bed when I realized what the noise was.
Meghan picked up her pocket telephone and glared at it and I thought that she was going to throw it across the room and we both sort of shared a look like the sensible thing to do would be to just turn it off and go back to bed and wake up at a sane hour of the day.
And she could have done that and I wouldn't have even been mad. I'd promised that I was going to do the weather report, but she was probably just going to have to sit off in the background, being quiet.
I really did want her to come, though.
She groaned and rubbed her hand over her stomach, where I'd smacked her, and then pushed the covers the rest of the way off and sat up in the bed. I got back in and nuzzled her side and she reached down and scratched between my shoulders and then said that maybe a shower would help wake us up.
I thought coffee would, too, so when she went in the bathroom to start the shower I filled the electric kettle and got it going. I had a jar of coffee crystals I'd bought for early mornings.
She'd already gotten in the shower, so I hopped in the back and waited for my turn to stick my head under the hot spray.
We took turns washing each other and then she got out first and went on the other side of the shower curtain so I could shake myself off some, and when I hopped out she had a towel waiting for me.
It was a bit chilly in the apartment and there wasn't any sun to warm us up. But that helped us wake up—it's hard to sleep when you're chilly. She got dressed quicker than she usually did after a shower, putting on her bra and shirt before I even combed her hair. And then she got the rest of the way dressed while I went and made coffee for us.
Meghan blew on the cup to cool it down a little bit then took a sip and made a face. I tried some of mine and it was pretty bitter, but it certainly opened my eyes, so I guess it worked.
We used the rest of the hot water to make two bowls of the mapely oatmeal that I like, and then we were ready to go.
The town was very different this early in the morning. When we got to Stadium Drive, there weren't any cars on it in either direction, and Meghan said that was kind of creepy. And most of the buildings were closed and dark, although there was a gas station that was open.
As we were walking along Westnedge, every couple of minutes a car or two would pass us. One was a police car with lights on top and it slowed down as it went by, then sped off up the hill. And I saw a red wrecker with a smashed-up car behind it.
Meghan checked her telephone when we got close and said that we were a little bit early, so she crouched down and combed my mane again with her fingers, and I pushed her bangs back over her ear with my nose. Then we went inside.
I knew that bakers got up early to start baking bread, and I guess newspeople did, too, because while the town outside seemed nearly deserted, once Cyndi escorted us back through the door it was bustling with activity. Meghan leaned down and said that people had no right to be that chipper this early in the morning.
They rushed me off to get ready, and Meghan followed along. We went right to Cyndi's little studio, and a man stuck a microphone on me again and then had me check to make sure it was working right. And he reminded me to be careful sitting down because the pack was on my tail like it had been last time.
They had to use a few more strips of tape this time, 'cause I was going to have to fly up a little bit to point to things on the greenscreen, and they also wanted to make sure it didn't come off. So he put a couple more pieces on my back, 'cause it was easiest to run the wire along my spine rather than under my belly.
After I was ready, Cyndi and I read through the weather report a couple times, just to make sure that I knew what was in it, and then we had a little practice with the screen. Then when it was almost time to start, they told Meghan that she couldn't be in the studio while they were filming, because of the incident in Virginia last year, but there was a separate little room where she could watch what was happening.
They started turning the floodlights on, and people came in and put the cameras in position. I noticed that each one of them had a little rubber duck on the end, which were all different colors, and Cyndi told me that was how they knew which camera was which. They had labels on the other end, but the ducks were easier for everyone to see.
Alex and Kirk came in and took their seats at their desk and shuffled through some papers, and Alex looked over at me and waved, and then we had to be quiet because it was time to start.
It was really strange to watch, because while Alex and Kirk were the only ones talking, all the actual action was taking place on the floor, where no one but us could see it. Besides the people with the cameras, there was a woman on the floor who watched everything intently and occasionally made hand-motions towards the cameramen.
TV had commercial breaks, and so when it was time they turned off the light that said 'On Air' and everyone relaxed a little bit. My ears perked up after the second when Alex said that they were going to do a very special Fourth of July weather report next, and then she kind of stayed in position with a friendly smile on her face until the 'On Air' light went out and I knew it was about time.
And then Cyndi told me to look towards the camera—she said to never turn away from it even if it wasn't on—and I heard someone say 'thirty seconds,' and then before I knew it Cyndi was introducing me, and then the camera that was looking at her turned and looked at me and I waved.
I was glad we'd practiced, because otherwise I would have just been standing there like a scared foal. But it was still fresh in my mind where I was supposed to point and what I was supposed to say, so I did.
And then before I knew it it was over. The lights went off and Cyndi said I'd done a great job and gave me a hug, and then the man who'd put my microphone on took it back off and asked me if I wanted to stay for the rest and I kind of did but I thought Meghan was getting lonely, so I had him lead me to the room where she was.
She hugged me when I came in and said that I'd done a great job and that I should ask if I could have a copy of their broadcast, or at least the parts about me. And she wanted to know if I'd been nervous and I said a little bit but once it was my turn I didn't have time to be nervous, I just did what we'd practiced.
It was strange going back outside because now it was light and there were lots of cars on the road, and it looked like the city was alive again.
I wish that they'd had a cot or a couch for us to sleep on, because now that I was done the anticipation had worn off and I was starting to feel pretty tired, and neither of us was really looking forward to walking back to my apartment.
We stopped at the Bagel Beanery again and had breakfast sandwiches which were like normal bagel sandwiches except that they also had egg on them. And if we'd wanted to stay up, we would have had coffee but both of us were in the mood for a morning nap.
We'd still have to go and get some beer before David and Angela's party, but that could wait until after we'd had some sleep.
I waited until Meghan was in bed, and she asked if I was waiting just so I could sleep on her, and I admitted that I was. She laughed and got in bed and I curled up with my head on her breast and my wing over her stomach and she put her hand on my withers and asked if I needed an alarm set.
I said I'd rather wake up without it and she agreed that would be best.
She must've woke up before me, 'cause I woke up to her petting my wing and back and so I turned my head and kissed her to show her that I was awake. And she asked if I minded her petting my wings and I said as long as she was gentle.
After a little while she asked me about preening, and so I moved off to the side a little bit and pulled my wing up so I could get to it and after I showed her how I let her try.
It was a little hard for her at first, and her fingers felt a lot different than when I did it with my mouth and teeth and she left a few feathers kind of ruffled, but she really wanted to learn so whenever she made a mistake I told her and she gently fixed it.
Then she wanted to do my other wing, so I turned around and put my head on her hip and stretched it out for her. That wasn't as comfortable as having my head on her breast; I should have just gone across her.
But her hands were already in my feathers, so I stayed where I was until she was done. Then I got out of bed and fluffed out my wings and straightened a couple feathers that she'd missed, and did a little hop-flight around the living room while Meghan watched. I landed back on the bed and kissed her on the forehead and said that she'd done a really good job especially for it being her first time.
She got dressed and then we went to Tiffany's and bought five carriers of beer so that we'd have plenty to share with everyone and Meghan said that she could have made something and if we hadn't slept so late she would have. My ears kinda fell when she said that, but she said it was okay, she didn't think he'd be mad.
It was pretty close to get to the house, so we just went directly over there. David had put a tablecloth across the hood of not-Winston and Meghan set the beer there first before she saw a blue icebox which had enough room for about half of the beer.
There were probably about a dozen people in the backyard—David was at the grill and Angela was helping him, and I saw an older woman who looked kind of like him that was probably his mother. And there was one more person who I recognized from college, but didn't really know and the rest were strangers.
Angela lead us around and introduced us to everyone. David's mother was named Mary and her wife was Susan and said that they had both seen me on the weather report this morning. And the man from college I sort of recognized was Jay. There was another man named Lanny, and David's friend from high school named Matt.
Angela's friends were Allison who had very bright red hair, Miriam, a tall awkward guy named Zach, and a couple called Daniel and Amanda. Everyone was really friendly and they were all a bit curious about me 'cause none of them had ever seen a pony up close before. So at first I was kind of the object of everyone's interest, but after a little bit the novelty wore off and people started talking about other things, and that was a lot more fun for me.
I ate more than I should have and so did Meghan but she said that was some of the fun of a party. And I thought about showing her around the house a little bit, since it was open, but I wound up not until she asked where the bathroom was, and so I led her in the side door and showed her the bathroom off the kitchen and she said that she had never seen a house that had a bathroom door with a window in it.
I took a little bit of time to refill the bird feeder, even though I knew that there wouldn't be any birds around while there were so many people in the backyard. Aric's bag of seeds was almost empty, so I thought that I ought to get a new one for him, too, when I went shopping next.
After David was done grilling, he set up a little ring in the backyard and people took turns throwing giant darts at it. The rule was that you had to be twenty feet away but I got accused of cheating when I went twenty feet straight up and dropped them down like that.
The darts got put away when it got dark and he went into the garage and brought out a couple of big boxes of fireworks and cleared a spot on the lawn and then started to set them off.
I'd seen fireworks before but not that often and they were always a treat to watch. There were little rockets with stick-tails that got put into beer bottles and made whistling noises as they shot up into the air and exploded, and there were some that made even bigger patterns. He had sparklers which you could hold but I stayed away from them because I didn't want to have any more burns anytime soon, and strings of little firecrackers he called daisy-chains that all went off one after the other.
When everything else was gone he pulled out a really big tube and set it on the ground and told everyone that if the cops came to play innocent. And he lit it and it shot up into the air and at first nothing happened, then it exploded into dozens of bright starbursts really high in the air. And then a second rocket went up, and a third, and all told six of them went up like that, exploding and sprinkling down on us.
The party started breaking up after that, and we left while about half the guests were still there. I said my goodbyes to everyone and thanked David and Angela for inviting us, then we walked back home to the accompaniment of other people all around the neighborhood shooting off their own fireworks. There were so many, I didn't think there was much chance that the cops would have noticed the one that David launched at the end.
We stopped at my apartment long enough for Meghan to pick up her bag of clothes, then went to her apartment since she had to get up early in the morning. And when we were snuggled up in bed right before she went to sleep she said that she thought this had been one of the best Independence Days she'd ever had.