Fourth of July Pie: Pastry in the USA

Bag: T-Shirt & Jeans, Zulily 

Top: Lily Rose, Marshalls

Bag: Sleepyville Critters, Zulily

Dress: Lily Rose, Kohl's

Old-Fashioned Flowers Barrette Brooch

Bag: Xhilaration, Target

Dress: Almost Famous, Kohl's

Happy B-Day USA Barrette Brooch

Bag: LC Lauren Conrad, Kohl's

Blueberry Sundae Barrette Brooch

Tank: So, Kohl's

Bracelets top to bottom: B Fabulous; So, Kohl's; B Fabulous; Cloud Nine, Ocean City

Skirt: So, Kohl's

Last night, my Fourth of July post was rudely foiled by an internet outage.  I blame the two-hour blitz of fireworks in my neighborhood.  They were so loud I thought I was in a war zone; surely, they were fearsome enough to interfere with a tower.  So, I rode out the night the way they would've in 1776, without TV and internet and only, as the husband reminded me mid-rant, the comfort of half a dozen blazing lamps and a steady supply of refrigerated limeade.  I think he was not-so-secretly happy about the outage because it meant that our Documentary Now! marathon was cut short.  I can't say that I blame him.

Anyway, this is what I would've written if fate and firearms (some of those fireworks sounded like guns) hadn't intervened:

America, you're another year older.  Hopefully, you're also a little bit wiser.  But even if you're not, I celebrate you with desserts both in felt and cold, hard custard (or at least I would've if the lady at Rita's had heard me say gelati instead of just cotton candy [water ice]).

Because everyone deserves a birthday treat.  Even if that treat can't be pie despite what this post title says.  There is, however, birthday cake and ice cream.  And I think that that more than makes up for the lack of lattice-topped, sugared fruit.

One thing's for sure.  America, pie or not, wiser or not, at least you look better than you did back when you wore that powdered wig.

P.S. Bill Hader and Fred Armisen, I apologize about that Documentary Now! comment.  I did enjoy seeing you in your Grey Gardens getups, and although he denies it, the husband did too.  Please don't murder us in your basement.

P.P.S.  The husband discovered that the internet outage was not the result of fireworks gone terribly wrong, but of a dead outlet in, yes, our own basement.  So now I have to apologize to the fireworks too.  As well as give in to my compulsion to say that 1) all awfulness leads back to the basement and 2) the call was coming from inside the house.

So, I hope that you don't have a basement.  But that you did have a happy, hassle-free, treat-filled Fourth!

Movie Moment: Adventureland

One of the perks of being a one-woman felt factory is getting to watch lots of movies while I work.  Last weekend I rhinestoned a trio of French fry-themed necklaces to the tune of Adventureland, a dark comedy starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart as a couple of nearly-adult kids trying to figure it all out one summer while working at an amusement park.  Set in the late 1980s, it's more angst-ridden than bubblegum, playing up the murkier undercurrents of carnival life and intermingling them with all the live wire edges that come with being young.  Rounding out the cast are Ryan Reynolds as a sleazy married guy who hits on all the girls and "Saturday Night Live's" Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the dorky but devoted married couple who serve as his foil.  Engaging, gritty, and refreshingly real, Adventureland is the kind of story that makes you want to relive and bury your early twenties all at the same time.