Life, liberty and the pursuit of weekend.
Your Perks: 1) A concentrated blend of electrolytes that cures hangovers. This is important. 2) A handheld, portable espresso machine that requires zero electricity. 3) A build-your-own Bellini kit including four bottles of Collalbrigo prosecco, the same brand that was used in the original Bellini. Your brunch just got historical.
Fireworks to watch. Flags to salute. Sunscreen to slather. Hey, you’re busy. Think about outsourcing the picnic to Honey Butter Fried Chicken. Today’s your last day to order fried-chicken baskets with corn muffins, slaw, pasta and chocolate-toffee cookies for the Fourth. It feeds four people. Or one really hungry person.
If you’ve learned one thing from the movie Up, it’s that with enough balloons, anything is possible. What you’ll learn from Lisle’s annual hot-air balloon fest: with enough hot-air balloons, all-day carnivals, tethered balloon rides and champagne tents are possible. Truly, a better life lesson.
Sportsman’s Club, that upscale dive on Western Avenue, will be alive with the aromas of St. Louis–style barbecue this weekend. Additionally, they’ll have popsicles, ice-cold cans of beer and lawn games in the backyard. Because if you’re not cornholing, you’re not truly free.
Choice 1: Spend the Fourth at Oak Street or North Avenue getting sand in places you didn’t know you had. Choice 2: Go to a sandless party with tiki drinks, ping-pong, a $10 pig roast and a liberal attitude toward bikinis as dinner attire. Well, that was easy.
Congratulations, Belgium. Sincerely. You’re better at soccer than we are. Great. But if you really want to have a go at us, try cherry-pit-spitting, a regal contest of virtue, strength and stained chins. In fact, there’s a pit-spitting contest in Michigan this weekend. Gauntlet: thrown.
