A Reunion Of Greattastic Proportion
In downtown Columbus, there is a place called COSI (Center of Science Industry). Every year on July 3rd, at 10:00 p.m., fireworks are launched from a spot near COSI in an event called Red, White, & Boom! My parents' art studio, Kobolt, is less than a mile from COSI, and every year, we have a party and watch fireworks from the roof. The week before Red, White & Boom, my family, and my cousin's family went to Norris Lake again, so the party was a lot more last minute this year.
Before we continue, I need to catch you up on the Andersons. As I've mentioned, I'm subleasing from Kid this summer because she was planning to spend it in Costa Rica. Well, Arden and Aspen went with her and were planning to spend the first two weeks with her. Unfortunately, Arden and Kid got bit by mosquitoes and got really sick. They are fine now, but because it was so bad, Kid cut her journey short and is now back in town.
I have been a bad friend this year. As I explained a few installments ago, because of how intense my job is, all the drama with Shane, and how stressed I was because of that, I had to work extra hard on my relationship with Paige, and I began slacking in my other relationships. Thanksgiving last year was the last time I saw Arden, Aspen, and Marshall. Finally, as I hinted at in my first book, The Greattastic Adventures: Miracle Child, the girls and my family had a complicated relationship in my childhood. While it has gotten better over the years, it has never not been awkward. On July 1st, 2024, Aspen texted me and asked if they were invited to Red, White & Boom at the studio, and I said yes.
At 6:00 p.m. on the 3rd, Paige and I drove to get two giant pizzas for the party. After a slight debacle with the pizzas because it was raining and I couldn't get them into my trunk (I'm not kidding; these things were huge), Paige and I drove to Kobolt. People started arriving around 6:45, but because of the rain and how rushed the party had been, not as many people came as usual. Around 9:15, Dad started taking people up to the roof in the scissor lift as the rain had stopped. I was upset because I was convinced my friends were not coming.
At 9:30, however, I got a text from Aspen saying they had arrived. Paige and I greeted them and discovered that Arden and Marshall got married! After congratulating them, we all went to the roof and watched the fireworks. After the fireworks, we convinced my brothers to come to a bar with us. Josh couldn't go because he's under age, and Arden was worried because she forgot her ID, and even though she had a picture of it, it's still her Colorado driver’s license. We decided to try it, but as we drove by, we saw a few police officers outside the bar and realized there was no way they would let Arden in.
We decided to go back to my parents' house, and Kid joined us there. The Andersons and Marshall spent the night talking with my brothers, my parents, Paige, and me about their adventures in Costa Rica and life in general. They all even ended up spending the night at my parents' house!
For the entire time that I was slacking on my other relationships, I've known that it was a problem. As I stated in the installment Emotional Reset, I needed the space from the Shane drama so that I could well… emotionally reset. After doing that, I knew I needed to start putting more work into my relationships. Not to say that any time I spend with the Andersons isn't amazing, but this event was so ridiculous and wholesome, not to mention entertaining, even though we weren't really doing anything… It was… well, Greattastic!
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