Ah, the Fourth of July. Hamburgers, hot dogs, other peoples’ children scurrying underfoot, and of course, fireworks.

We paid a visit to our friends in NYC (after carefully weighing the costs and conveniences of which mode of travel was best: by round-trip train/misc. public transit for about $50 USD inclusive, or for about three hours of driving through hellish traffic for about $40 USD in gasoline and bridge tolls - we chose the trains! ) and after successfully aggravating a very ill-tempered server at a Chinese shabu-shabu restaraunt, we enjoyed the Macy’s Independence Day fireworks show from atop said friends’ apartment.

Not altogether bad, aside from the following object lessons: 

1) Never go into a restaraunt that employs wait staff that lacks any ability to speak English in any capacity, or one that almost exclusively serves a non-English speaking customer base (of course, being in Chinatown might have been a bit of a giveaway, but thus far… most Chinatown restaraunts I have patronised have always had someone semi-fluent in English on hand. Of course, if you are actually in a foreign country, it behooves one to at least learn some of thier language or bring along a friend who speaks it).

2) Generally, it is a good idea to avoid bad-tempered servers who publicly curse you and your party out without even the pretense of trying to conceal yourself from view (say, like going into the kitchen and hawking a loogie on our food, instead of slamming on our table in disgust.)  

3) Also, realizing that pointing out to your server the fact that he has misunderstood your order, and  that plate of pork you ordered is in fact, your pork…

… and by having to physically blockade him from the kitchen in order to recover your plate of pork just might provoke him to anger. For that matter, I am still convinced that we did not get our proper servings.

4) Implying to that grouchy server that because we were paying his tip/wage for the next hour, that it would be a good idea for him to at least try a little harder to get everyone’s orders straight without throwing a temper tantrum. Unfortunately, this was not well received either.

Needless to say, the management heard an earful from yours truly about this rather unpleasant - and subsequently untipped - server. Although, I am not quite certain that the management understood me very well either.

5) I had wanted to eat some Korean BBQ, but a combination of market forces and popular opinion overruled my desire for flame-kissed Asian-flavoured swine flesh. However, I have determined to never, ever again listen to a suggestion to eat shabu-shabu (a primarily Japanese entreé) prepared in a Chinese eatery on the premise that it is "cheap and good". Now don’t get me wrong, I love Chinese cuisine. But leave the shabu-shabu to the Japanese (or the Koreans, they have a local variation of it).

Gripes about the restaraunt aside, the food wasn’t actually bad at all… but the utterly lacking service.

If I wanted to be treated like a schmuck by the wait staff, I’d pay for it and go to some snobby French place and hear the waiter’s insults in English or a reasonably intelligible patois. 

The rest of the night went well, and discovered that my wife’s friend’s husband has a recent interest in something I’ve taken a passing interest in as well - golf. I mean, it is about the only exercise I get for several hours at a stretch lately.

(There is also mowing the lawn, but we are talking about fun things to do here.) So I might be inviting him up for a round or three in the near future.

We wrapped up the night to news (of North Korean missile launches), dodging roving bands of Italian football (soccer) enthusiasts regaling in thier team’s victory over Germany (es tut mir sehr Leit…) and the acrid stench of fireworks exhaust wafting over the breeze that broke up the mugginess of the evening. And of course, just arriving to board the last Metro-North train out of Manhattan by the slimmest of margins… resulting in one very long ride (the last train is a local train that hits every little podunk stop on the line).

But that’s all good. We had the train more or less to ourselves and could rack out on the triple-seater chairs for the duration.