Is it full moon yet?

Don't worry if your 7/4 plans got rained out earlier this week. Fireworks are seriously overrated anyway. This tile was left on a bus bench somewhere near the beach and Oakland Park Blvd. after Renda Writer's Summer Variety Show at Rumor Has It last night ... about a dozen bands from acoustic to hip-hop and funk, some poets, a guy who played one mean harmonica, Free Pizza (the CD, not the food), pool playing and beers, all in one tiny venue crawling with cameramen ... on Galt Ocean Mile. With events like this, who needs fireworks? It was like "spring ... in the winter."

Afterwards, we went to Pizza Rustica for a slice. On the way, just a few doors down, we passed a place that I'm pretty sure said something about an Internet Cafe on the window, but the music was blasting out of there and there was some sorta crazy conga line thing, with about eight hysterically laughing people, that had snaked outside ... It was very funny, so I ran up to take a picture and just as I was about to snap it, they all let go of each other and went back in. It was crazy, but since I have no proof, you'll just have to take my word for it.

While dining on our gigantic slices a few doors down from there, some guy and a woman came running really fast from across Oakland Park Boulevard, where they apparently rolled onto the ground, yelling at each other, while several more people flew across the street to break it up -- a total brawl that ended in one very angry guy with no shirt running around and kicking over bikes and attacking cars, all while screaming at the top of his lungs into his cell phone. My friend Jane said they must have come from that club across the way, where she'd seen a sign that said $20 for all you can drink. I think by that time of night, some had clearly had all they could drink.

I'll be very happy to hang inside tonight and listen to music and paint.