So today is the fourth of July. I had to make it special, but fireworks are verboten in Germany, so we came up with an alternate plan. I would make American Food!! There was a small catch, though. Every "typically American food" I could think of seemed to ooze German-ness!

Hamburgers (er, Hamburg), hotdogs (Or Frankfurters, erm, Frankfurt?), potato salad, mac 'n' cheese. This just wasn't happening. So I asked myself, "What do we eat that isn't German? And I came up with a surprisingly viable answer:

FAKE MEXICAN FOOD!

It's as American as Apple Pie (which really smacks of German strudel or something doesn't it?)! I'm also half Mexican, and a native Californian, so it's totally suited to my background! It was perfect (like when squirrels play chicken).

We went to the store to buy the necessary ingredients, and on the way, we stopped at CD places, where I happily acquired Tori Amos' Under the Pink, Björk's first two albums and Maroon by the Barenaked Ladies. If music be the food of love, Love is a hungry bastard! (but feeding him makes me so happy!)

I made a meal of Guacamole (which is a real Mexican thing!) and chips as well as a casserole thing involving tortilla chips, taco meat, cheese, and chile sauce. The idea was to make my mom's kick-ass Tijuana Torte, but It couldn't be done due to the lack of corn tortillas. Instead it was kinda like Nacho casserole. And the chile sauce was sweet, which is not the usual for this dish, but it still tasted yummalicious. Very good bastardized Mexican food.

At the dinner table, which was set in the festively American color scheme of Green and Yellow (how is this American, you ask? Because everything's American on American Day! Cait's parents asked if the food was typically Mexican, and I explained the concept of "Tex-Mex" as best as I could. We also had a lively debate over whether there is any real difference between lemon and lime (there so is!). Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, so I was happy!

After that, Cait had invited Philip to help us celebrate American day. Philip is her pseudo-psycho ex, who has a fantasy world in which she is a dancer (true) who was in a car wreck (false)and lost a leg (false) and is his girlfriend in a coma (false, obfviouszly). Except I think it's even worse, because in this sordid little fantasy, she's his fiancée (false) and he is keeping a constant caring vigil at her bedside (überfalse!). Yeah, so this guy was coming to meet us at eight!

Meanwhile Cait's mom wanted me to read tarot cards for her! It was cool for so many reasons. Here are the two biggest ones: 1) Parents don't usually go for that sort of thing, and 2) Her mom speaks only German and Russian, so Cait had to be the translator! Then Cait's dad said, "Oh can she answer some questions for me, too?" I did, but by that time Philip had arrived so Cait's mom had to go and distract psycho-boy. This is so the first time I've visited a friend and had both parents ask me to read cards! How fun is that?! Cait's dad speaks German, Russian and Arabic, so Cait had to be translator again. What's so fun about here is that I understand five percent of what is said in the house. It's rather interesting to be clueless, if you read the Zoolander entries, you can just imagine this warped perspective stretching into real life. I just fill in the gaps with my own narrative. Whee!

So Philip.

We were left alone for a few minutes while Cait did something, but luckily Philip speaks English. He asked how we planned to celebrate American Day. I said I didn't know and that I was up for anything, so what did he suggest first off? Come on guess! Okay, ready for this?

Psycho-Closeted-Boy (yeah, I forgot to mention his obsessions with George Michael, Lionel Ritchie, Elton John and just about all the pop crap like Britney Spears...): We could lay on top of the car and watch clouds.

American Girl: We could.

PCB: I did that for four hours the other day!

AG: Oh?

PCB: Yeah, I was with a friend and we were waiting for another friend to come home. I don't know what our friend's neighbors must have thought! Two guys, laying on this car together!

AG (it does seem pretty gay... kinda like you, jean jacket and matching jeans boy): Haha, oh, yeah.

PCB: I mean do they have a home? Why are they on the car and not in the car?

AG (Oh right, he didn't mean it seemed gay. hmmm): Yeah, that's pretty funny! But I really think it's too cold to lay on the car tonight...

Cait came back soon after and saved me from more small talk. We decided to get a video and that's where Zoolander came into the picture.

Today's Moment in Mixing It All Up: So, in short, I celebrated American Day by making fake Mexican food, buying music by Canadian, Icelandic and Ex-pat devenu British via wedlock artists, reading cards for Multi-ethnic-middle-aged-first-generation-German-citizens and watching a movie in German! Cait's suggestion early on about making fondue to symbolize the melting pot really wasn't far from the true outcome!