Parade!

My town has a weekend-long festival each summer which is kicked off with a parade on the preceding Thursday evening. I've never been, since we always have had a softball game that conflicted. This year, our beloved Canadian friends are in town with their 10 month old daughter and Pequita and I went with them to the parade. Here I am one day short of 38 weeks pregnant with Pequita at the beginning of the parade:About half the town lines the parade route to watch and the other half seem to be in the parade - there are floats and groups representing the SPCA complete with well-behaved dogs on leash that are up for adoption, the unicycle club on their best wheel, and AIDSwalk volunteers. There are also some groups represented that get more attention - the belly dancers, for one, and also the Volvo ballet. The latter is a cluster of older Volvos with very large car-sized pink tutus around their middles that move in an orchestrated dance and honk their horns in unison, with some people in tutus and fishnet stockings flitting amongst the cars in accompaniment. This, for some reason, was Pequita favorite part, and she flapped her hands and laughed and wouldn't take her eyes off them. Sadly, a thunderstorm & deluge had us running for cover before the last group passed by, the Guys With Chainsaws. I have only heard about this, but a bunch of men bring up the rear proudly carrying their running chainsaws, gunning the engines proudly. I still don't quite believe it, so maybe we'll try to see it next year. The mind boggles at the liability and absurdity. The deluge soaked us all to the skin - Pequita and her 10 month old buddy were very game, blinking away the torrents of water dripping down their faces as we darted through the rain. Luckily it was pretty warm out to start, so we were all fairly comfortable even wet. We took cover in a group of shops until the rain eased.

I love my freaky town.