Parades

As I am sitting here typing Sidda (my kitten) is looking at herself in the mirror. She loves to do this, I think she is a little prissy. Tonight is the second night in a row that she has escaped. I chased her all around outside last night, through mud and what not. She was so dirty I had to give her a bath. Tonight my neighbor helped me get her and bring her back. I am beginning to think I shouldn't have left her here during the Thanksgiving holidays all alone. Oh, and she has either taught herself to use the bathroom in the toilet or I am having some plumbing issues - not to be disgusting but I think she really has been using the bathroom in the toilet.

Anyway, I have to tell you I went to a small town Christmas parade last night. I haven't been to a small town parade (I am not counting the Seaside parades) in years. I almost forgot how absolutely entertaining they are. There was only one queen - Little Miss Mississippi, but there was a band and horses - so this was the real deal.

As we were sitting and waiting for the parade to begin we kept telling my friend's son, who is five, to keep listening for the siren to beginning the parade. He asked why the police are always at the beginning of the parade, and we said "for safety." So, he thought about this for a while and finally he said, "I know why the police are really in the parade, for safety and for COOLNESS." The boy has a point.

I have to admit, this parade was very interesting. Unlike any other parade I have been to before. In fact some of the people were just riding in the parade for no apparent reason. This one guy just was riding without decorations or candy or a real reason - but he kept slamming on brakes to talk to people. And I promise I saw some folks try and pass a "skinny cigarette", if you know what I mean, to someone outside of their car. Although, I could have been imagining things - I am pretty sure that is what was going on.

Also there were two entries that were pulling cars on trailers. They were driving trucks with trailers that had the cars atop those trailers. Now, these weren't antique cars, unless a 1985 mustang with a makeshift hood is an antique. I was alive in 1985, so I don't really qualify that as antique. My friend said "maybe they didn't want to put any more miles on the cars?" She could have been right, I thought I saw some duck tape holding together one of the bumpers. I still don't quite understand why they were in the parade.?. However, when the second entry came by I said "for whatever reason this is seeming more normal as this parade progresses."

Then there were the people on horses. I have never seen so many people acting crazy with horses. One man stood up on his saddle and did a little dance. The police kept flashing their horn and siren at the people on horseback and therefore the horses kept getting spooked. Then the people on their horses decided that they should race down main street - tres bizarre.

Don't get me wrong - it wasn't all like this. The band sounded good, and there were lots of flag girls. Some of them were very serious, and some were not. There was supposed to be a Flashy Sashy Jazzy group dancing, but they must have dropped out because of the cold. All the local churches decorated floats and some of them were quite impressive. And of course the boy scouts had cool floats!

All of this to say - if you have a local Christmas parade in your town, I think you should go. It will probably be more entertainment than you can imagine.