Tuesday, March 17, 2015

St. Friendrick's Day.

We've been having Friendsgiving for years. And then all of sudden everyone else had a Friendsgiving and it seemed trendy. So we had Freaster. And sometimes we even have St. Friendrick's Day. Okay?



The Tuskas came over for dinner.

We enjoyed a traditional meal of corned beef and cabbage as north Americans celebrating the possibility that they may possibly be slightly Irish and that it may possibly mean something, a little bit, sometimes do. We also had potatoes and Irish soda bread. All good choices. Oh, and we ate them on green Fiestaware.





I was like "hey I'll take a photo of you cutting the bread"



And then Scott was like "this is weird".



Meadow ate bread for a long time (couldn't blame her) and June stole her spoon.



And bread.

So while we were enjoying St. Friendrick's Day, everyone else was enjoying St. Patrick's Day, so we decided to join them downtown for a parade.



We got on the road a little later than we should have and headed to a super special spot to park. And then we rushed and rushed and rushed to Nicollet Ave and found a spot just as the parade was about to begin.



One of the more interesting parts of the parade.



Olive was quite a serious parade goer. It seemed to be a combination of her being cold and thinking that we arrived late and had missed something. But, in fact, we arrived the very minute the parade began.



I lively bunch of parade goers. Also a dinosaur.



Is it just me or are most parades pretty lame these days? I know some fun parades still exist.. but most I've seen in the past few years have mostly been full of advertisements. Cars with people sitting inside and signs outside. Bit trucks or trailers with banners advertising a bar and full of happy people tossing candy. I recall the politicians in parades when I was a kid, and I've wondered if I've just remembered parades as being more magical because I was a kid, but I don't know.. I think they've changed. I don't often see decorated floats anymore.. there aren't even marching bands very often. Really they just seem fairly boring. And like a the magazine you get at a hotel that's full of pages and pages of small advertisements and one or two pages of useful or interesting information.



















June saw me.. so he wanted me. Tyler and I traded and I just didn't feel like holding June, so I put him down. He wandered around for a bit which caused me to notice the unusually large police presence on the block we were on. June didn't noticed so he just wandered in between the officers and looked at their shoes and mostly got in their way. I saw a crown not too far away but couldn't make out if it was something organized. I thought maybe a Black Lives Matter protest happening alongside the parade.. maybe that'd be a good idea? Turns out I was wrong. Near the end of the parade I guess the police sprayed some mace and a huge crowd of people ran past us. I noticed a few families panicking about wanting to get their kids away from there. But that was basically the end of the parade anyway..



But back to June being on the ground. After he was done meandering awkwardly through the police officers he started discovering trash, blowing in the wind. It was fairly breezy so the trash wasn't sitting still for long. A few times he tried to pick them up and people passing by would bend down and tell him not to. I found that interesting and unexpected. Most of what he was interested in were candy wrappers from the very parade we were attending.. so I didn't mind if he looked at and/or touched them. He did learn quickly that I didn't want him to pick up anything related to a cigarette. Eventually he picked up a wrapper and promptly carried it back to the trash can next to the rest of our people and he threw it away.





And then he did this again and again. And found different trash cans. And found half eaten food and soda cans that I thought might still be in use so I wouldn't let him pick them up. And then he yelled at me. So I had to move him.





And then he worked really hard to pick up this cheetos bag that kept blowing away. He fell down a few times. But he persisted and he cleaned up the street a little. My little guy who loves to dust, clean the walls, wash his tummy, mop, and turn on the vacuum.... was cleaning up the street during the St. Patrick's Day parade. Ha.



If you want to see a few more photos you can view the gallery here.

No comments:

Post a Comment