Chauffeur needed

Ten things I needed to be able to drive downtown (some I had, some I didn't have):
1. Nerves of steel (sorely need)
2. GPS device (had)
3. Map printout of possible parking locations (had)
4. More nerves of steel (anyone have any extra?)
5. Paper bag to hyperventilate into (should have brought one!)
6. Cell phone to call people who can talk me out of a nervous breakdown (had)
7. Additional nerves of steel (Please?)
8. Previous experience going to my destination (had)
9. A big sign that pops out of the top of the car that reads "Sorry I just ran that red light! It was unintentional! I am not used to driving downtown!" or "Sorry I cut you off! I didn't mean to! I am not used to driving downtown!" or one that says, "Just kill me now." (someone ought to invent something like this)
10. SOMEONE TO DRIVE FOR ME (Jim, I sorely missed you last night)

It was awful. But I made it there and back alive. The concert was fun though and I'm glad I went.

First line

Deliverance came today in the form of a third of a bag of stale Old Dutch Cheesy Puffcorn and fourteen pages of a schlocky Dean Koontz book.

Wouldn't that make a great opening sentence for my own schlocky Dean Koontz knock-off novel, cheesy teen romance, or tough-as-nails female cop epic?

It makes you wonder "Deliverance from what?" and "Did she EAT the stale puffcorn or throw it at some rabid wolverines to keep them at bay?" and "If there were rabid wolverines, why was she reading?" then "Wait, WAS she reading? Maybe she was using the pages to write SOS notes that she threw out the window to a passing troupe of circus clowns to enlist their help with the rabid wolverines." and finally, "But circus clowns wouldn't have been any help with rabid wolverines. It had to have been a passing woodsman who picked up the SOS notes written on the fourteen pages of schlocky Dean Koontz novel and rushed in to save her from the rabid wolverines with his mighty Stihl M S 192 T C-E chainsaw (fitted with an Easy2Start™ system)."

Puffcorn to Stihl chainsaws. I'm not sure how that happened.

Anyway, the deliverance was actually from morning fuzzy brain and 10 minutes of unscheduled time. And I love puffcorn, stale or not. It was just sitting on the counter, left over from last night's marathon essay-writing event (if at all possible, try to avoid writing essays about the play Hamlet if you don't have cheesy puffcorn on hand. Cheesy puffcorn is a key facilitator in composing one's thoughts on Renaissance humanism, Protestant reform, and Hamlet). And the Dean Koontz book has been sitting around my room, waiting for the odd minute or two when I need a respite from the real world.

The upside of a bad economy

Monday game Twins tickets are based on the stock market this year and since the stock market is in bad shape, we were able to afford lower level outfield tickets to a Twins game for the whole family last night!

It's probably the last Twins game I'll ever see in the Metrodome since the Twins are going to move to the Target stadium next year. I'm not all that sad, though the Dome has brought us Twins fans some good memories. I'm looking forward to an outdoor stadium (baseball in the snow!).

Anyway, here are some pictures from the evening.

Here we have a nice view of downtown Minneapolis coming from the south.
We had to wait for Jim to go back to the car after we parked because no one remembered to grab the bag of snax for the game (you NEED snax--and yes that is a purposeful alternate spelling. I believe it adequately conveys the attitude I have towards them. Anyway...). So I took the opportunity to snap a pic of the five children all together. It's a rare occurence these days. Paul put on his happy face for the picture.
The Twins dugout before the game starts. I love how close my camera can get with the zoom feature!
The three older kids. Again, Paul with his happy face.
The younger two. I don't know what Matt is staring at.
I included this because it has ME in it! No, mostly I included it because Katie was taking a nice picture of Jim and ME and Hayley decided to be a picture crasher with her cheez-flavored fingers (cheez--another intentional alternate spelling designed to convey a certain meaning, namely that the orange dust on her fingers is not made of real cheese, but dried crushed pulverized cheese product that has been colored a nuclear orange).
Here is Matt's happy face. He picture-crashed a shot I was trying to get of Katie.
Posers
The Dome (and a beach ball). Note the Canadian flag. Minnesota is nearly in Canada, eh?
Justin Morneau hits a ball.
Two banners that better make their way over to the new stadium.

The score at the bottom of the 8th. Will the Twins hold on to win the game???
Yep! Joe Nathan came in relief and held the White Sox scoreless in the top of the 8th!Katie wanted me to take a picture of the mascot on his celebratory lap around the field after the game ended.

Katie leaves today. We have had a busy week and a half with her. Granddaddy was here too during part of the time and we hardly had a minute to sit around and relax. Katie came out here with a list of things to do and with yesterday's visit to the Science Museum to see the Titanic exhibit and the baseball game last night, she checked all her to-dos off the list. Right now she's out to breakfast with a good friend and pretty soon we'll be taking Katie back to the airport. It's been a good visit!

Watch Katie play a new instrument

She learned "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" one night while with her friend Jake. I guess he let her borrow the violin because it is sitting upstairs on my living room floor.

Chastised for not posting pictures

So, Jen commented that I should have posted pictures. "For shame!" she said.

Properly contrite, I now present: Lots of pictures. In random order. Because I refuse to spend more time on this than minimally necessary. Katie is harassing me for use of the computer, specifically the printer.

1. After the picnic, we lost the ice cream scoop. And found it again tonight, embedded in refrozen ice cream.
2. A pansy.
3. Katie is wearing a red thing I knitted for her.
4. Katie borrowed a violin from a friend and attempts to play it.
5. My mini garden has filled out a bit. And the thyme flowered.
6. My garden
7. Katie befriends Bandit with a bratwurst
8. A crappy picture of the band. I have no idea where Paul is.
9. Granddaddy at our picnic.
10. Hayley waits for a parade.
11. Katie and her friend Jake (the one who lent her the violin)
12. Owen is mastering the finer points of baseball.
13. A picnic
14. Jim waits for a parade.
15. Some silly boys.

Parading

Last night we dragged Granddaddy to downtown Minneapolis (the bad part even) to see Paul march with the marching band in the Aquatennial parade.

We rode the light rail from the Mall of America all the way to the Warehouse District (Hennepin and 5th). I love riding light rail, even though it might take a little longer to get where you are going. I like not driving. I like not having to find a place to park. I like watching the people in the train with me.

We got there kind of late for finding a prime spot on the curb, but second row on the sidewalk was ok. We set up our chairs in front of a topless bar (I told you it was the bad part of town) but fortunately, because of the parade, the usual element of such places was not to be seen. We would have moved to more decent digs, but we got there too late. Katie and I scouted out Hennepin Ave for several blocks in search of better real estate, but all areas were already three or four deep with parade-goers. So we joined back up with those who had stayed to hold our place.

We still had a while until the parade started (and since we were at the end of the parade line, we would wait even longer) and my children all came prepared. I was so proud! Matt had his pencil and paper and busied himself with drawing aliens, robots, creatures of undiscernable species, and bolts of energy, Hayley crocheted on her amigurumi project, and Katie read a book and waited for her friend to show up. (Other Jim was at work and unable to attend the parade) I brought my current knitting project and knitted several rows that I now have to rip out because I did it wrong (ARGH!).

Finally the parade started and I got some really crappy pictures of the band. So I am not going to post pictures. Sorry. Paul wouldn't look at us anyway and he was in the middle of a row. Katie ran out into the street (which she CHASTISED ME FOR DOING two years ago when she was in the same parade) to hug a band mom who was marching along doing water duty. Silly girl.

We left after the band went by so we could get home at a semi-decent hour. Again, I liked taking the light rail home. I'm glad we left early because the train wasn't packed to the gills. We were full, but no one had to stand.

Today will be a much more sedate day. Breakfast at Perkins while kids are at their various activities and then nothing. I'll be able to rip out several rows of knitting without interruption from the calendar. I hope the kids give me the same courtesy, though I doubt it.

Ten things to do instead of doing what I want to do while entertaining guests

1. Make excuses for the anti-social/evil cat. (Note to Magic: GET OVER IT. They aren't going to hurt you. They may even want to give you treats!)
2. Worry over whether the door is open to my room because it is messy. I don't want anyone to see what I'm really like. (Like they can't guess!)
3. Post things on the blog so that people who miss the people who are visiting us will know that they are here and doing just fine.
4. Babysit. But only yesterday. And it drove me nuts.
5. Drive children. Why is this the week when Paul has driver's ed, music lessons, cross country running, Hayley has band lessons and amigurumi class, and Matt has art class for boys? Must yell at my calendar for allowing this scheduling nightmare to have happened.
6. Bake bread. I have a church meeting tonight (that I'm in charge of so I can't get out of it) and I have to bring homemade bread. I haven't even started it yet.
7. Feed the neighbor's dog. We had a picnic last night and Bandit the Corgi crashed the party. Lucky for him that he is a nice dog and he's very cute, so it wasn't annoying to have him hanging around the park with us. When his owner called him home, I don't think he wanted to leave. Katie got him to jump around on his hind legs. Corgis on their hind legs are funny-looking!
8. Resist chocolate. I will probably fail, though. Granddaddy always brings See's chocolates when he comes and I want to sit and eat all of it.
9. Attend to my personal hygiene. I'd rather chat than shower.
10. Cook. Fortunately, Granddaddy likes to take us out to lunch and/or dinner so I don't have to do much cooking while he's here. Picnic cooking/food prep excepted. I didn't mind cutting up a bunch of veggies (with Other Jim's help--he was dinner helper last night) for a picnic.

Wherein I throw up my hands at the Evans family fleet of vehicles, one in particular

I think my van has some health issues. Either that, or it REALLY likes the mechanics at the local Goodyear.

Thursday evening, I went to pick Matt up from a friend's house several miles away. As I drove home on a stretch of Hwy 13, I began to notice an unfamiliar sound, sort of a grinding, fingernails-on-chalkboard sound emanating from the front passenger side of the car. As I drove through Prior Lake, I noticed that the steering wasn't as functional as I'd like. I could still make the car go where I wanted to, but it was a tad more difficult. And it was more difficult to speed up after stopping.

Panic set in because this noise was so irritating and I couldn't begin to guess what it was. I was afraid the car was going to explode at any minute. I called Jim as I was getting close to home and asked him to wait outside for me to pull in because something was wrong with the car. Matt piped up from the back, "And it's leaning to one side." Just as I pulled in, I thought that it might be a flat tire.

Matt raced out of the van to check and sure enough, that sucker was flatter than a pancake. The awful sound I had heard was me DRIVING ON THE RIM the whole way home. ACK!

We hastily rearranged our schedules, both Jim and I had places to be and so did Paul. I canceled my plans while Jim called in to work to ask if he could be late while he drove Umpire Paul to some baseball games.
Paul pumped the tire up with the bike pump so I could drive it to the mechanic and get a new tire put on. I spent my evening reading my Humanities text at the Goodyear.

This is the fourth time in 3 months that the van has been in to see the car doctor. At least it was only a tire. But what will be next, van with no name?

Senior pictures!!!

I'm on the phone with Jen (my private photographer) and we are looking over Other Jim's pictures. Jen did a great job on them and I asked if I could share them all with you over the wonder that is the internet. Thank goodness she gave her permission.

Other Jim and I will be poring over the pictures in the next few days, picking out poses for various picture needs. I'm so excited!

Here are just a few of the portraits (in no particular order):
For the complete portfolio, click on this highlighted sentence.

Warning: Cake pictures are high in fat

Voila! Paul's birthday cake.

Every minute detail rendered artfully in frosting!

(Except for the Paul figurine, uh, action figure. That is a photo. A double-sided photo. Ask me how I did that! Although you can probably guess)

And now, a celebratory look at the many faces of Paul:
Well, there is actually only one face of Paul. That is his facial expression for pretty much everything. Paul, you get to clean the whole house and mow the lawn. Yup, he says. Paul, you're now fifteen and you can take driver's ed! Yup, he says. Paul, the Harry Potter movie is out! Yup, he says. Paul, I can't believe you won the race! Yup, he says. Paul, the house is gone and we have to go live in the sewer! BOOHOO! Yup, he would say.

I did manage to eke a smile out of him for a pose with his two birthday presents (one of which I only contributed slightly less than half the funds for. Guess which one--worth 1 1/2 points if you are the first one to get it right)

We had a very quiet birthday dinner--attendance at family dinners has fallen off dramatically in recent months. Hayley is at camp, Jimmy was at work, Katie won't be here until Saturday. So it was Jim, me, Paul, and Matt.

And Servo. Who is, in this picture, complaining. He looks like a vampire feline. A behemoth vampire feline. Seriously, this cat is one tub o' lard. Madge is even bigger though, but if you try to pick him up, all you get is the distinct impression that you've just tried to pick up the Tasmanian Devil.

Hey! Want to participate in a fun activity in honor of Paul's birthday? Caption this picture of him! What is he thinking? What is he reacting to? Basically, make him into a lolcat.
Comment on this post with your caption(s). Humor me. Please?

Fifteen things about Paul

1. Today is his fifteenth birthday.
2. He's fifteen today.
3. (Hence the fifteen things about him)
4. I found him ironing some bermuda-style shorts today. I laughed!
5. He said, "What?" I asked him why he was ironing shorts. He said "Because the bottom is all wrinkled and bent." I laughed even harder.
6. He said, "What?" again. I said that usually people just wear the shorts with the wrinkles in the cuffs because ironing is such a tedious and much-disliked chore. But, I said, you can go ahead and iron them if you want to. He kept ironing.
7. He wants a racetrack on his cake.
8. He already received his birthday present in the form of a monetary contribution to a 16 gb iPod nano, which he purchased this morning.
9. He also got new running shoes--he used the gift certificate he got from the Burnsville 5K race.
10. Paul is a good kid. He did his jobs today and even did Hayley's vacuuming job (she's gone at camp).
11. He also did a paying job today. It was the second day of his stint as teaching assistant for 6th grade French Horn students. He really likes this job. The 6th graders look so little compared to him but he's only four years removed from them.
12. Paul chose for his birthday dinner (surprise surprise) macaroni and cheese, broccoli, and orange jello.
13. He used to have a little speech problem: he couldn't manage sounds that required the use of the back of the throat--l, k, soft g. Our favorite thing for him to say was Luke Skywalker (he was a big Star Wars fan) because it came out of his mouth as "Yoot Stywater." And we still tend to say "cool" as he used to pronounce it: "tool."
14. I like to call him Pavl (yes, that's a 'v'). Or Polliwog. Or Pah-we-wog (reminiscent of his inability to say the L sound).
15. He starts Driver's Ed next week. AAAAAACCCCKKKKK!

Happy birthday Paul!

Pictures later, maybe. Or tomorrow. If you REALLY need pictures of Paul, please see my blog heading, where you will find a picture of him leaping to certain wateriness. Or you could go here. Or here. Or here.

Up too early

And I feel like I pressed myself into the mattress the whole night so I don't feel rested at all. Darn these babysitting shifts when I'm up until nearly 11 p.m. and then have to get up before 6 a.m. I almost wish that if I have to babysit back to back shifts like this that fake child could just sleep over so I could go to bed at a decent hour and get up at a decent hour. Fake child went back to sleep this morning, thank goodness. I should have too, but she's sleeping on my side of the bed.

Hayley is off to her very first YW camp! I'm the only female in the house (except for when Fake is here). I hope I don't get taken down by constant and relentless boyness without the soothing presence of one other female in the house. Hayley was excited to go and she has been packing for several days in preparation. She has good friends her age to pal around with too.

Time to roust Paul out of bed. He has to go to cross country practice. PAUL! GET UP!

Evidence that I have raised my children in a way that makes me proud

Matt just said to me as we are indulging in a weekly favorite show "The Next Food Network Star": "Hey Mom, it's funny! They just said 'Previously on The Next Food Network Star!'" He recognized the paradox (oxymoron?) and understood it enough to appreciate the humor! My 10-year-old is a language geek!

Succumbing to sap and taking pictures of taking pictures

Other Jim is going to be a senior in the fall. It's hard to get the ol' brain cells to accept that. What makes me really sad is that the memories of that little boy with the huge eyes and cartilage-less ears who could be a real stinker are fading. I know that I had a hard time with him, but for the life of me, I can't remember many of the details anymore. Some stories I remember because I've repeated them so often out loud and I hold onto those memories now like they were treasures worth more than gold--mostly because those memories are the only thing left of that little boy. He has changed so much and, according to him, that little boy never existed.

The little boy who, after I told him he was my goofy boy, he said, "I not a goofy boy, I a wacky boy." And who once told me after I asked him how hungry he was, said, "I'm a hundred hungy" (yes, no R). The little boy who once found so much enjoyment in carting his Duplo blocks one by one to the toilet and throwing them in is gone. Jimmy is gone. Monkey boy, Wonky boy--now a ghost

In his place is Other Jim. Car repairer, cart pusher, Spanish class-hater, tie hoarder, enjoyer of loud rockin' music, needler of younger siblings. I don't know how the change happened, it was so subtle. But it did.

Phhhbbt. I don't know how I got to be so maudlin.

So what brought all this on? Senior pictures. We spent over four hours in the process of capturing Other Jim's face on camera. He was a good boy. He cooperated and didn't get fussy, except for the time he thought I was serious when I suggested we take pictures of him and his friend by the dumpsters for a real urban look.

He wanted natural settings but it was a little difficult since the sun was so bright. We did find a few good spots though. Here is Jen, the photographer extraordinaire (and sister-in-law extraordinaire) with Other Jim.
Here is OJ and his friend. Jen took pictures of her too. She's wearing Other Jim's tie.
The macho side of Other Jim.
A more natural setting.
P.S. These are all pictures I took. The official senior pictures will be coming sometime in the future when Jen finishes making them look really cool.

THANKS JEN!

The first in what will hopefully be a series

Remember these from this post?
Well, now part of them look like this.
Caveats/excuses: I'm not a quilter. I have pieced a nine patch, but never finished it (Katie and Mom finished it for me 20 years after I started it). I have no plan for this, I'm just playing around with colors. It's supposed to look vaguely like a pumpkin and YES, I know the line match-up isn't perfect. I'm trying to achieve that wonky, amateurish look on PURPOSE.

(Other Jim is playing his music really loudly while in the shower. But before I get all het up and tetchy about it, I have to remind myself who used to take her $50 piece o' crap boom box into the bathroom to play Weird Al as loud as possible while SHE showered. Tetchiness fading. Not so het up now. I could even learn to enjoy the occasional concert by osmosis)

Summertime, and the living is easy

Summer checklist:

Camps: 3 down, 3 to go. Hayley goes next week. Then it's art camp for Matt and amigurumi camp for Hayley the week after. Does driver's ed count as a camp? Because Paul starts that on the 20th (NO WAY!!!!!!!)

Garden: Peas are flourishing! Anyone want peapods? (unless you're a rabbit. Then you can't have anything from my garden. Go away!)

Sewing: Have to pick up the traitorous Sergei from the repair shop this Saturday. I"ll have my eye on you, Sergei. Otherwise, I've finished two pairs of shorts for Hayley and a skirt for me. Another skirt for me is nearing completion. I also sewed a neckerchief for my brother Mike. Reports are that he likes it, while his wife does not. Oh well. Can't please everybody. Still waiting for a picture...

Senior pictures: This Friday. Bought Other Jim a few new shirts for pictures. (Don't tell anybody, but I think OJ is a clothes hound. He's very picky about clothing too. We had to find "just the right kind of brown" polo shirt--no logos, no stripes, not too gray, not too orange, just the right material...Arghhh!)

Fun: Been to the beach twice, will go again. I even took the fake child both times. And she provided the cookies (well, her mother bought them on her insistence) one of the times. That was nice. I'm going to try to go berry-picking next week.

Upcoming: visits from Katie and Jim senior! Concurrent visits, even. Kate, you'll be sleeping on the couch (not unlike when you actually lived here, so I'm sure you won't mind). Edited to add that I forgot to add Jenni to the list of visitors (I knew you were coming, I just didn't think that far in advance. My brain calendar only goes out a week at most).

Chores: Nagging is in full swing.

Dissection of a different sort

We in this household aren't very good at fixing things. Sure, I can sew up a rip in a seam or turn a pair of pants with holey knees into shorts quicker than you can say, "These pants have holes in them. Where are the scissors?" But that doesn't help much when a car isn't working properly. We spend way too much money on gimpy automobiles because none of us really know how to fix them. (All I know how to do is fill the gas tank. Most of the time I'm not even aware of the strange noises that signal vehicular ailments, although I can recognize when the a/c is broken and even then, no one believes me)

And lately, we have had quite a bit of car trouble. Since May, my car has been in to the shop twice, (three times if you count the time that they didn't find anything--took it back a week later and told them where to look--not where to stick it), Jim's Little Red Rider has been in twice, and Other Jim's car once. It has not been a good summer for Evans' vehicles.

Other Jim's car (a white Chevy Lumina) started acting up again over the weekend. OJ said that it would die in the middle of driving it on occasion. He had to coast into an impromptu parking spot Saturday night. Fortunately he was close to home (like around the corner) and he and Jim were able to get it started again and get it the rest of the way home.

I was despairing--more money poured into a less-then-stellar car? We need that money for less-than-stellar teeth! We have braces starting up for Paul in August and hopefully (?) for Hayley in January.

But Other Jim has a friend who works on his own car with the help of his dad and told OJ that he knew how to put in a new alternator (for that is what Jim thought the trouble might be with the ol' Lumina). So OJ and his friend spent Monday working on the car.

Here is the proud installer of a new alternator with his project:
Look at that bright shiny alternator! Isn't it pretty? OJ learned how to take off some of the belts, disconnent the old alternator, and install the new one. His mother is so proud!
And while they were fixing the alternator, they came across another problem: rough idling. They discovered that a green plug wouldn't stay plugged in to whatever it was supposed to plug into. Some clip holding the plug in was broken. So they got some industrial strength plastic ties and jerry-rigged the plug so that it stays where it is supposed to stay. Other Jim is pointing to the plastic ties. You can't see the green plug because it is underneath the thing that the ties are on. You can see, however, the dirt and grease OJ collected on his hands from doing car repair. I was so happy that he learned how to install a new alternator in his car, and he saved us over a hundred dollars that we would have had to pay a mechanic to work on it. Yay for Other Jim! And a big ol' thank you to Dan and his dad Mark for helping Other Jim. Today OJ is going to bake them some brownies to express our gratitude.

Fourth of July water fun

We went to a party on the lake for Fourth of July festivities. The kids had a blast, there were plenty of friends, and plenty of fun things to do in the water. One was a rope swing over the lake. I was surprised to see Matt enjoying the rope swing, but he apparently does not fear the swing like I thought he would.

Here he is as he takes off.

And here is a great picture of him letting go:

Paul takes a turn. I like this picture.
There was also a floating dock that the kids wanted to play on. At first it was just kids Matt's age but then the big kids invaded. Yes, that is Matt standing, fearing for his life as the big kids claim the territory.
The big kids have fully taken over the dock. Jimmy and Paul are both there.
Jimmy exits the water.Jimmy made me make tuna salad for the potluck dinner. He wanted it all for himself though. He polishes off the last few bites.

Paul and his friend Jason almost look like twins. I hear they plan this kind of thing. In this picture, they look like they are about to play patty-cake. But I'm sure they aren't. I'm sure they are going to do something totally manly and tough.
Hayley even tried the rope swing.
Hayley and her friend Gabby played around in the water. They always have fun together.
I hope you enjoyed your Fourth of July!

Why I should not be too early to anything and a rhetorical question

Last night I had two things on the calendar. One was "drop Paul off at friend's house @ 7." The other was "Dinner exchange @ 7:30."

So, at the appointed hour, I hopped in the van with Paul and I took him to his friend's house. Now I had half an hour until I had to be at the second commitment but I didn't want to go back home because that was actually out of the way. I had packed the 5 dinners (all frozen into concrete-ish slabs) in the van so I could go straight to the person's house who was hosting this dinner exchange. As I drove to the place of the dinner exchange, I checked the time: 7:08. WAY too early.

Hmmm. What to do? I didn't want to sit outside S's house for 22 minutes, nor did I feel comfortable knocking on her door and saying "Hey! I'm way early. Entertain me!"

FORTUNATELY (or unfortunately) she lives really close to the Mill End fabric store. Well! What better place for me to spend 20 minutes?

45 minutes and $18 later, I left. I was LATE to the meal exchange. I should have gone to the auto parts store instead. I'd have saved money and been on time.

Anyway, this is what my $18 got me:
Time for the rhetorical question: WHATEVER shall I DO with orange and green fabrics?

And Jim, do NOT roll your eyes and say "Like you don't have enough pumpkin stuff."

Boring photos and more celebration

Sigh. We haven't done anything photo-worthy lately. Nor blog-worthy either. Except I am celebrating today. I mentioned in a previous blog post that I finished my Creative Writing class, and today I got my grades. A! Yay! I am celebrating by having Jim pick up some chocolate for me at the store.

I did mention that I have boring photos for you to peruse. Nothing exciting, as I said. Feel free to go somewhere else for fabulous pictures.

Sunday was the local parade capping the several-days'-long civic celebration of our little slice of Minnesota. And every parade worth its salt needs a marching band. And our district's high school supplied that band. And in that band marched our Paul.

The parade started at 1 p.m. We stationed ourselves near the end of the parade route and the parade didn't get to us until 1:40! Oh well. Fortunately we had brought along some reading material to keep us all occupied for that time.

Here are Jim and Matt watching for the start of the parade.
Hayley found some friends at the parade and preferred to sit with them rather than her family.
Finally, the parade! And it proved to be a bounty of candy! Here is Matt vying for treasure thrown from the firetruck.
It seems that in order to get people to come to a parade these days, the parade participants must provide candy. Matt collected nearly a Halloween's worth of tootsie rolls, lollipops, taffy, hard candies, and other such sugary tidbits, as well as a bottle of water, a t-shirt, reams of coupons and two freezer pops.

Then we had the pleasure of seeing Paul march. It was much easier to spot him in this parade than at the Memorial Day parade because they didn't have to wear the marching band hats. We yelled at him to show him our support but he chose to ignore us.
Couple of things I noticed about the parade:
1) Is it just this parade or have all parades now become one long string of advertisements? For a parade that lasted an hour and a half, I spotted only a handful of parade entrants that would have had no advertising agenda--the marching band, the police force (who actually had to stop during the parade and tend to a lost child!), the descendants of Dan Patch (the namesake of our town celebration and a google search will quickly tell you why these descendants aren't into advertising, even if Dan Patch himself was), the finders of the horseshoe, and the Dairy Princesses of some small Minnesota towns roundabout these parts. Oh and the library. Of course the library was in some small part advertising, but since I LOVE the library and know the head librarian personally, I won't count the library as having advertising motives. Everything else was designed as a moving commercial. And there weren't even any good floats. The only thing remotely parade-float like was this: A advertisement for pest control services. A giant inflatable mosquito.

2) This was the reverse of Halloween. The kids just sat there and some people dressed up in scary costumes (mostly clowns) walked past and handed out the candy.

3)I ALWAYS pick the wrong side of the street to watch my child march. I made sure we were on the left side of the street because Paul was on the left side during the Memorial Day parade (and we were on the right side for that). And of course, he switched sides. Just call me Wrong Side Shoebox Princess. I also have a knack for wrongly guessing the gender of pending children.

We did enjoy watching the many incarnations of the Zuhrah Shriners (on motorcycles, on go-carts, on little car/boats, and in steel drum band forms) do their stunt formations. The motorcycles took up the whole dang block doing their riding patterns. I enjoyed watching them weave in and out of each other on their huge motorcycles. And these are not young men either. Oh, to be that proficient at handling a potentially dangerous machine at that age!