First let me say that I love Pride. It makes me feel like I belong to something that is bigger than me. It makes me laugh and get a little teary eyed and feel proud. I love being surrounded by my community. It was St. Louis's 29th annual Pride Festival and the crowds were estimated at 80,000 at the parade (I think that includes those in the parade)!
On Saturday we stopped by the park to walk around the booths and see people after William's baseball game. William was on my back and kept whispering in my ear "Are all these people gay?" Yes sweetie, most of them are. Then he quickly became obsessed with the number of people we knew...or let me say...the number of people Lawrence knew. Many of them I now know, but only because my husband is a little social butterfly. William and me were counting the people Lawrence stopped to talk to. =)
Saturday night my parents volunteered to watch William. So with our night out we went out to celebrate... Actually first we went and saw a movie (The Happening- and I don't recommend it, I thought it was stupid and too graphic. I kept closing my eyes). But then we went out. I don't really like going out to the bars much anymore. And we haven't been out to the dance club in a good six months to a year. I will go out with my boys about once a week, but we usually try to find the quiet places where we can actually talk. My days of the thumpa-thumpa dance music are quickly passing. I'm content to be at home or someplace quiet.
But Pride is different. The energy is different. The crowd is different. We went out and had a blast. Seeing people, crowd watching, talking, having a few drinks. We started at a bar, but ended up at the dance club around midnight. You could tell we are getting older because we were home by 1:30am as things were just getting going out on the town.
Sunday was the parade. Lawrence marched with Band Together:
They led off the parade which was fun. BTW- My husband plays the Sax:
My favorite of the parade was the cheerleaders. They had routines and everything....
I did get a little misty-eyed twice. Once when the gay youth group walked by and there were at least 150 teens marching. And then when Obama's float/car came by with over 200 marchers and the crowd was cheering and chanting OBAMA!! It gave me shivers a little. I want him to win the presidency so bad I can taste it. He inspires me. His speeches (especially the one on race) bring tears to my eyes. He makes me believe. Believe in change. Believe in hope. Believe in this country. Believe that freedom and equality may one day be attainable for all Americans!
But the best part of the parade was William. He made me bring a bag to carry all the goodies he got during the parade. He also quickly became obsessed with getting beads from everyone. We watched the parade with Gary and Jelena and before it started we were making him practice his cute face. Which was really funny because it comes so natural he couldn't quite figure out how to make it on purpose. He kept making these funny faces that looked more like Daffy Duck, Sour Patches, or I'm a little orphan.
At first he was just giving people his cute face, but then we told him he had to yell out for beads. I told him to yell..."You're cute, give me beads" but he kept yelling "I'm cute, give me beads!" We were laughing too hard to correct him.
The end result was 67 bead necklaces which have now been sitting on the family room floor for three days! But look at that face...wouldn't you throw him some beads! =)
1 comment:
when are you going to update this LAME blog?
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