First Friday Fun & Saturday Parade Silliness

First Friday was a blast! Art and music and food galore mostly alfresco!!!! Even a horse drawn wagon (seen above) if you wanted to take a ride around downtown. All my pictures didn't come out but I was finally able to salvage a few.

My artist friend, Eddie, displayed his paintings and worked on a work in progress on the mall near the courthouse right next to the restaurant. Eddie is a piece of work himself! lol!! The galleries were open as well. And my friend Lynda had the art education center open and featured face painting and art projects for the kiddies. She has a continuing project called a life quilt where everyone is welcome to participate in making a panel -- and she keeps nagging me to come down and make one and write a story for it. The theme is how the civil rights movement affected you personally and some of the panels and the stories behind them are really touching.

All genres of music were featured: soul, jazz, classical, ad infinitum and all were really excellent. The band above was unusual in that one doesn't hear zydeco music much around here. I absolutely love it. It's a form that began, like so much music, in New Orleans where I first encountered it. What really surprised and delighted me was that a few people knew how to dance to it!!!!!! I was also thrilled to run into my buddy Gary who calls himself The Mad Violinist who I hadn't seen in ages. I was greeted with a hug and a demand to know where I got my beer and if I would get him one. Of course I did and he played a concerto for me when I returned. He's a great guy who I've known since the old days when he had one of the best rock bands in town.

It was a fun evening for all of our gang as we all ran into old friends and in the process made new ones but Saturday was going to be an early day so we all headed home about at about eleven. My days of staying up all night partying the night before the parade are but a vague memory.

As it was the phone rang when I got home and it was an out of town friend who used to live here to see how the week was going and tease me.

I was up at the crack of dawn to a beautiful morning and started the coffee before I dragged myself to the shower. Marcia showed up with the doughnuts followed by Bren with fresh fruit as I was putting my brunch casseroles in the oven. By eight o'clock, everyone was here and the fridge was full with enough food for a small army. We chowed down and headed to the parade route to whoop, holler and cheer the floats, bands, and enshrinees. I forgot my camera.

After the parade, the guys took over the food and fired up the grill for burgers, dawgs, and brats for lunch and opened the coolers for potato salad, baked beans and beer. Great lunch!! A few went over to the Enshrinement in the afternoon but most of us went home and napped so we'd be ready for Rob and Bev's cookout in the evening -- another good time.

Today is Marcia and Mike's pool party and BBQ and the game. They live in shouting distance of the stadium so we really don't need to go -- we can hear it -- but some of us get tickets. I haven't gone to the game in years and probably won't until it's the Browns' turn.

It's been a fun week but I'm tired and I'll be glad to get some rest.

Happy Blogging!!!!!!!!!

Kay