June

When we lived in Olympia, there was a parade every year called "The Procession of the Species." There was only one parade rule: no motorized vehicles. And people made elaborate costumes of various species, real or imagined. We thought it was pretty cool, and apparently so did the rest of western Washington State - you could barely walk down the sidewalks.

Today we experienced our first New England 4th of July parade, and it was different. The parade dragged on for hours, giving us time to shop at the farmer's market in between sections, and let's just say there was no rule about motorized vehicles. Except maybe "Have as many as possible." The fumes on the sidelines of the parade route were noxious, and the various sections (for example, a group of twelve elaborately appointed Harley-Davidson motorcycles) had epic gaps between them. All sections were preceded by an immense wall of sound. At one point Sean turned to me and asked, "Since when did traffic become a parade? Next time we're stuck on Route 9, don't think of it as being stuck in traffic, just think, 'We're in a parade!'"

There were old men stapled onto broken-down horses while singing into microphones which were wirelessly transmitting their croons to a float about 100 meters ahead. There were clowns on stilts with no shoes, just the ergonomic padding of the stilts peeking out from ten foot striped pants. We heard rumors that there was a Nancy Kelley dance troupe, but somehow we missed that, I guess the good Lord decided we'd had enough of Nancy for our lifetimes. Or maybe her spandex was dirty. And there were fire engines from seventeen neighboring towns (I counted). Don't they have parades of their own? In all, the parade was a bit forlorn, somewhat depressing, and quite disorganized.

In the past few weeks we've had some interesting changes in our family. No, I'm not pregnant. But we did get rid of our second child, the 200-pound television. Maple was initially very lonesome without her brother the TV, but she's gotten over it. I still miss my "friends", the cast of Lost, in whose story I was deeply involved (Season 3) when Sean lodged an intervention that resulted in the discovery of freecycle.org and the eventual dispossession of our fair screen. Life is more connected now. I have more time for Maple and Sean, more time for cooking and reading. It's great. I no longer push Maple aside when she gets between me and the screen. Now I push her aside when she gets between me and a book. I've become one of those addicts who trades one habit for another slightly healthier one.

Last Friday we went to Maple's dance recital. For this particular pleasure, we bought a $50 costume, spent hundreds on dance lessons that Maple was tired of after the first month, and in the final weeks, spent backbreaking hours sewing finishing touches on the costume-with-homework-assignments, during which my eyesight went from 20-20 to 20-500. For the recital, Maple would need to have white ballet shoes. We weren't willing to buy another pair of shoes, and white vegan shoes were impossible to find anyway, so we brought her pink satin shoes to the local cobbler, who, in his fuddling attempt to spray paint them white, dyed them green instead. Fortunately he was able to get them to a sickly yellow by layering white paint on top, but they certainly didn't look good.

A few days before the recital, we attended the rehearsal. The dance teacher Nancy Kelley had given us a mimeographed sheet of instructions, with phrases like "BRING YOUR TICKET OR RUIN THE ENTIRE EVENING." And then it was the night of the recital ($68 for tickets!). We were told to sit in the auditorium for the first number, which we dutifully did. It almost killed me. The first act was a bizarre 30-minute ordeal including obviously Jewish girls in long blonde wigs, Nancy Kelley lipsynching to various 80s power ballads, and a girl with Downs Syndrome piroutting perilously close to the front edge of the stage. It was quite a show. Sean said it was an acid trip, minus the acid. I had to avoid making eye contact with him, for fear that I'd have to run out of the auditorium in mid-cackle. Even my parents got to witness this mythic wonder of Natick, Mass.

It's naptime now, and my clicking is keeping everyone awake. I'll try to write soon about our first hike together in Vermont. I knew I found the perfect guy, but I had no idea I'd found the perfect hiking partner!