happy st. patrick’s day!

first, on wednesday we babysat numie and noodle and amy texted me, wanting to know if they were being good. they’re ALWAYS good, i wrote back, including this picture.

of course, prior to and directly after this they were running around like maniacs, but they’re darling anyway.

other animals…on friday night we went to see janice’s son ramsey in “the island of dr. moreau,” at rochester high school. ramsey is a cute kid; here he is at our halloween party last year; he was the lead singer of green day; i can’t remember the guy’s name.

and this is what he looked like friday night. Ramsey first played a drunken, awful captain of a ship, and then he was a wolf. for the curtain call he was a little bit of both. here he is afterwards, when he had already taken off the lower jaw part of the face mask.

the play, about this crazy doctor who does horrible experiments on animals, turning them into half-animals half-humans, is VERY VERY DARK AND SCARY. the production values were dazzling; the costumes, the makeup, the sound fx, everything was impressive, and the acting wasn’t bad, either. BUT WHAT A DARK AND SCARY PLAY. this one girl played a puma, and for a considerable amount of time during the show she was lying chained to an operating table, writing and SHRIEKING in pain. HORRIBLE HORRIBLE SHRIEKING.

they said that the kids got to choose which play they’d do. i guess most high school students must be filled with a whole lotta pent-up anger and rage and stuff, or maybe they really just wanted to be all scary and dark and all of that. whew, that’s all i have to say.

here’s our sweet puppy, who is happily angst-free.

yesterday’s parade – like all parades here in lovely springfield, it was very long, and as usual, there were sometimes block-long gaps between the entrants. WHY MUST THERE ALWAYS BE LONG GAPS? there aren’t gaps in macy’s thanksgiving day parade. somebody needs to study up on this and fix the problem. seriously, why is it such a difficult thing to achieve, getting all the stuff to go down the street, one after another?

luckily i got there in time to see the 114th marching up the street. i took this while running backwards, which is why it’s blurry.

gerrick recently joined the 114th, and this was the first time he marched in a parade with them. you can see kevin smiling for the camera, but gerrick, next to him, stares stoically ahead.

after a while gerrick did turn towards me and smile just a little bit. i’m sure he’ll be more smiley the more parades he’s in. the funny thing is that he’s normally one of the smiliest people i know.

this is right in the middle of them changing arms or doing something or other with their guns. i finally got tired of running alongside them backwards.

i bought sproingy headbands for everybody. jim just borrowed this one for the photo. my headband was lighted which you can’t see very well in the bright sunlight. i was very happy with the wig i’d bought at wal-mart yesterday morning. i think i’ll use it next halloween. amy was a martian last year, though, so i can’t be a copycat. hmm, i’ll have to figure out some person with green hair.

the child down front is jim’s niece samantha. she scored lots and lots of candy during the parade. me, i kept a small bag of peanut m&ms. they were delicious.

there were many dogs in the parade this year, and most of them seemed to be having a pretty good time.

the reviewing stand; at one point, after at least an hour, the guy announced “we’re about a third of the way done…we have 150 units, and about 49 have gone by.” a little after this is when i decided i’d had enough. but in the meantime i kept busy taking lots of pictures.

this is right after one of the long gaps, plus as you can see, most of the parade entrants weren’t too exciting. cars and vans with some kind of sign attached. not enough parade creativity.

kids took the time out from diving for candy to pet the very cute doggies.

one of the all-too-few marching bands.

there were a few cool cars.

and this old skinny guy was entertaining, high up on the bike in front of the band.

my question is – this green-faced kid – was his very spirited st. patrick’s day getup his idea, or his mom or dad’s? besides the green face, he’s got the cool hat, the beads, the gloves, and even his drum is decorated. way to go for spirit, little man.

if they’d had a contest for cutest parade-viewing couple, of course amy and jim would have won.

there were, as usual, also WAY TOO MANY POLITICAL entrants. here’s mike houston, who was mayor a long time ago and is running again. i do like that he dyed his hair green. i’d vote for him, cause he put some effort into it. for some reason mom doesn’t like him, and i kept asking her why and she kept saying I JUST DON’T LIKE HIM, THAT’S ALL. ok then.

is this car hers? wouldn’t you have KILLED for a cool car like this when you were a kid?

here’s another mayoral candidate, mike coffey. he wanted to shake my hand but i just wanted to pet his huge dog. i hope it was his actual dog, and not some cute prop dog he rented from somdwhere.

amy stood like this a lot during the parade. i think maybe she was trying to be closer to samantha’s level, but maybe it was just more comfortable standing like that.

the shriners – this guy is the potentate or something, said mom. it says that on his hat. what if i’d snatched it off his head and run away through the crowd? i bet nobody woulda caught me cause i could have headed for 5th street where i understand there were swarms of people at the bars.

when i’d had enough, i joined kevin and gerrick at the brewhaus, where they’d each already had a couple of guinnesses by the time i got there. eventually janice showed up; she had met friends at another bar – these friends had gotten to the bar at SEVEN IN THE MORNING. i can’t imagine drinking at 7 a.m.

janice had a tiny little mug on her necklace, so of course gerrick had to drink out of it. this is something that newly-married couples do.

i like this picture better because here Janice looks so serious, like she’s feeding him some drug that will revive him from a horrible disease or something. or it’s like the tiny little drink that alice drinks at the beginning of “alice in wonderland.” it would have been really funny if janice fed it to him and then he shrunk! or got really gigantic. either way, woulda been funny.

this is a much better view of the lighted headband. this is why it’s a huge ripoff, even though it only cost three dollars – it has a battery, but you can’t replace the battery. because if you could, of course, you could keep it forever. hmm, maybe kevin can figure out a way to change out the whole battery power thing and put in something that’s replaceable. surely they sell them online somewhere, power things that can be attached to headbands?

these are the last two sweet pictures before kevin and gerrick got a little silly. kevin doesn’t usually get like this, but when he does, he is very, very silly.