Summer's Here at Last

We kicked it off with gusto at the Fremont Solstice Parade with Lexi and the Streets. We had incredible luck finding front row seats next to the sweetest people ever. The parade started off well: a good-sized crowd of naked bicyclists painted in all sorts of crazy disguises -- with a silver surfer on a skateboard zig-zagging in and out among them. They were followed by (among other things) a funk band, bellydancers promoting world peace, hula-hoopers promoting hula-hooping, Hari Krishnas, the Hugging Brigade, the Bubble Man, a red-coat marching band, a giant scorpion bicycle, a whole "Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" ensemble complete with Mama and the Doctor, jugglers on unicycles, swans on stilts, zombies, drag queens, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, kick-ball played by people in banana suits, live wind-up dolls, a fallen Statue of Liberty, truly giant giant puppets that made you worry that the person wearing them would surely collapse before the end of the route, a ten-foot long joint painted with a hemp-American flag, a water balloon cannon, a multi-player BLT sandwich, the One-Eyed One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater, enormous flowers pollinated by unicycling bees, and a pretty much indescribable participatory cupcake croquet game:


But I think my favorite moment may have been after the parade was over, when we walked back across the Fremont Bridge looking down at the water through the metal grill. Ioan's fear of falling through had spread to the older kids for some reason, and somehow we all ended up lined up behind him, tiptoeing gingerly along the yellow center line -- a strange slow string of us amid the otherwise bustling, oblivious crowd.

We made it safely across, I'm glad to report, and it definitely feels like there's no going back at this point: Summer is on!
.