Art Car Parade

We went downtown yesterday, to watch the annual Art Car Parade.... nearly 300 cars in the parade this year, and the parade was just over an hour and a half long. Amazing. We took Miss C with us..... her first time to see the parade, and she enjoyed everything about it, especially the people-watching. Now she's thinking about asking all of her friends to get together and decorate a car for next year's parade.

Miss C doesn't go downtown very often. Come to think of it, except for some school trips to the museums, I think she's been downtown more with us than with anyone else. She seemed to really understand the concept of anything goes while she was watching all the costumed downtown residents strolling around the Art Car parade route. You name it, it was there--- multi-colored spiked hair, rhinestone tiaras, feather boas, heavy combat boots, faux pearl knee-length necklaces, green bunny footsie pajamas (adult sized), Gothic ghosts, bikini-clad roller-skaters, a tiger-striped painted girl driving a matching car. I think the only regret that C had about the day was that she wore a "conservative" outfit (shorts and a monkey tee-shirt). Just wait till next year---- I think she'll put a costume together similar to the one she was wearing when she drove here in the little green battery-powered plastic car last week.

After the parade, we had a late lunch/early dinner at Niko Niko's, our favorite Greek restaurant downtown. Yesterday was also our 12th wedding anniversary, so the Greek meal was perfect, being that we had Greek food at the party after our wedding ceremony. A dozen years ago already. How can that be?

We were so close to K and B's house yesterday that after our Greek lunch, we drove to their house, even though we knew they were out in Galveston and not at home. C wanted to see "the famous house." C knows that K designed the upstairs addition to their downtown house, and now that the exterior is all done, C was curious to see what it looked like. So we drove down their street and stopped in front of their house so C could get a good look-see. She plans to tell K that the upstairs part of the house looks like it's been there forever. I told C that that is exactly how it should look, and K will be very pleased to hear her opinion.

Speaking of K and B....... while we were at the Art Car Parade, K and B were up in a helicopter out in Galveston, piloted by C's dad. He has always told our friends that if they're ever out near the airfield when he's flying, to give him a call and let him take them for a ride. So K and B did just that, and not only did they get a ride from S in his helicopter, but K got to actually fly it for a few miles. She called me this morning and her voice was so excited that I would swear she's still not back on the ground yet.

K told me that if she wasn't such an "old lady," she'd be taking flying lessons. Pardon me? She's only 61. Since when does that qualify as an old lady. And besides that, a remark such as that has no place in K's brainwaves, so I quickly told her that, and then told her to call S and set up some flying lessons.

Today is a perfectly gorgeous day...... blue sky, lots of sun, very warm but not broiling hot. The front yard looks perfectly happy, as if the new arrangement has always been there. Even my huge tropical plant with the drooping leaves has felt more at home these past couple of days because the leaves aren't so droopy anymore. I wish I knew the name of that plant.... I swear, the leaves are nearly three feet long, two feet wide, with the most interesting open-weave pattern.... looks like one of the huge plants we had seen in Hawaii last year.

Coughing and sneezing... my husband has a bad cold this weekend. Worse today than yesterday, and if the Art Car Parade hadn't been downtown yesterday, I don't think he would've left the house yesterday morning. Fine time to get a cold, says he, with such glorious weather. But that's what he's got, and I'm hoping that I don't get the germs.