Monday, July 6, 2009

Fourth of July 2009

This year, instead of marching in the Centerville parade, rushing to Park City to march in their parade, and then taking a few hours off, to then report to the Sandy parade start for their killer, heated evening parade--I say, instead of all that, we only marched in the Park City parade. Downhill all the way, overcast, enthusiastic crowds, Air Force fly-over.

I tuned before I left home and dampened my sponge, and so required very little tuning at the parade start. Yeah, me!

I was on the left outside, last row. I had Karen to my right, Grant in front of me. I couldn't see Jason at all to see cut-off signals, he being on the front row right side, but I'm pretty sure of the tunes by now that I did OK anyway.

Pete wanted to bet me that we would start with the Mill Set. I didn't take the bet, and good thing, too, because that's what we started with. How did he know?

We did the whole thing at a 4-mile-per-hour walk. Not too many breaks, really, so by the time the last quarter of the parade route came up, my lip was pretty much shot. At the turn in the middle from Main Street to Park Avenue, a motorcycle cop came up and told us to go faster, as the rest of the parade was waaaaay ahead of us. Jack tried politely to explain that we couldn't march any faster as it was a safety issue for the drummers (and for certain pipers, too, but we won't go into that). The cop wasn't getting it, so Jason started a set and then went up and had an in-your-face shouting match with the cop, the result of which was that the cop went away and left us alone and we finished the parade to mighty cheers at 4 miles-per-hour.

I thought there were going to be arrests. Yeah, Jason!

After some near misconnects, I met up with HH and the kids at Kimball Junction. They had gone to see the Provo parade and to see some of HH's friends from high school. We went to the Jordnelle reservoir and actually had a picnic! There were no single family picnic areas to be had, but there was one group picnic area that was reserved for 2-4 July that didn't look like it had been used since June. Remembering our Father's Day adventure, I wasn't real keen to try using this group spot, especially since it actually was reserved. But there was nothing else, and we'd already paid our fee, so we moved into the group area and cooked fast. Our excuse, should the group show up, was that we had started the coals for them, and could we please cook our 4 brats and 3 lampchops on their grill in return for this kindness? HH cooked fast, Small Son went fishing, Red-Haired Daughter watched the gulls, and no group showed up. We ate on the top of the green hill looking down on the blue water dotted with white boats, and under the blue sky dotted with white gulls. It made a lovely, peaceful picture.

We were given the care of a stray dog for the weekend, a stray dog who is afraid of fireworks. This is a fat beagle/chihuahua mix, not the cutest dog I've ever seen, but it has found hideyholes to sit and watch us go through daily life, and the other dogs tolerate her. Monday we will call the vet phone number on her rabies tag and get in contact with the owner. Hopefully she will be gone Monday. I've never met a dog I didn't like, but this one just doesn't grab me. I'm neutral. SS really likes her, though, and she follows him around.

In other piping news, SS has misplaced his chanter. We have looked everywhere (except where it is, of course) and still nothing. Couches, beds, bookcases, even pianos have been moved. Still no chanter.

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