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elfsOmaha spend Fourth of July morning with Kouryou-chan, taking her to the local pool where she swam with some of her friends from her summer camp. I meant to get a lot done while I was home alone for those two hours or so, but other than dishes and some generic cleanup nothing much happened. I did get GameOS installed, so once again I can play Bloodrayne and Tron and other twitch and shooters. I cannot believe that it takes four hours to install Half-Life 2 with all of the updates. And GameOS XP is especially annoying; it doesn't like that I keep the clock attuned to GMT and use an offset under Linux, and keeps trying to adjust the clock. Plus all those "security updates!" Who are they fooling?
After they made it home, we rolled out to the Burien Parade so that Omaha and the rest of the family could walk with the local Democratic interests. Their new slogan is "All the democracy you can stand." My take on them is "How about, 'All the liberty you deserve?'" 
Candy "sticks" I think perhaps the most disturbing thing I saw all day was candy the 34 Democratic District was handing out: candy cigarettes! Here, relabeled as "candy sticks," but crap, the Democratic Underground doesn't even know if they're being distributed in the US anymore!
Princess 
Ram 
SkunkIt was broilingly hot. Mid-80's, and there were all these outlandish costumes. The cheerleaders looked cool enough, but the band kids were just dying in the heat. I watched the first trumpet on the band closest to us collapse in the heat; they quickly got her under some shade and got some water into her. Other examples include the young ladies in the satin dresses (the one in the photo is one of Kouryou-chan's acquaintances from her swimming classes), the guy in the ram fursuit from some local sports team, and the girl is the black skunk fursuit for the high school robotics team. I mean, a black fursuit in 80-degree weather?
Homeschoolers Our neighbors were there, showing off their l33t homeschooling technique. Each kid had a banner proclaiming him or herself as a figure out of history. I can only hope that their history books are written by someone other than Dan Barton. Still, they're good kids, generally, and they were very pleased to see Kouryou-chan and I as we walked around the groups nearest to us. I know the neighbors are nativists, but I don't think they're dominionists.
Rip off! One of the groups near us was these people, Sonforce, with their poster a direct rip-off of the movie Spy Kids. I've never seen the movie, my girls weren't in the right age group when it came out, but you'd think these people would have a little more creativity than this. The execution's all right and everything, but you can't co-opt the popular culture quite so stupidly and not have people laugh at you.
Segway! Speaking of people laughing at you, face it kid, everyone looks like a dork on a Segway. This poor kid was part of a travelling act; he rolled around in front of a wooden "house" on a trailer. Every once in a while he'd throw a newspaper at the door, and another little girl about Yamaraashi-chan's age would retrieve it, then go "inside" and sit at a table, sipping from an empty cup while she read the paper. She had her hair in curlers and wore a pink pair of Hello Kitty pyjamas, long-sleeved, wool. Another candidate for heat exhaustion. There were entrepreneurs along the route selling water.
Omaha and I both ended up carrying Kouryou-chan for part of the distance. It wasn't too bad; there was shade on half the parade route and the crowd was enthusiastic in that way that only small-town parades seem to evoke, but by the time we had finished the whole of the route poor Kouryou-chan was so tired she lay like a limp rag in the carseat, only becoming enthused when we stopped for slurpees.
Afterward, we stopped at Dave Upthegrove's house for his July 4th picnic barbecue. Kouryou-chan and I watched a couple of giggling girls from his neighbor's house try and figure out how a canoe worked while Omaha talked less about politics and more about cats with one of the local city council people from Kent. I learned a lot about the rough-and-tumble of state-level legislation, especially from the point of view of a union man (not Dave; someone else) who, I swear, wore every bad stereotype of a union man to the hilt.
We did fireworks at the Des Moines park again, like last year. The show is small but friendly. Lots of people at the park, and Kouryou-chan found a friend from her dance class (it's like we can't spit without hitting someone she knows) to run around with. I practiced my "Winning Friends and Influencing People" stuff, and it seemed to go over well with the girl's father. The kids had a lot of fun with sparklers. The crowd was big on loud reports more than pretty colors. By the time we got home, we were too exhausted to move anywhere but into bed. Elf go thud.
After they made it home, we rolled out to the Burien Parade so that Omaha and the rest of the family could walk with the local Democratic interests. Their new slogan is "All the democracy you can stand." My take on them is "How about, 'All the liberty you deserve?'"
Candy "sticks"
Princess
Ram
Skunk
Homeschoolers
Rip off!
Segway!
Omaha and I both ended up carrying Kouryou-chan for part of the distance. It wasn't too bad; there was shade on half the parade route and the crowd was enthusiastic in that way that only small-town parades seem to evoke, but by the time we had finished the whole of the route poor Kouryou-chan was so tired she lay like a limp rag in the carseat, only becoming enthused when we stopped for slurpees.
Afterward, we stopped at Dave Upthegrove's house for his July 4th picnic barbecue. Kouryou-chan and I watched a couple of giggling girls from his neighbor's house try and figure out how a canoe worked while Omaha talked less about politics and more about cats with one of the local city council people from Kent. I learned a lot about the rough-and-tumble of state-level legislation, especially from the point of view of a union man (not Dave; someone else) who, I swear, wore every bad stereotype of a union man to the hilt.
We did fireworks at the Des Moines park again, like last year. The show is small but friendly. Lots of people at the park, and Kouryou-chan found a friend from her dance class (it's like we can't spit without hitting someone she knows) to run around with. I practiced my "Winning Friends and Influencing People" stuff, and it seemed to go over well with the girl's father. The kids had a lot of fun with sparklers. The crowd was big on loud reports more than pretty colors. By the time we got home, we were too exhausted to move anywhere but into bed. Elf go thud.
