"Diana, it's time for the Parade!"
Diana shot up in bed, eyes sparkling and hair in that perfect morning tussle.
"The Pride Parade???"
I sent her off to do her morning tasks and checked out Twitter to see who was up. As I scrolled through the Tweets I realized that the likelihood of me seeing any bloggers there was almost zero. The party Tweets didn't stop till 5 am and being that it was 9:00 am I wasn't expecting much. But then Jenn popped up! I rushed to the phone and made plans of riding the Blue Line & Red Line with her.

The Blue Line was rather empty but the Red Line was ridiculous. The rainbows/glitter/flags made it all better though. When we got off at Belmont, Diana and I started 'baaa'ing like sheep as we were herded through the construction. Quickly we found Erini, Phampants, Lily, and......THE Rachel! I had listened to Lily and Courtney squeal about her throughout dinner so the hype was huge! I approached her and right away she flashed her fabulous smile and said she was thrilled to meet another Rachel that spelled her name the RIGHT way. I was sold!

We tried to manage the crowd but quickly realized that we were in a traffic jam. People pushed, swore, grunted as we tried to make it around the corner. I was pinned as I carried Diana, I wasn't even able to turn my head to make sure that Lily and Rachel were okay behind me. Finally we turned the corner......

....to come face to face with another crowd trying to go the way we just came. I tried to explain to them that they were the minority here, that there was a large group of people behind us pushing to go this way. They just nodded and just pushed back. I protected Diana at the cost of my own air supply.

*pressure rising*

A lady in the opposing group revealed that she had a bike. A BIKE!!!!! I told her that she needed to pick it up and carry it over her head. She laughed, told me how right I was, and then jammed me with it as she pushed through the crowd.

*pressure rising*

Finally there was a break and we were able to make some progress. As one man got past me he muttered out loud, "This is why you don't bring kids to this thing."

*snap*

"Oh yes! It's my fucking kid that caused all of this! My fucking kid, that I am CARRYING, is causing this traffic! My fucking kid that brought 500,000 people to this street corner! Fuck OFF!"

Unfortunately many people hadn't heard the man's comment (including my blogger buds) so I was just this crazy mom screaming at people in assless chaps.
Whatever.

We finally found a spot that we could breath at with a good enough of an escape route for Diana and I. As the parade started we quickly realized that we were not going to be able to see the people walking in the parade, just the floats. I put Diana on my shoulders, gave her my $600 camera and said, "Snap away"


The parade was of course awesome.

Highlights-
*There was an apartment behind us and people were sitting in the window, looking down on us "peasants". Someone from the parade pegged a woman in the window, in the face, with a pack of gum, causing her to fall, and fling her beer, into the apartment, dousing all her apartment friends. Priceless.
*Drawing on Diana, Jenn, and myself
*Diana drawing on me
*Finally taking a break from the parade with Diana and finding an ice cream man with bottles of water right away
*Freaking out about my phone dying, but immediately stumbling upon Lily and Rachel
*Realizing that Lily somehow FOUND an OUTLET in the CITY for her phone
*Having Jessica take charge and find us a Giordanos that wasn't busy at all and had clean bathrooms so that my daughter didn't have to use a porta-potty*gag*
*Being able to sit down and hang out over pizza
*Diana decorating me with all of Erini's labels
*Making Phampants feel completely uncomfortable as us ladies talked about buying houses and having babies

Finally the time came that we had to go our separate ways. I told everyone honestly, "I love you guys, but I'm just DONE." The weekend had caught up to me and I still had to take two train lines and four highways to get home. When I finally got back I collapsed on the couch and told Dan that I was done with socializing for a while.





This of course last 24 hours. By Tuesday I was riding rollercoasters with Jenn, Todd, and Steve.

Awesome