Gay Pride 2009

My writing has gotten severely derailed by the presence of Gus, a 5-week old motherless grey tabby kitten. Even as I type this with one hand, Gus is grabbing the other hand in a fit of kitten playfulness. He’s going to his new home tomorrow, leaving me sad, but hopefully a lot more productive.

Dad didn’t make it to the Pride dance last Friday because both Brianna and Kate were too sick to take him, but he did join New Alternatives for the Pride Parade on Sunday. One of our volunteers, Russell went to pick him up. When he got there, Dad said “I though nobody was going to come get me.” They took a cab to the area where we were lining up, and we put Dad in the cab of the truck. Everyone was so excited to have him there, they kept giving him treats – every time I went to check on him, he was eating something different – a hot dog, a sandwich, a tootsie pop.

The Parade was excruciatingly late leaving – we had been told to line up at 11am and we didn’t step off until 2pm, but Dad hung in there until 25th st or so, when he started trying to get out of the truck and it turned out that he needed to pee. Russell and another volunteer, got him out of the truck and took him to a coffee shop bathroom. I was worried about them catching up, but they got a lift from the police – it scared the hell out of us when a police car pulled up next to our contingent, but it was just Dad and Russell! Dad tried to pay the cop, mistaking him for a cab driver.

Dad started to get confused – somehow he had gotten it through his head that we were trying to catch a train, and he was worried that we were going to be late and miss it because the truck was moving so slowly. When I told him that we were in the Gay Pride Parade, he said “is that what the trouble is?”

He wasn’t able to finish the whole 5-mile route because we had to take the truck out of service at 15th street – it was a rental and the parade was so behind schedule that we had to return the truck before the parade ended. Everyone else walked, but Russell took Dad home. The adventure must’ve worn him out, because when I got there about 7pm, he was sleeping crossways across his bed.