Busy Bee

WARNING:  This post contains nudity, if this bothers you, then you're a prude and I'm not sure if we should be friends anymore.

Last weekend was the summer solstice parade in Fremont.  Since Seattle is already kind of a hippie town, and Fremont is the alternative/hippie neighborhood, and the Solstice is kind of a hippie holiday to celebrate, you would've thought that I should've been prepared for a pretty high level of weirdness, but even I was surprised (and pleased).

Since I've recently developed a pretty strong aversion to driving, I hopped on the bus Saturday morning along with about 20 other people all heading to the festival.  As we were getting on, I double checked with the driver that he was going to Fremont.  To my surprise (and the entire rest of the bus) he said that he wasn't going there because the parade messed up his route.  He started to tell us all that we need to get off at the next stop and then get on some sort of special shuttle.  When everyone started to moan and groan, the driver offered to take a different route and just drive us all to the parade anyway!  Yeah!  Do you think that would've happened in NYC?

Even though it was a cold, drizzly day everyone was decked out for the event, even the troll.  We found a sweet spot along the parade route and then waited for the show to begin.  We had been told that the parade included naked bike riders, so we figured there would be a handful of naked people zipping by on their bikes like streakers.  Boy were we wrong!  There were easily over 100 people on bikes, rollerblades, and unicylces covered in body paint, leisurely making laps up and down the parade route.  People were painted like superheros, or covered in glitter, or painted to look like they had clothes on.  There was also a whole group of people painted like cops and robbers to commemorate the fact that for the first 5 years of this tradition, everyone got arrested.  I honestly saw more naked people that day, then I have over the course of my entire life!

The weirdness continued even after the naked bike riding was over with a strange assortment of parade floats.  I'm not sure what any of them had to do with celebrating the solstice, but it was still a great time!

Dung Beetle and its Dung

Power Plant Cooling Tower

Flying Spaghetti Monster

On Sunday morning I had brunch date with another guy from the internet.  The place (his suggestion) was pretty ridiculous and kitschy; I don't think they've updated the decor in 40 years!  My strawberry waffle with whipped cream was fine, but I doubt I'll be returning again.  I think it's the kind of place that's fun to check out once, although they did have a line out the door the entire time we were there so I guess it's some sort of local institution.

And my date?  I'd say the same thing; fun to check out once...  I'm not sure if guys are intentionally lying about their height or if they just never get measured.  I feel like all girls know exactly how tall they are, and we don't lie about it, so what's the deal???  Anyone who's known me for a long time, knows that height isn't a total deal-breaker, but I don't want to feel big next to a guy.  The guy on Sunday was not only shorter than me, but was also really tiny and petite.  Maybe I'm too picky, but I just can't look at a guy like that in a romantic way without feeling like a pedophile.  Quite unfortunate, because he was actually pretty fun and cool to hang out with.  Maybe we'll try to be friends.

After brunch I met up with a new friend and her group of friends at a coffee festival.  It's always nice to meet new people in a more natural and authentic way instead of always just doing meetup events.  There were tons of local roasters brewing coffee using strange, chemistry-lab looking contraptions and making beautiful, artistic lattes.  After an hour and a half we all started to feel a little jittery and decided we need to balance out our uppers with some downers and a stop at the beer garden. 

You were supposed to buy tickets and use those to get beer, but for some reason the guy just gave us a few pints for free.  The drinking area was pretty small so there weren't any empty tables to sit at, but luckily a couple of friendly guys invited us to join them.  One guy was a chef at a nice local restaurant and the other guy was his summer intern.  As we were sitting there chatting, random people kept coming up to us and asking if we wanted their leftover beer tickets that they weren't using.  Of course we happily accepted.  Eventually it was time for the two guys we'd met to leave, but shortly after, another couple walked by looking for seats.  There seemed to be a continuous cycle of people giving us free beer tickets and strangers coming to sit with us until it was finally time for the festival to shut down.

My apartment building was having a Sunday night social event on the rooftop which I really wanted to attend.  I still hadn't really met any of my neighbors so I thought that would be a good opportunity, but I wasn't ready to say goodbye to my new friends!  So... I brought them along and we crashed the event.  It was me, my friend Ashley, her friends Leah and Jesse and then a stray we'd just picked up at the festival, Chris.  Unfortunately, the attendance was pretty low and the couple of neighbors who were there just reinforced Alexis's idea that I live in a retirement community.  Still it was nice to be up on the roof and I did get hit on by some big, goofy guy wearing a softball uniform that said, "Too Hot Too Score".

While the rest of us were making small talk with the neighbors, Leah and Chris were falling in love!!!  They had only met an hour earlier, but they were totally off in their own world just talking to each other.  After the sun went down and the party was ending, we all started to feel hungry so we made our way to the pub around the corner.  While the rest of us were goofing off, Leah and Chris were holding hands under the table.  Ashley and I harassed them mercilessly and begged to be bridesmaids at their wedding.  The only tiny hiccup in our plan is that they both already have boyfriends and girlfriends.  Uh, oh.  They exchanged info, so I'm anxious to hear if they actually see each other again.  Finally at 10:30pm (9.5 crazy, fun hours after the coffee festival had begun) we finally parted ways.