DON'T PEEP ON MY PARADE

And so, the holiday weekend draws to a close. If you are the Thanksgiving celebrating sort of person, I hope you had a nice holiday with lots of your most favorite food, whatever that may be. If you are not the Thanksgiving celebrating sort of person, I hope you had a lovely, restful weekend. If you are Canadian, what with the exchange rates and all, you should be hitting Christmas about now right? Ho Ho Ho. This joke will never die! Just ask me.



Being a Thanksgiving celebrating sort of person, our extended family did the poultry polka just yesterday. It was of course, yummy. The turkey was stuffed, and so were we. Several courses later we were all searching for the horizontal laboratory to conduct our annual Thanksgiving chemistry experiment. Results were uniformly positive, although more experimental sessions are required. The scientific community will reconvene in November, 2004 to gather additional data.



One traditional among many during this weekend is watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This parade has morphed somewhat into a combination parade plus hour-long advertisement for current and upcoming Broadway shows. I don't suppose I mind (not that they asked), but note to the masses: the parade part doesn't start until an hour into the show. TinyTuna and I watched the Broadway extravaganza because hey, it had singing and dancing which was good enough for her. It was fine. The commercials during this hour, however, were straight out of the national evening news. You know -- the ones where the ad is for some disgusting human ailment explained in graphic detail, accompanied by cute cartoon drawings (it's less disgusting that way, right?). Each malady is remedied by a consumer friendly perky colorful scientifically named pill. I fully expect Crayola to retire the color purple and replace it with the color Nexium. These "cures", however, have a list of side effects a mile long, which they dutifully if not gleefully list during the commercial. Maybe if these side effects had some cute non-threatening animation of their own, they wouldn't seem to be ten times worse than the original ailment. So, we had acid reflex, gastro-intestinal maladies, headache, heartburn and depression filling in the gaps during a celebratory parade. Does anyone see a conflict with this? I'm just asking.



An hour later, the dang parade finally starts. What a lineup! The best, of course, are the giant balloons. They're my favorite. I loved the Underdog balloon from way back when. He’s gone, but there were lots of others. Some kinda cool, some kinda meh (Pikachu? Whatever). I still remember fondly a giant Superman balloon from several years ago. He was posed, flying through the air (in a balloon floaty way) with both arms outstretched. Unfortunately, the weather was particularly crappy that day, and one of his arms had gotten punctured. So it was hanging down in a dead, less than Super-Hero kind of way, flapping sadly in the breeze. For Superman, it was kinda funny. He probably could have used one of those colorful pills up there to help him out. He wasn't depressed, but he was deflated. If he got a Bob Dole blue pill special, maybe he could have gotten it up again (His ARM. Hee.)



Along with the balloons come the floats. Now, I think these aren't as pretty as the Rose Parade floats, which have to use all natural items in their construction. But they are still fun. The absolute best fall over laughing float in the Thanksgiving parade? The PEEPS float. Yes, you heard it here. There was a float featuring Peeps. Because nothing says Thanksgiving like a float full of little marshmallow things that you eat at Easter.



(Wait -- There are ladies on my television set, wearing togas and dancing this slow drapey bed sheet dance to Bach's Air on the G String, If just one of them shouted "One Grecian Urn!", my day would be complete. If you miss this reference entirely, get thee to a video store and watch The Music Man. The original Robert Preston one -- not the newer made for TV one, because it just wasn't Robert Preston.)



I'm back. Peeps. There was a float loaded with giant yellow peep chicks and a band who had to play on said Peep float during the course of the parade. Do you suppose this particular performance is a resume builder? What kind of status has your band achieved (or sunk to) when you are the featured performer with a bunch of mechanical marshmallows? Let's ask our friends Old Crow Medicine Show. Somewhat surprisingly, it seems Peeps does a bluegrass band good. Wow. I almost feel bad for falling off my couch laughing at them. Almost. Or not. But three cheers for them for being proud of their Peeps appearance.



One last thing about Peeps. The excessive commercialism Peep Manufacturing conglomerate is now making Peeps for all occasions. I'm not sure how I feel about this. It's like showing A Charlie Brown Christmas in July. And come to think of it, that Woodstock...he is yellow, and he is a bird. A Peep conspiracy?



So much more to tell, but like Thanksgiving dinner, I have to pace myself. I do believe it is time for some yummy green Jell-o salad. Coming up next? A long detailed explanation of the newest acronym on the block: MPF.

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