Earth Day - Belated

Yesterday, our morning was governed by a six and a half year old.  I would love to spend a day inside Natalie's brain to see how it works.  This is a child who regularly has what she thinks are incredibly genius ideas.  Like the the time, when she wouldn't dare touch anything called macaroni and cheese, told me that what would be really good for dinner would be if we made ziti and then mixed it with melted chèvre, cheddar, and jack cheeses.  I agreed that is did sound delicious, and it is also called macaroni and cheese.  "Oh." She says.  "Well, I think I would like to eat macaroni and cheese then."

So yesterday, Natalie has begged and pleaded for us to go to an Earth Day parade in Concord.  She cared not about the fact that it was celebrating Earth Day, but her little friend would be marching in the parade, and Natalie wanted to see her.  How does a parent argue with that?  Originally, I was told the parade started at 8:30, and I let Natalie know that we would not be making it.  But then the parade started at 10, so, again, I was without argument.  So we travelled, with no other information than what our daughter was told by someone else's daughter, into Concord to see a parade that for all we knew may or may not be happening.  After all, Earth Day was a week ago.

We drove aimlessly around Concord looking for signs of a parade, both literal and figurative.  Finally, we arrived to what we thought was the starting point of the parade-- families gathered on the bridge, children carrying hand made floats of sticks and  bark and leaves and flowers.  So we followed the crowds down to the river bank.  A parade on a river bank you ask?  Perhaps Dan and I should have also questioned this, but we didn't.  Instead we were involved in some bizarre Earth Day abduction/ritual.  A woman, face painted with stripes of blue and white and shiny strands of colors hanging down her back came wading through the water, picking up cups of it with a long wooden ladle and sprinkling it around her.  She was accompanied by a group of adults dressed as chickens who would both sing and "bock" complementing(?) her Earth Day speech of oil and warming and convenience and the amount of plastic water bottles we all consume. Dan and I try to do out part, really we do.  But this was the weirdest thing we have ever taken part in since we unknowingly walked into a Christian bookstore.  (Had we known it was a Christian bookstore, it would have been less uncomfortable, but not knowing and walking in...).

Joey, being the sweet boy he is, started yelling which allowed us to walk away shortly before it ended on its own.  And the parade that followed was impressive and earthy.  And Natalie saw her friend, which made both girls giggle with excitement.  I'm not sure Dan and I were as quick to recover....