Fiesta

Tonight is the beginning of Fiesta, or Old Spanish Days, in my town. It's a week of food and fun and dancing and two parades, and craft booths and lots of drunk tourists. One of the parades is the biggest horse parade in the United States, I think. I don't like parades. I talked about that before during the Summer Solstice parade deal. Too crowded, too hot, and not all that interesting.

Although, it's quite foggy today. I got up early and took Charlie to the beach, where he found the carcass of a dead seal or sea lion, and proceeded to roll in it. Charming. He's washed now, I'm washed now, and it's time to get my day going.

I may go to Fiesta Pequenia (don't know how to put the tilda over the "n" in that word) tonight at the mission. It's the opening ceremonies thing, lots of dancers, including the cute little kids, the "Spirit of Fiesta" and the junior "Spirit of Fiesta", Chumash dancers, all with a priest blessing the whole sheebang.

I haven't gone to this particular event since I was six years old. My mom said she saw people with chairs and sleeping bags setting up last night as she was driving home. I have that crowd issue. I'm okay as long as I can sit down, but...getting there will be a bitch.

And, a friend is in town with his wife and kids; they said they'd like to go. Hmm... do I want to do the family thing? I love him, but his wife is one of those intellectual types that doesn't have a silly bone in her body. Her contributions to the conversation are along the lines of "Tell Becky what you studied in school last month, Patrick."

She's very proud of her kids. However, they don't smile much. The kids I mean. They don't just fly kites, but they discuss the idea of area and lift and mass while they are flying the kites. I think she feels she needs to justify being a stay-at-home mom by producing mini-braniacs instead of children. She's got her Ph.D. in 17th century Czechoslovakian poetry or something like that. This is the wife of the man who asked me when I majored in English Literature, "So, what kind of job are you going to get with that?"

I've know my friend since we were 12, and I love him unconditionally, so why is it so hard for me to understand anything his wife does? He's very intelligent, and so is she, but somehow he has an innocence, or an openness that I find wonderful. Even though we disagree, he's always ready to listen to a good argument.

Listening. Something I need to do more of.