Happy New Year

May 2008 be a wonderful year for us all. So ends the wonderful little block party called the Rose Parade. One town over from here, Fiesta Floats and Raoul Rodriquez build their floats for the Rose Parade. Our New Year's Eve tradition is to stand out on Duarte Road and watch the floats go by as they are driven over to line up in Pasadena for the parade. We have a network of spotters and the calls go out down the street, "the floats are coming!" I'd say we see about 10-12 floats. My favorites this year were the Day of the Dead floats, the "aliens" in the spaceship and the FTD float. On New Year's, of course we all watch the parade on tv to see how "our" floats did. It was another beautiful Chamber of Commerce day in Pasadena. One of the floats that we saw, the Rainbird float, won the Sweepstakes award. My Dia de los Muertos float won the Extraordinaire prize. In fact, I think all but one of the Fiesta floats that we saw on New Year's Eve won trophies.

After the parade, all of the floats were on display up in Sierra Madre through today. This is a fun thing to go do--you get even closer to the floats than you do on the parade route. The fragrance in the air is insane. Tonight, when I made a quick run out to the grocery store, I stumbled upon the final trip for the floats--they were moving east, back to the Fiesta warehouses where they were created. The exit for the parking lot was blocked off, motorcycle cops escort these floral monsters on their route, so I got out of my car and watched. By now, we're old friends. Even with bad lighting and the fact that they are zooming by at about 25 mph, it's thrilling to see them one more time.

In other news, Scout is still under the weather and still having to wear his cone. He is not a happy camper:



Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' auld lang syne

CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
--Robert Burns