Farmer’s Market Saturday is always a great opportunity to get together with friends. Tree and I had planned to meet up and Dr. BJ, who moved in with me last night, was toying with joining us if he was awake. OregganO contacted me before either Tree or Dr. BJ were awake and we decided to get a head start on the morning. While at OregganO’s financial institution her teller, TellAll, was sharing beauty secrets with us because he, apparently, had a rough night. “I get this stuff for my eyes to give them a lift – it is amazing. I call it ‘Last night never happened.’ See look (as he lifted his glasses to show us), you can’t even tell how wrecked I was last night or this morning.” Not so sure about that. OregganO was depositing five checks and the process took approximately 20 minutes. I suggested next time got up and went in to work he also consider waking up.
As we were making our way from our financial institutions to the Farmer’s Market our route was derailed due to a convoy of lifted cars and off-road/all-terrain vehicles (basically anything that was motorized and non-fuel efficient) with American flags flying high. We asked a local officer of the law if this was a Nascar event, “No, this is a rally to promote access to public lands.” “Ah ha,” I replied, “The redneck parade. Thank you very much officer.”
OregganO and I are not members of this elite group, nor do we desire to be; however, we do love to be in a parade. So, we figured out a way to be a part of the parade and, as soon as we found a non-barricaded opening, we slyly pulled through, rolled down our windows, started waving to passersby and, to our delight, we were officially in the middle of the parade. One of my favorite parade participants was a truck with a woman and a young boy each sitting on motor bikes in the bed of the truck, flying flags and holding a sign the read, “How the West was won, stolen!” God bless America.
I was telling OregganO I wished we had a posterboard and an American flag in the trunk so we would fit in better (FYI: OregganO pointed out, “Thank God we are in your SUV. If we were in your Fit we would never fit in.” So true.). “I’m just disappointed that I’m not better equipped for such goodness.” We decided a Parade Kit was in order and, like a First Aid kit, we should have one in all of our vehicles. We quickly started creating a Parade Kit list:
- Flags (American, rainbow, Red Cross, pirate, United Nations, Union Jack, racing, peace, the whole lot of them)
- Posterboard(s)
- Sharpies
- ‘Mother Trucker’ baseball cap
- Liquid Chalk
- Parade compilation CD
- 5 gallon gas container (with gas in it)
We stayed in the parade until they reached the rallying location (state capitol), at which point we shouted out, “Gotta refuel, oh, and give us back our lands!” It was right about this time that Tree called us to let us know he was awake and ready to go to the market. He and Screamer were making there way to Screamer’s place of employment and he wanted us to go there. “We are not going to a bar this early (11:30) in the morning,” OregganO stated. “Not to drink,” said Tree, “Just to pick me up – Screamer has to work.” We obliged and made our way to the bar. Upon arriving we found Tree was not there, however, the Open sign was flashing. Not wanting to wait in the car, and wanting to make our contribution to the economy in an attempt to offset the recession (it was all we could do after ‘crossing the line’ and participating in a Redneck parade), we went inside to enjoy a Bloody Mary – our ‘lift kit’ and way of saying, ‘last night didn’t happen.’