Here comes, here comes the big parade...

So as you may have heard, yesterday was the Pride Parade in DC.  And I had a FABULOUS time! Of course.  Accompanying me was StratCat (for the third time), her cousin CC (for the second time), CC's son Josh (for his first Pride Parade ever!), "Viva-La-Swirl" Paul (who I was meeting for only the second time), and Paul's insanely cute boyfriend Travis (who I was meeting for the first time)!

Paul and Travis live on Long Island NY, and were coming this way to Hershey Park for Paul's birthday and I asked them if they wanted to come on down here, go to Pride with us, spend the night at my house, and then go to Hershey on Sunday, spend the night up there, and then go home on Monday.  And they accepted!!!!

So Saturday started with me having the day off work (which is awesome) as they left Long Island at 6AM.  They got here about 11:30, which was EXCELLENT time, I thought.  The three of us sat around and chatted for a bit until the other three arrived here.  Then we made and ate sandwiches here before piling into two cars and heading out.  The weather was totally cooperative: sunny, warm but not hot, and no humidity!

The Parade itself was the same blast that it always is!  I was a bit pissed off at the crowd this year though, seemed to be more pushy, whereas, usually they're not.  But whatever, I was with fun people, seeing tons of halk-nekkid men and getting beads and photos, so what did I care?   Paul and Travis, who have been to New York's Pride Parade, both said they liked this one better.  It was more...I forget the word Paul used, but something like intimate or personal, because they are no barriers up like in NYC's Parade, and the marchers in the Parade are right there with you.  Josh loved it, of course, since it was his first Parade ever!  I love taking people to their first Pride, have done it countless times (well not really, I just went back and counted, and of the 25 people I've taken to Pride over the years, for 15 of them, it was their first ever Pride Parade).

Josh ran into one of his friends from back home, Greg, he was standing across from us during the whole Parade.  Afterwards, we went to the HRC store, Josh wanted to buy some things, as did Paul and Travis.  While in the store, Josh ran into ANOTHER friend of his he went to school with (I think), and when I was looking out the window, I saw one of my fuckbuddies from here, Allen.  He was standing on the sidewalk with his cute 20 yr old boyfriend and some older guy, so I went out and said hi and talked for a minute or two.  Its funny how we ran into there people we knew from back home down there in the huge mass of people that were there!

After getting done at the store, we drove back to Frederick, where we ate at Red Robin (yum!), and had the staff sing happy birthday to Paul (since Friday was his b-day!) and he got a free desert.  Then we said goodbye to the others and started home

Although we didn't go directly home, since it was already after 10PM, we just went right to the local gay bar, The Lodge.  I hadn't been there since it re-opened as the Lodge a year and a half ago, but I'd heard good things about it.  And I tell ya, I was impressed, as was Paul and Travis.  They both said how great the music was, and it WAS, and how the DJ was better than anything they had locally up in Long Island.  the crowd was decent, but not huge and the place wasn't packed.  As the night wore on the dance floor filled up more, as it usually happens, and Travis, Paul AND I were all out there at various times.  I was trying to keep up with Travis, but he's 23 and I'm hopelessly not.  I dont think I coulda kept up with him when I WAS 23.  But at one point, the inside of my right thigh was cramping, oh what fun THAT was. I feared that today, my back, thighs, knees and ankles would be aching, that I'd have ringing my ears and a headache....which did not occur.  My ankles were a bit sore, but I took a half hour walk, and now they're fine.  Guess it's a good thing I've been doing all that walking before I went out dancing again.  And I ran into Drew, one of fuckbuddies from here in my town!  He didn't recognize me at first because "I haven't seen you out before, I forgot where I knew you from!", but we talked through out the night, and danced a few times.  An absolutely wonderful time was had by all.

Then we came back here, I gave up my king sized bed to them and slept on the couch, and they promised they'd save the "private romping" for the hotel room Sunday night.  This morning, they got up, rready, packed up and left for Hershey.  Sad to see them go and the whole awesome day end.

But here are some specific snippets from the day:
- Travis taking so long to change his whole ensemble to match his shoes that all of us, even the straight girls were harrassing him about it.
- Me missing a turn near the Metro Station, blaming it on everyone else (even the people in the car that was following behind me) for not telling me to take the turn, and then having to travel a few miles out of our way before we could turn around and come back.
- The lines in CVS with people getting water.
- Travis begging people to give him beads/bracelets/other goodies.
- Paul's orange faux leather bag he go thrown to him during the Parade, which trumped really any of the other stuff we got.
- Josh telling us someone in the Parade just through him a small tube of lube, to which his mother CC replied, "Ah, yes, just what a mother wants to hear."
- Some guy from an interior design firm dressed as an angel with rows of paint swatches for wings reaching over and around the other to specifically hand me the company's card (with  condom attached) and saying, "Oh I LIKE him."
- Josh getting all the various condoms we all picked up, and CC's comments about them all.
- the guy in the HRC store who waited on Paul and had us ALL in stitches with his humor.
- Josh (all of 19 years old) giving me pointers at Red Robin on how to pick up the staff there.
- Paul's face as the staff sang to him and the entire restaurant clapped along.
- All the eye candy on the Metro ride home.
- Travis grinding his ass up against my crotch twice, to give Paul a break.
-Singing/screaming at the top of my lungs the lyrics to "We Are Young" while dancing to it.
- All the kids and puppies in the Parade.
- CC tearing up at the PFLAG group.  It usually us queers that tear up at PFLAG, not a uber-cool straight mom of a gay boy!
- The genuine affection I saw all day between Paul and Travis.  Sweet and adorable.

Amazing time, honestly.

Anyway, pictures to follow either later today or tomorrow.

POLT