What do skunks have to do with Christmas anyhow?

So, we went to the Santa Parade today. Entirely by accident. I had no idea the thing was today. We were on the subway, which was unusually packed with people, and trying to figure out where everyone was going. There seemed a lot of kids... and then Selena finally remembered: Santa Claus Parade! Argh...

At some point we phoned Sandro to see what he was up to. He asked us what side of Bloor we were on. I told him the north side. "You're screwed," he said. The parade had not yet quite started yet, actually, and I assured him we could find some place to cross to the south side, before any floats came along...
















Yes, how sadly naïve I am. Selena and I walked and walked looking for a single tiny break in the solid wall of people lining both sides of the street. In fact the crowd was so bad in some places we couldn't even manage, with Istra, to continue on the sidewalk looking for a place to cross. We had to double back, and go up side streets and through alleys. Each street was passed, we investigated for a thinning, a single slim chink... there was none. We walked until finally, at long last, we looked down one street and saw the red man himself... and sighed with relief... it was over.

It is amazing how quickly the crowd dissipates after the Ho-Ho man passes by, leaving just an astonishingly disgusting piles of trash everywhere (as seen in the pictures at the top). Truly the amount of garbage is staggering. People just abandon all of their containers everywhere. You don't see that part on the TV version of the parade. And it is amazing also really how fast the City of Toronto clean up crews descend upon the refuse of human celebration... trucks move in, workers run around grabbing all of the crap, and street sweepers come and brush and wash the sides of the roads... meanwhile jolly old Saint Nick is long gone.

Istra slept through most of it.

But having at last gained the south side of the road (even if significantly east of our target), our epic quest was eventually brought to a joyous conclusion. We had a nice lunch out with Sandro (who was in the neighborhood delivering some stock to AlterEgo), once again. This is becoming a Sunday tradition with us, if doing something two weeks in a row can be considered a tradition.