Well Thanksgiving for me this year was not typical. I did not spend it with my sister's family and my father in Texas. I missed my wondrous turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole and homemade rolls that my sister makes so beautifully. Finished off by my sister's chocolate pie that usually goes MIA because I take it to a bedroom where I polish it off by myself. Directly out of the pie bowl, no plate needed. It is always a Thanksgiving tradition. That dinner will be postponed until Christmas when I will be in Texas (14 days!!!). Because it is my favorite dinner of the year and I WILL get what I want (said in my toddler voice).
So this year Jonathan, Katy and I decided since none of us really 'cook' that we would do something atypical. We decided to start the day in downtown Philadelphia where the Thanksgiving Parade will be happening. Katy had never seen it and is as it turns out, is obsessed with parades. Then, thanks to Heather, we volunteered at a Women's Shelter in preparation for their Thanksgiving feast.
We woke up bright and early to leave the house by 6:45am to make the train (SEPTA) into the city. I was promised a hoagie and coffee so we ran (literally) to Wawa before our train visit. If I am promised a hoagie, I get my hoagie.
Our train was running late of course. So we waited and waiting in the cold, dreary day. I looked across the street to find this building:
It was a sketchy building like many of the buildings around Philly. I looked a little closer to find writing on one of the walls:
I'll keep that in mind scary, abandoned building that houses crack addicts.
No windows? Perfect. Boarded up? Even better.
I would ask where I sign up but that is explained by the writing and arrow. You sign up right after the raping and pillaging that occurs after you walk through the door. Oh, Philadelphia.
I have yet to ride the Philly public transportation so I was really excited for experiencing it for the first time. Finally it arrived and we hopped on with the 5 million kids waiting on the platform. Apparently, we were not the only people with the idea of going to the parade. Except we didn't have any kids. Just Katy.
I jumped on the train to find it as I expected. It smelled exactly like urine. Ohhhh public transportation. Never lets you down. We payed our roundtrip tickets and waited for our stop at Suburban station. I demolished my hoagie within seconds as fellow passengers looked on. Stop judging me and my hoagie!! If only I was at the gym (judgement free zone)...
We got off at Suburban station and made our way to where the parade was going to be. There weren't an enormous amount of people there. We found a spot on the sidewalk where we set up our blankets. Some people came by handing out small American flags. I quickly found my quote of the day before the parade started - it was "IT'S A THANKSGIVING MIRACLEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!" Naturally Katy chimed in and this was repeated throughout the day. I feel bad for the people sitting around us...
Excited for the parade to start!
There were police stationed throughout the parade. They were there for crowd control and to make sure no one tackles Elmo, Bert or Ernie. This is the one that was standing next to our group:
Fellow Living the Dream follows, meet the most useless cop in Philadelphia. He just watched as people stood in front of us and ruined the parade for others. He was about as useful as tweezers are to men over the age of 60.
The parade was starting!! Silly me thought that the Philadelphia parade was going to be really hardcore. Like the Macy's day parade but not as much. Oh, how I was wrong. Really wrong.
The parade started with some vehicles from Ford. Other than IKEA, it seemed that Ford was also sponsoring the parade. Apparently they were promoting Ford via 1997 according to this photo:
You are really going to start your parade with a 1997 white Ford Mustang convertible with a couple cheerleaders sitting on it? Oh, lets stick an American flag on it. That will make it better. Are you fucking kidding me? The parade had officially started.
There was a long delay after this Mustang had putted off. This became a theme of the parade. Have something shitty go by. Wait 20 minutes for the next shitty thing to come. Did I enjoy every minute of it? Yes. Being the jackass I am, I filled the empty moments with my jackass comments. The people around me seemed to enjoy it. The lady next to me later told me I made the parade more bearable for her. Well at least someone thinks I'm funny. IT'S A THANKSGIVING MIRACLEEEE!!!!!
This was the first of many 'inflatables'. We were sitting right by a corner where the parade turned left. However, the stop lights were a little too low for 97.5% of the inflatables. So the carriers or pushers, as I called them, had a tough time with this turn. So hilarity ensued. The carriers or pushers of the inflatables were all wearing onesies. Why onesies? I have no fucking clue. They decided to jazz up the onsies by wearing some form of hat or wig. The Turkey's pushers opted for cowboy hats. This turkey was probably my favorite inflatable. Because it has one of its feathers up in a #1 fashion. It is saying, "Hi, its Thanksgiving, I'm a turkey and I'm #1". How lovely. Thank you inflatable turkey.
Now this lady had no teeth. And I'm pretty sure she wasn't in costume. I think this is how she looks in her day-to-day life outside the parade.
I also had a clown with an ugly bright orange wig come up to our group, point me out and say, "Well, her hair might be more orange than mine!" I was so speechless that nothing came out of my mouth. Everyone around me was shocked and just made awkward "I feel bad for her" noises. After he hoped off, I gained my composure and yelled, "WELL F YOU CLOWNNNN!!!" as I waved my American flag. Fucking clowns.
This was the second most exciting part of the parade:
IT'S BRANDY!!! Half-singer of The Boy Is Mine and sister to STD having Ray J. Katy yelled "Happy Thanksgiving!!" and Brandy yelled back to her "Happy Thanksgiving!" So Katy and Brandy are friends now. I love that Brandy was riding on the 'Hess' float. I guess ABC couldn't shell out a float for her for Dancing With the Stars. So she'll promote gas instead.
Several different high school marching bands from across the country were in the parade. Most of their outfits were disgusting. A lot of feather hats or themed costumes (like Scottish kilt outfits or capes). A lot of these poor band mates uniforms did not fit them. Thus, high waters galore:
It reminded me of playing basketball in Middle School. They had used the same uniforms for the last 10 years and only had one size for the whole team - Small. These uniforms gave the most extreme camel toes*. Not attractive when you are shooting hoops.
*(Sorry I don't have a picture of me playing basketball in middle school, they are in storage in Fort Worth. I know you all were hoping to see me with a camel toe. Maybe next time followers.)
After seeing the first band, following them were their accompanying drill team dancers . Lets face it. You know that when you were in high school, that the drill team was composed of a bunch of weirdos. Lets face it, times have not changed. You don't see the drill team members on Glee, do you? Cause they are sad, sad people. So lets just say that the drill team members outfits were TERRIBLE. So Katy and I tried to spot out the worst of the bunch. Lots of velvet and sparkles. Thus, vomit.
This was following another group of clowns. Its one of those small weird trucks that is yellow. And they decided to attach multicolored dots all over it. And put a large patio umbrella in the bed of it. And a couple of clowns were hanging out of the sunroof waving.
Umm, what?
This was following not to far behind the dotted yellow truck. My brother-in-law has a similar vehicle. Except his isn't multicolored. And does not have a red nose attached to the front. I like how they jazzed up this vehicle with flags. God Bless America.
Overall jorts? Patches sewed on? Different style socks? Yellow top hat attached to red curly wig?
No problem.
Here are the winners of the "Worst Drill Team Outfit". Notice the high water, camel toe purple velvet onesie outfit. Yuck.
Now the next sequence of photos might frighten you. It involves Elmo. And a lamp post.
Adults, cover your children's eyes.
Elmo made the corner but his left eye hit the light pole. Hard.
Elmo couldn't handle the hit. He continued down a falling spiral to his death.
Notice the child in the left hand corner. Note her frightened, hysterical look? Or was she just looking at me because I was JACKASS LAUGHING?
We have an Elmo down. I repeat, an Elmo is down.
Don't worry kids, this story ends with a happy ending. The carriers of Elmo get him back on his feet and he is ready to continue. Until he hits the next lamp post and is deflated.
Elmo can't live forever.
Now here is Goofy. Goofy was very excited to see the crowd. However, he had a very extreme fupa. Now ladies and gentlemen if you don't know what a fupa is, it stands for a "Fat Upper Pelvic Area". It's disgusting. And Goofy suffers from a serious one.
Did I chant "FUPA" repeatedly? Yes.
Now here is the best part of the parade!!! BUT IT'S BLURRY! Damn my camera! I was too excited!!
It's Meredith from The Office! Her real name is Kate Flannery and she was born in Philadelphia. She is a former member of the Second City National Touring Company but now is mostly known for The Office. Meredith and Creed are my favorite characters from the show.
Who could forget when she asked Jim to sign her diaper cast:
I would of signed it.
Or the tiny dress she wore for a casual day that either showcased her vagina or boobs:
Cause Meredith wears zero underwear.
Or the booze cruise:
Where she hooked up with the cruise director (hilarious Rob Riggle) and came out with no top on but only a life saver over her tits.
Or her last Halloween costume:
She looks exactly like Anna Paquin.
I mean, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard than I did during a Benihana Christmas where she not only lit her hair on fire because she was so wasted but she also flashed Michael in his office when everyone left. And Michael didn't say anything but take a picture of her and walk out. Comedy.
Now back to the parade:
Some snow men and Eagles cheerleaders.
And wouldn't you know it, it started to snow! The first time (and only time) that is has snowed in Philadelphia since I moved up here!
Now here comes another inflatable. It was a snowman but it got hooked on the infamous light pole.
And for the finale of the parade, SANTA! This was the best picture I could get because by that time, all these fuckers were standing in front of me. Rude. But I will say this. Santa is like baby crack to kids. They love that chubby rosie cheeked man. That pretends to bring them presents through chimneys.
After Santa deuced out, everyone jetted off. And to Philadelphia style, this is what the street looked like afterward:
Philadelphia is the trashiest city every. City of Brotherly Love? Try City of Trash.
After this, we started walking to our next destination. Jonathan had looked up the shelter's address and it was a few walking blocks away. We were volunteering at a Women's Shelter for a few hours and I knew lots of stories were ahead for us... However, I started to notice that the street numbers were not going our way. We hailed a cab and gave him the address. Turns out we were many miles away and the shelter was far north Philly - in Olney. So in true fashion, we were going to be late.
We finally get to the shelter and get signed in around 11:15am. We get taken to the room where all the women eat and were introduced to Charles who was cooking all the food. However, dinner was not until 4pm. We were signed up for the 11:15am-1pm shift so there was not a lot for us to do. We were not allowed to help cook (liability reasons) so we just helped clean and get ready for the dinner. There was another girl our age and her mother who were also volunteering. She was interning with a movie starring Jason Statham (Transporter, The Italian Job) that was shooting in Philadelphia. I was super jealous because he is gorgeous! We spent most of the morning drinking water coffee and sitting around. A women showed up and became very interested in us. At first, I did not know if she was also volunteering or involved in the shelter. She asked us the usual stuff - where we were from and what we went to school for. Jonathan informed her that he was in seminary school so naturally, she decided to argue with him about the Bible. Then she found out that I was a history major so she decided to talk with me about who really discovered America. Then later she cornered Katy and argued Psychology with her. So this lady was not happy with anything we had to say. Turns out she was involved with the shelter because she had been through a bad marriage. I had made some silly jackass joke about Al Gore early in the conversation during the discussion of how Columbus did not discover America (don't ask me how those connect). Later Jonathan informed us that she had mentioned tho him how people that make comments about certain things, like Al Gore, are all going to hell. Not a Thanksgiving holiday until someone says that I'm going to hell. Certainly not the first or last time someone has said that about me. As Kathy Griffin said when she was told that she was probably going to hell - she said that she would probably see some of us there and that we'll get down to hell and say, "It isn't even that hot".
After leaving the shelter, we headed back to the train to take us back to Glenside. When we get home, we ordered Chinese and turned on the heat because it was chilly! After destroying some Chinese food, we took a cat nap before the A&M vs Texas game started.
We went and watched the game at a local bar. I picked out a corner of the bar where we watched the game.
I was ready! Gig em!!
MHL in hand, its game time.
Here are some highlights:
Us sacking Gilbert.
Cyrus Gray DOMINATING.
A&M sawing those horns off after our 24-17 win over TU!!
After a fun filled day, it was bedtime for us. Great day full of parades, Meredith from The Office, being told that I was going to hell, Chinese food and ending with a TU ass whoopin'.
Thanksgiving 2010.
"I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand. I'm going to defend it. Right or wrong. I'm going to defend it."
-Cameron Frye played by Alan Ruck in Ferris Bueller's Day Off
No comments:
Post a Comment