If I ever wanted go to the parade I couldn’t have planned it better.
Truth is I ended up there but I didn’t even know it was on.....lol...
Since I have never been that interested in S. Patrick’s Day holiday, when yesterday afternoon my friend Maria and I decided to go downtown Dallas for some shopping and dinner I had no idea in which situation we were going to land.
We were driving, happily chatting and listening to the music, when we started to notice around more and more people walking by ....suspiciously all dressed in green: t-shirts, bandanas, beads, hats, shoes, dresses.
And so it finally hits us: it was S. Patrick’s Day, we screamed.
Duh...no wonder everything turned magically green around us.
Great, we thought, now we will get stuck in some huge traffic jam. Adios shopping, adios nice dinner on the patio of the restaurant.
But then we noticed that the flow of the people and the traffic was going right in our same direction and without even having planned it we landed just right on the back of the parade. We turned one corner and...bam....it was fiesta, Caporeira, Carnevale, Mardi Gras ....basically a big happy mess...
The cars in front of us got all lined up along Greenville Avenue. One long slowly advancing line of cars, with people sitting on their roofs, jammed in 10 in mini Volkswagen, waving green flags from the rear windows, with dogs wagging their tails on the back of the pick ups, gringos smiling at Scandinavian looking girls, and me and Maria in the middle, still surprises of where we were.
Everybody going at 2 mph and passing by pubs filled with people, live music bands blasting blues at any corners, street vendors with iced beer and hot dog. The smell made us salivating in one second. The sun was up and the air cool....a great day for a parade.
There was nothing we could do to change direction. It was too late. Neither we wanted change direction anymore. So we just relaxed and got in to the mood.
It was a blast.
Nowe let me tell you this.....
If I wanted a free cold beer, a free juicy hamburger, green beads, a ride on a Harley-Davidson and a man in my bed I could have easily had any of those items, not necessarily in that order....lol...
Yet I decided to get only the beer.
It was 5pm and the mood on Greenville was already up to the sky. I have to say that my inner girl got a huge boost of self confidence yesterday......:-)....
Ladies, if you need some of it next year come here at Greenville.....lol....
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I got a very cute guy wearing a white cowboy hat and only tight jeans (his green t-shirt was around his neck as a banada) jumping from his chair as soon as he saw me and standing on it he screamed at me from the sidewalk: “Where are you going? Stay, stop. Park the car. Come here”.
Another one screamed at me “I am lonely, baby, and you?” “I am lonely too” I screamed back laughing. “Be lonely together then” he yelled at me. I waved at him smiling.
But we kept going.
Another guy went running from the sidewalk to my side of the car and grabbed my hand and gave me a high five smiling from ear to ear. A young (very cute) guy blew me a kiss and handed me the beer I was talking about earlier. He said “But can you get out of the car now and come with me?”.....I said “No, but does this means no beer anymore?” He smiled and told me “All the beer that you want, baby”.
But we kept going and I shared the beer with Maria.
Three huge black guys riding three huge black Harley-Davidson followed our car and when I turned my head to look one of them roared its bike engine and honked so loudly people was turning their heads to see what the commotion was for...he winked at us and nod with his head in that way that means like “Jump here, baby”.
I blew another kiss to him. And we kept going.
A guy driving beside us with a girl seating close to him gave me a long, long stare before pass us on.
I was having so much fun and I didn’t even get out of the car......lol....
It had been a long time since the last time i was in the middle of such a celebrating crowd. It was all good.
But we didn’t stop though.
I really didn’t want anything more than those whistles, those looks, those smiles.
I was basking in the warmth of all those cute men’s compliments.
But I didn’t want anything more than this.
Beside that good, cold beer.
I wondered if I wasn’t getting out of the car because many of those “adoring” men looked so younger than me.
I wondered if I had lost my crazy side after all the pain I endured.
I wondered if my past experience had taken away from me my spontaneity.
But no. I realized that I simply didn’t want to spoil that shining surface of that fun and limiting its possibilities.
I could have men and bike rides but choosing of not having any of them I ultimately i set myself free from any possible disappointment.
And the parade could keep going on, endlessly. Like their smiles and their kisses.
Did you ever choose to not act out your possibility of having something to keep that possibility open?
I have never been in a S.Patrick’s Day parade in all my life. Do you think it’s a weird coincidence that i went just this time and my sister name is Pat?
