Year of the Boar - Lunar Year 4705

Copied and pasted from an email. All of my Chinese New Year photos are at photobucket and my favourites in my flickr stream.



Saturday began at 9 with me rushing around readying chezbob for company. I had laundry to do and also everything had to be clean after many weeks of dirty habits thanks to my cold and trip to Japan. I didn't quite get everything done by the time I needed to leave for the airport. All the laundry was stuffed in my bag rather than neatly put away and the bed remained unmade. As is always the way with laundry, one item seemed to have remained stubbornly wet despite over an hour in the dryer and so my clothes were all damp when I got to them the next day.

But back to Saturday which had gorgeous weather. I got to the airport and only waited a few minutes for Narrisch to emerge. We rambled on in the car, talking absolute nonsense I daresay. In general, our conversations were on Battlestar Galactica touching slightly on her Hobbness, Hobblings, flickr, particle physics, Harry Potter, geneology... it annoys me that I cannot remember more. At some points it was reminiscent of how we argue. For example, we picked a point raised at WonderCon about whether actors should know their arc or be as ignorant of their future as the characters and argued bitterly. Later we discussed mysteries and how I don't enjoy them and we were able to draw these topics together and see how my prejudices are at least consistant.

Aside from the chatter, which was surprisingly incessant, we took a stroll in Menlo Park and ended up at a cafe for lunch. The girl on the till was obviously frazzled. Orders were all over the counter and she frowned as she looked at them. Still, we foolishly ordered and sat outside in the sunshine for quite a while before she came out with my salad (but without cutlery). She asked Narrisch to repeat her order as she obviously didn't have a clue what it was anymore and then disappeared for another ten minutes or so. Eventually we had two meals, cutlery and drinks. We were in no rush apart from our great appetite and kept the chat going so I won't complain. The salad was delicious.

On the way back to chezbob, Narrisch bought a coffee at Peet's. Getting her coffee was a large concern for me but she appeared to be less of an addict than I feared so I did not have to exorcise the coffee machine MR thoughfully left to gather dust in chezbob. At chezbob we gathered what we needed for our evening in the city and relaxed for a while before realising that I had totally forgotten the train times and we had missed the train. For some reason I was off my game all weekend (and in retrospect this has carried on all week) and so utterly annoyed with myself at every turn, taking it out on Narrisch once which was so wrong of me I will be cringing for weeks at the memory. I have mentioned before how I get when there is a place to be at a certain time. I get angsty. And it never helps me get there. Getting there would be helped with just leaving on time. Nevermind though. This just meant that I had to drive in.

I don't drive to the city as a rule. I hate the traffic there particularly the taxis and it takes as long to get there as it does to take the train thanks to congestion and the hunt for parking. Plus of course I am not familiar with driving in the city. However, Narrisch was great at directing me and somehow we remained unscathed despite the man that wouldn't let me get into his lane so that I could turn into the "parking garage" and Narrisch flinging curses at him.

Now on foot, I realised that checking the website for the Chinese New Year parade half a dozen times that week, hadn't actually imprinted on my mind where exactly we were to go. We strode down Market until Narrisch spoke to a doorman who was waving a print-out of the route around (it was good that she was willing to ask for directions as I am qite pathetic at it). Now well-informed we saw that the road right in front of us was closed off and a crowd was gathered. We paused to smile at a little boy with an inflatable Spidey as large as he was and then continued on to find a suitable point to stand (that is one with an unobstructed view). Channeling someone who is not me, I suggested a place right in front of an exotic underwear store. I was probably joking but we did indeed halt there.

There was a man on the other side of the street wearing a pig snout. Every time we tried to take a photo of him, he moved. Otherwise, we were entertained by the two boys sword fighting (later joined by a girl who whupped their arses by using the "waving a sword around like a feather duster" technique) and the continuous sound of explosions as people throw small amounts of gunpowder wrapped by paper on the ground.



The parade starting forming at 5:30. We were rather excited by what we thought was the start of the parade but it was merely the head of the parade moving forward to make enough space for everyone behind. We ended up staring at the same section of the parade for about half an hour as it was forming. Just upstream, a dragon tried to keep excitement levels high by running around and throwing small explosives onto the ground and downstream a troop of fluffy pink girls bounced, seemingly breaking the laws of thermodynamics with their perpetual motion.







Just gone six, the parade started for real. We were inundated with marching bands, dragons, lions and cute kids dressed as piglets. One of the stranger floats had a load of women in fat pig suits coming out of an egg and dancing before going back inside. And there was also a rather tacky fake aeroplane. My favourite float has of course been much documented in photographs (see below or photobucket or flickr). It was Vietamese, I believe and I really fell in love with the girl on it. As skit said, "That girl looks kind of left out and pensive in this one...as though she is the heroine, spotlit off on her own, probably about to have a soliloquy/solo... about loneliness."







It went on forever, it seemed. By 7:30 (ish) we were both suffering a bit from standing or crouching by the curb and thinking that perhaps the parade had nothing new to offer us, just more lions and dragons and pigs (oh my). We moved on to the flickr 3rd birthday party at the Yerba Buena Art's Centre. I am not sure what I expected but a free and yet somehow small party was not it. On entering we given an ID check in case we wanted alcohol. Narrisch was very happy to be asked her age and handed over her ID with such pride and allowed them to scrawl "Beer!" on the back of her hand in a biped-pink pen, a demand she wore with pride. We grabbed as many freebies as we could (a lens cloth, a sticker and some moo-cards) and moved onto the buffet. I grabbed some cheese, bread and hummus and eyed the cupcakes vowing to return.

Cupcakes

The reason behind the party attendance was of course the auction on behalf of "Kids with cameras". Narrisch had fallen in love with this photo and was going to bid on it.

We perused the photos selected for the auction. As we started a woman approached and asked me who I was. "I'm nobody," I replied. "Ah, are you with someone then?" "Yes, my friend dragged me along." (And then to Narrisch:) "Who are you?" "No one you would have heard of...".

It was rather strange. I began to wonder whether we were the only randoms in a rather elite crowd. However, I think the woman was just drunk ("Or high," said Narrisch), since she had a rather violent reaction to one of the photos "Oh that is hideous! Ugh!").

Personally, I liked this one for the colours and light and this one for the world it showed. I really felt I could just step through the glass and be in my own spooky little childhood (that I never had).

We mosied along and pilferred cupcakes. I told you I'd return for you, my sweet little chocolate and cream delicacy. It was absolute heaven. All fresh and rich. (Narrisch: Are these [the circles on top] paper? Me: Well I just ate them...).

A note now on the people there. They all had fantastic cameras and were snap happy. Plus there were plenty of geeky t-shirted men with scraggly beards mingling with dramatically black swathed arty types. Someone brought their baby, a couple of others brought their dogs. It was quite bizarre and I felt that everyone probably had an interesting story to tell (compared to the comic/tv-geeks I spent the next day with anyway). Oh and there were the yipyips.

Back to the point, it was a silent auction. Narrisch checked the bids on her dream photo and it was at $200. She ummed and ahhed for she was unsure when would be the best time to bid strategically (but she was happy with the cost given that it was to go to charity) plus they said they only took cheques (which she did not have with her). After asking the organiser whether cash would be an option and hearing the organiser say that anything would do, even paypal, Narrisch put down her bid of $250. By this point, there was only ten minutes left to the auction and the bidding forms were being held by members of staff. She made the poor man holding the blossoms form present his back to her so she could lean on it as she wrote.

What followed were an anxious few minutes as people checked the bid levels and then moved on. Even I was getting nervous on Narrisch's behalf. As the clocked ticked on and the members of staff counted down the seconds, it became obvious that there was no last minute rush with the auction and Narrisch had won.

We hopped, skipped and jumped across to the Metreon, a cinema complex by Yerba Bueno Gardens, and found an ATM (in fact quite a few but only one was not "out of order" or having a "healthcheck"). Narrisch grabbed her cash and we jumped, skipped and hopped back to the auction where she exchanged cash for photo.

After putting the photo in the car (and discussing just how Narrisch was to get something too large for carry-on and too delicate for check-in back to Colorado- answer, she leaves it for me to sort out with UPS), we sauntered into Mel's Diner. On the way we noticed a few oddities dressed up as Darth Maul or other monsters. Narrisch realised before I did that they were from WonderCon which had their masquerade party that evening. This taster of the convention we were to attend the next day continued inside the diner as many people in costume or merely in comicgeekwear were apparent. We sat at the bar of the diner and Narrisch was next to someone reading Civil War Frontline issue 11 (which is the latest and last issue in a series I rate rather highly but the issue itself had some poor moments). She pretty much had to restrain me from asking the man for his opinion once he was done. I explained (but not very well) the story of Marvel's Civil War and we laughed at how it took her a while to realise that when jes talked about the Civil War, she did not mean the American one. I also laughed at the jukebox choices we had including such tracks as "I fall to pieces" and "Crazy" not to mention "CC Rider" (oops I mentioned it).

Basically I laughed. I was stupidly happy. What had we done? We had spent the day doing nothing until 6 when the parade started. But then we saw some fantastic floats and marching bands, schools, martial art groups and performers. And we had also won a photo (I say we in the loosest sense but I did feel some victory). The day had been spiced with a lot of conversation on rather geeky things but on an intelligent-BSG level. I have still to get back to her with the explanation of SUSY though.

The drive home was uneventful and once in chezbob, we had spearmint tea and looked at our photographs. So many are blurred (on Narrisch's as well) but still, they captured the movement and colour of the event. I went to bed charged on the driving, the auction, the cupcake and the Vietamese girl gazing into nothing.