Growle'!

I've sworn off attending the annual Chinese New Year parade because the last time I attended it, which was a few years back, we had the misfortune of being pelted with unforgiving rain. Nothing ruins a parade like Mother Nature's michievous sense of humor. There we were, huddled with the hoi poloi, freezing like popsicles and watching plastic-draped dragons flailing and failing to excite the crowd. Big surprise - we're watching plastic-draped dragons while fending off hypothermia. Glum was our collective adjective.

This year was a different story. The weather cooperated fully and allowed for a fun time to be had by all. It's the year of the Tiger and we're all enjoined to growl! GROOWRRL! BTW, one of my favorite onomatopoetic outbursts.

Of course, something had to dampen my spirits despite the perfect weather. One of the mascots (thematically dressed as a tiger) was high fivin' through the crowd and when I raised my hand, he totally ignored me! He totally left me hanging. See the rude tiger's pic below.

Anywho, I'm trying not to be offended by non-high-fivin' Tiger. And my sour grapes reasoning is: High fives, who needs them? They're quite passe'. It's all about terrorist bumps nowadays. They're all the rage in Iraq, you know.

Also, it won't be an outing with Jonsey Balonsey without a healthy dose of embarrassment. We saw the KTVU Channel 2 float and Boobsie said, "Oh, we know him, he's Suzuki the newscaster!" I took his word for it so I shrieked at the guy on the float, "Suzuki! Suzuki!"

He gave me a semi-blank smile which was cryptic to me. Later on, I found out that his name wasn't Suzuki, but Sasaki. Embarrassing!