NYC Pride 2018

Last weekend we got up at some ungodly hour to drive to New Haven because it was time for Pride. We parked at New Haven and got the very slow train into New York.

We’d both realised the month before that we had no rainbow clothes to wear so had hastily ordered things online and as we got closer to the city we saw more and more people dressed up. We got off at Grand Central, it was quite good that there were so many people dressed in rainbow themed clothes because we weren’t sure which way to go on the subway so we just stalked some other girls who were clearly going to Pride.

 

We weren’t sure how early we needed to get there but we made it in good time and saw all the police officers getting report, actually this wasn’t even all of them, they had a ton of police on bikes too. There was a police officer on every corner, officers in cars, bikes, motorbikes, marching along with the parade… I had never seen so many police officers. It was ironic really because the whole reason the march started 49 years ago was because of police brutality causing the Stonewall Riots.

But it was nice to watch things getting set up.

We lined up by a barrier in the shade, it was meant to be overcast but the sun was fierce. We saw a couple of nutty christian protesters… I’m never sure what these people hope to achieve, do they think someone will read their signs and have a sudden epiphany? I mostly just noticed the poor font choice, they were almost impossible to read, a couple of times they went to cross the road at the designated crossing and everyone booed them.

This guy made sure to loop round extra in front of them but I’m not sure they enjoyed the view.

The parade route was longer this year, we actually only stayed a few hours but it went on for 9 hours… Kim got sunburn after a few hours so I assume I would have been taking home a pile of ash if we’d stayed until 9pm.

We saw Billie Jean King the tennis player who was a grand marshal, we also saw Lea DeLaria from Orange is the New Black, lots of politicians who I didn’t personally recognise as I can’t face following the USA news too closely since that tangerine baboon has come to power.

There were lots of fancy costumes.

And fancy floats.

And a ton of mostly naked people, we saw a lot of… parts (this is the polite way of phrasing that). We made a hilarious buddy at the barrier, Ricky, a tall effeminate gay man who was a make up artist at Sephora but appeared to have applied his foundation with a builder’s trowel and it slowly melted off during the time we spent in the sun. There were a lot of straight tourists that came to watch the march (good!) but they seemed to be the worst ones for trying to push past all the gay people who had waited at the barriers for hours (bad!).

Here’s a couple of moments from the march –

After Kim’s skin started to look like a little ham we decided to go for some lunch and were almost headed back home when we realised Kim’s friend from school Joe was at the march so we stopped to see him quickly which was nice as he doesn’t live in CT anymore so Kim doesn’t get to see him often.

And still the parade went on…

And then we walked back to the subway to go home which was a task in itself because it was like a maze to cross any roads in the area. Next year we might try out Boston…

Green Fingers

The weekend before last Kim and I went to Elizabeth Park in Hartford.

They have a very large, very beautiful rose garden in bloom.

It smelt gorgeous, in the background you could hear the pulsating buzz of zillions of bees that thought the same.

My grandparents used to have a lot of roses in their garden and I seem to remember they took a lot of upkeep so I haven’t bothered looking into getting any but the rose garden is all of the benefits without any of the upkeep.

The Park also had different styled gardens to walk through and it was blisteringly hot so we were thankful of the shade.

After that we drove to Logees Greenhouses, they had a Summer Solstice event on with food carts. Kim hadn’t been before so we trawled through the humid greenhouses browsing for a while and picked up a few things.

One of the plants we bought was catnip but alas it is no more, destroyed by Barclay.

Other than that, not much news.

June Days

It’s already June, can you believe it? We’ve had the chance to work on our home a little more. We had some particularly crappy windows in the house. They were all mismatched windows from different improvements the previous owners had made, some had wooden frames that would swell and were hard to open, some wouldn’t shut fully, half were missing screens and one had this crack across it the previous owner had repaired with sellotape. Brilliant.

So we got all of the old windows ripped out and replaced and now we actually you know… can use them as functioning windows. Joy. I’m hoping this will also mean there won’t be ice on the inside of the windows when winter comes back around.

Despite the cost of our new windows we still couldn’t resist visiting Whole Foods again, I did manage to resist this candle though, very difficult…

Although Whole Foods is the grocery store of my dreams, I do think we will have to return to Stop & Shop (The USA has to be the only country that needs to put how to use instructions in the title of their stores) because there was a distinct lack of stupid news magazines. Instead they had hippy magazines.

The Coventry Farmers Market is open again so we’ve popped in a couple of Sundays.

We took the canoe out on Coventry Lake ( which is actually called Wangumbaug only no one seems sure of how to pronounce that) for it’s maiden voyage.

We also raided Ocean State Job Lot (which is a bit like B&M in the UK) for some rocking chairs which I put together. Why is it when you get furniture to put together, the pre-drilled holes are always misaligned? They seem fine but if they begin to creak even slightly I’m super gluing those suckers together.

We also got a little fire pit which has been a nice addition, no more improvements for the time being until the credit card is paid off!

 

 

Memorial Day Weekend Americana

The weekend before last was a three day weekend for Memorial Day.  I discovered the joy of Wholefoods.

And we finally tried out the drive in movie theatre that’s nearby. I’d never been to a drive in and there aren’t many of them left in America but it was a fun novelty.

After we parked up we took a walk to the concessions stand in the middle of all the screens for a browse (although we’d packed enough snacks to feed a small army).

The drive in shows two movies back to back for the same price with an intermission in between. First we saw Grease. Grease always makes me think of my Auntie Pauline, whenever we went to visit the cousins in Essex my Auntie Pauline would let me watch Grease on VHS (none of our cousins were the same age us so there was no one to play with) and I’d sit cross legged in front of the spare TV as close as was humnely possible without my Mum telling me I’d get square eyes.

After Grease we watched Jaws, or more accurately I watched Jaws because Kim fell asleep… that was the only draw back with the drive in – the first move didn’t start until 8.40pm so the second movie ended very late. But I liked Jaws, I hadn’t seen it before and it was filmed in Martha’s Vineyard where we went on holiday last year so it was nice to recognise places. I learnt that if you stick your feet out of the car window at the drive in on a hot summers night you will wake up with over 40 mosquito bites covering both feet.

The next day I had a mooch round a nice garden center with my friend and then Kim and I went round to their house after she was done with work for fondue and Harry Potter Clue (that’s Cluedo for all the Brits).

On Memorial Day we headed down to Main Street in Coventry for the Memorial Day Parade, we sat outside the library. Kudos to the library worker who came up with the imaginative tag for the sign “we have books”… well no shit.

We camped out with our fold out chairs and chatted to the people either side of us and then the parade started.

They had veterans marching and soldiers on active duty and everyone applauded them which I thought was quite sweet. Miss Connecticut waved to us from atop a convertible.

All the scouts and the girl scouts went by – in America they don’t have girl guides or brownies. Girl scouts sell cookies and boy scouts sell popcorn for fundraisers, I think the girls must try harder than the boys because so far I’ve only ever seen the cookies.

We saw the Knights of Columbus a Catholic masonic-like organisation… they haven’t been knighted but they sure do like a fluffy hat and cape combo. My father in law is a member of the Knights of Columbus but he doesn’t have the hat yet, he said he has to get promoted one more time to get it, I got the impression he wasn’t that stoked to get the hat and cape but I think it could help him make dramatic exits from a room. My mother in law works for the Knights of Columbus insurance company but she isn’t allowed to be a member because she is a woman.

The parade went on and there was lots of horses and monster trucks and then as soon as it had started it was done again.

Then we took a leisurely stroll up Main Street to the car, I clocked this little beauty…

God bless ‘Murica.

After that we did a spot a shopping and caught up with the important news of day.

Annoyed the kitties.

Then we visited the in laws for a barbecue and my father in law and I scored a grand victory at Trivial Pursuits.