Seattle Gay Pride Parade and Festival (With Photos)

Posted on | June 25, 2006 | No Comments

Sara and Me I had so much fun today at the parade. Last year’s parade kind of sucked and seemed sort of lacking. This year’s, though, was just awesome. There were TONS of people and I think that helps brighten the mood and atmosphere of the whole event.

I picked up Sara around 8:30, or so, this morning and then brought her back to my place so that we could wait for Jared and his fiancÃ©, Manami, to arrive. They were a little late but not too much so. Sara and I ran down to the car and I spoke with Jared briefly to give him the rundown on the game plan regarding where we were headed, about where I wanted to be on the parade route, and how we would arrange parking. We had to go in separate cars because Sara and I would be staying later than they were going to. He had to work later that day.

To help facilitate communication I handed him one of my walkie talkies that I have for when I’m flagging. I had thought of this idea before but didn’t bother to give the damn thing to him while I was talking to him. I ended up jumping out of my car and running it to him while we were stopped at a traffic light. I think it helped that we had them.

Parking was a concern for me. I hate trying to find a place to park in Seattle. When we got to the exit that we needed Jared radioed me and said that he knew of some parking areas near Seattle Center. The one that he had in mind charged $20 though, which scared us off. He then tried to park on the side of the road and I radioed him letting him know that was a loading zone… and I drove past him. Luckily I found an empty lot and we parked there. We all grumbled a bit about paying $15 to park but we didn’t feel like bargain hunting at that point. Sara and I noticed when we left that that was pretty much the going price for parking in the area for this event, so we did okay.

We ended up parking only a block away from where we stood to watch the parade, which was great. I had decided that this year we would leave early for the parade so we could avoid traffic and find parking. We were successful with both, unlike last year. The downside to getting there early is that you have to stand around waiting for the parade. I didn’t mind this at all. We were able to find a nice spot to stand or sit, in the shade, with no one standing in front of us. Hell, from the looks of things, all of 4th Ave has lots of shade. It was nice being able to stay out of the sun as it was supposed to be around 90 degrees today. I’m pretty sure it got up there. We had all put on sun screen to be on the safe side, but were rarely hit by the sun’s rays.

It was a beautiful day though. I love a sunny day. Standing in the sun would have been miserable after a while and probably would have flipped on Sara’s Cranky Bitch switch. But we managed to avoid that.

Speaking of which, I was a little concerned that there would be a lot of tension between Sara and Jared but they were both really cool around each other and didn’t cause any problems. They are both rather cranky with each other over the whole “Don’t Be Gay” fiasco which resulted in the two of them arguing a bit at that time. Today they both showed me tons of respect and just decided not to deal with each other. As far as I can tell, they were both fine with each other being there since they both left each other alone.

I did my best to try and make Jared at least a little uncomfortable: Sitting too close to him, touching him like he was my boyfriend, pointing out that people probably thought Manami was his Fag Hag, etc. He really didn’t even hardly flinch. Well, a couple of times he did made his “Gross!” comment when I’d flirt too much with him or act like he was my boyfriend, but otherwise he was fine. This was his first Pride Parade and I’m really glad he came.

Jared’s fiancÃ©, Manami, apparently had a “really, really good time,” according to Jared. He said that she wants to go again next year. That’s awesome! I had kind of used her to get him to go this year so now next year’s is already in the bag.

When I had asked Jared to go with me this year I made sure to do it in front of Manami, knowing that she would definitely want to go. He had kind of said some variation of “Maybe” and then she started nodding her head emphatically. It was decided right then and there that they were going. Ha! Mission accomplished!

Sara, I can pretty much count on going every year. She’s my “Bitch”… no, not in a bad way. That’s her nick name. Calling her my “Bitch” is pretty much the equivalent of calling her my “Fag Hag.” I think she really liked going to the parade. The walking and standing around for lengthy periods of time, she can do without, but she still has fun. And she hardly complained at all. She stayed just as long as I wanted us to.

Oh, man, I love when people marching in the parade hand out stuff. I got so many stickers and candy (though I gave most of the candy to Sara), and… condoms and lube. I find it amusing that condoms and lube are handed out at the parade. I don’t know what Jared and Manami thought of that. The people just kept coming by and handing these bags of lube and condoms to us and I just kept shoving them in my pockets (not that I have much occasion to use them). Jared and Manami seemed more reticent about grabbing them. I kept stressing, “Free condoms, man! Take ‘em!” Jared seemed almost embarrassed for some reason. I have about four condoms and some strawberry flavored lube that will likely just sit in a drawer until they rot. *cries*

Anyways… I took TONS of pictures and a few really short videos. Jared even took some pictures but he hasn’t uploaded them yet. He plans on writing in his blog about the whole experience and I’m excited to read what his take on the whole experience was. I really enjoyed myself.

Oh, here’s the pictures: Clicky, clicky!

Category: Friends, Gay, Photos, Video

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Seattle Gay Pride Parade and Festival (With Photos)

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