Festival of Death

Since many of you know me, it may come as a shock to you (it did to me and I would like to think I know me better than I know myself…) that I don’t like festivals. It seems to be a new development because I have very recent memories of being up for anything. Put some stalls up, invite all the town crazies and I AM IN. However, lately, I seem to choose to skip the festivals in favor of… sitting at home in my pjs. So I have to wonder: am I just getting old or are festivals getting more annoying?      For instance, we decided to head into downtown Denver for the July 4^th Eve festival. We take the train because all of the event organizers pleaded on websites for everyone to take public transport. I spend the whole time yelling at Amelia because she keeps touching the pole and then wiping her hand down her jacket. I can see the germs from the hundreds of people before her now crawling happily up and down the front of her jacket. I realize this makes me seem like a germaphobe; feel free to believe this about me. I am. (I do have a legitimate medical reason though, which at some point I may share with you all. But to be honest, my obsession with germs began in my first microbiology class, so with or without the excuse, I would still have been yelling at her the entire way.)
Anyway, we disembark the Petri dish disguised as a train and head out to find some dinner. This is successful in that we eat some and I get material for an additional blog post about the perils of taking your parents and a 9 year old out to dinner downtown. (To be posted soon, mainly for my sisters' benefit.) Anyway, our bellies full, we jump on a free bus to get closer to the excitement. This is when we make our first mistake. A neighbor had told Dad to get off at California St. because this is the closest stop. It is not. It is the closest stop to the Convention Center… unfortunately, we are not going to the Convention Center, we are going to the Civic Center. Both places starting with double C’s but just because they share letters does not mean they share the same space in the universe. We must now walk eight city blocks. (To be fair to festivals and people who misunderstood where you were going before they gave you directions, I was in a significant amount of pain due to the briefly aforementioned illness, so I am willing to concede that, at this point in our trip, my distaste for festivals may be biased.)  We finally make it. There is a sea of people. (I realize that this is an overused metaphor so give me a moment and I will try to figure out a better one.) We arrive at the front, near the stage and my parents begin trying to make their way into the throng. I start to panic a little. Now, I feel there is some rationale to my panic. Leaving aside the fact that I can see the germ count floating above everyone’s head like an aura, I have been living in a country whose entire population is equal to Denver but spread out over the square miles of Colorado, so I am feeling a little claustrophobic. Also, people don’t tend to hate New Zealanders so I have grown used to the low terror threat. However, living overseas has made me keenly aware of how much other countries hate Americans so I am a little afraid of the security risk of being in a large group of them. Anyway, we decide not to navigate our way through the people penned in like sheep and opt to sit at the front, on the sidewalk, behind the tape that says “Police line :do not cross”. Here is a photo.

The Event staff is very paranoid at this particular location, yelling at anyone who steps over the line that they are not safe and to get back behind the line. It occurs to me that I am sitting next to the flimsy tape and, if it is not safe on the other side of it, how is it that we are safe…?  This apparently has occurred to my daughter as well because, 45 minutes before the fireworks start, she is asking me to cover her ears and is trying to bury herself into me. We can’t tell her when the fireworks will be starting because every time someone gets on stage to talk they sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown, as we are sitting beside the stage, not in front.
The fireworks do get started, with cannon blasts that seem to be pointed directly at us, causing my daughter to scream and instantly sob. She is sure I have brought her to her execution. This is fun, I think to myself as she continues to cry and then screams as pieces from the exploding bombs fall on us, confirming her belief that I have brought her to the Festival of Death. I keep offering to leave but she is too scared to move. (And I think secretly she is against standing up in front of the entire crowd, crying.) I spend the rest of the time hoping it will just end. When it is over, we join the masses of others who have done their civic duty and taken the busses and trains. Unfortunately, none of the busses are running… apparently they just wanted us to get to the event, not leave. So we walk the two miles to the train, picking up millions of others who were at other events downtown and also did their civic duty. We arrive at the train station now really feeling like cattle. And realize that they are not running very many trains (again, I don't know why... perhaps the homeless population is dwindling and they are hoping to boost numbers?) It will be a half hour before we can get on the next train. That is, if we are willing to push old ladies and small children on to the train tracks so we can get home. By sheer luck, we end up standing behind a cute family with an even cuter baby and we shamelessly use them as a human shield to get on the train.  My daughter spends the ride home watching the baby and decides that the tiny feet and hands are the cutest things she has seen in her entire life. And she informs me that she has changed her mind about not wanting a sibling. Now she REALLY wants me to have another baby: boy or girl as long as she gets to hold it. Barely holding on with my screaming-in-pain fingertips, packed in to the cattle car, I ponder what it is about festivals that I used to like.
Perhaps it is just a question of money. The following night, the Fourth of July, we decide to drive our own car, park four blocks from the baseball stadium for 25 dollars, sit in our amazing comfortable seats, eat overpriced  yummy junk food, laugh, sing, dance, watch fireworks from a safe distance, walk the four blocks to the car and make such good time on the way home that Dairy Queen is still open, so we can finish the night off with some ice cream. Maybe money really can buy happiness...