Pet Parade

I like to believe that when God created the world, giving each bird its own plumage and each alpine range its own crevasses, at the end of the day when he kicked back in his leather recliner and popped open a Bud Lite he stopped, mid-sip, and thought with horror, “My…self! I’ve forgotten something and I know precisely what that is!” He then set to work at once on the blue prints for what would become the greatest gathering of costumed animals that Mankind would ever know. This gathering would later be known as the Eastsound Pet Parade.

The excitement in the air was palpable as I parked my bike on Main Street and headed to Teezer’s for my customary chai. The parade, coinciding with the annual Bite of Orcas, was set to begin at 11:00am. It was just past 10:00, so to kill some time I strolled over to the library to apply for a card and then bought a giant round loaf of garlic parsley walnut bread at Roses, in which the garlic and parsley and walnuts were practically exploding out the top in a doughy volcano of…dough.

By this time crowds were beginning to form along both sides of the street down which the parade was to take place. I wedged myself between a little boy holding a balloon and an elderly woman who’d recently undergone knee-replacement surgery and had set up a camping chair on the curb. In the distance we heard the paraders with their pets, and as they marched closer the people around me raised their cameras in preparation. But then something went a little differently than anticipated: the parade veered off the main street a block before the spectators, crossing just past Teezer’s and heading down the street that ran parallel to the one we were on. Chaos ensued. “They’re going the other way!” a man shouted, as though narrating the action for any blind spectators who might be in attendance. Tourists scrambled toward the through-street in hot pursuit of the pets but I, having a somewhat intimate knowledge of the island’s pathways, turned the opposite direction and ducked down the trail through the community garden, popping out the other side just as the parade leaders were passing. Suckers, I thought, surveying the nearly empty sidewalk. It seemed the tourists, in their mad dash past Teezer’s, had bottlenecked with the animals just outside Mijitas Mexican Restaurant and hadn’t made it through yet. I, meanwhile, was feeling very smug and happy of myself.

 

The parade was magical. I nearly pulled a hamstring trying to photograph everything—which suggests that, as Jeremy on Sports Night would say, maybe I wasn’t doing it right. There were dogs in pink tutus, dogs with ladybug wings, dogs in a wagon decorated to look like the house in Up, complete with balloons and a sign that said “Up with Pups!” There was a girl carrying guinea pigs in a shallow cardboard box hanging from her neck like she was selling peanuts at a baseball game. Marvin and Hannah the Shetland sheep rode by in a cart pulled by a man wearing rainbow knee-socks. Two puppies trotted down the street in matching black vests that had “SECURITY” stenciled on the top of each. Though I was unable to get a clear picture, my absolute favorite part of the parade came when a girl emerged from the crowd pushing a bunny in one of those low plastic baby doll strollers lined with blankets. Right behind her was a boy and girl pushing another bunny, this time in a miniature shopping cart. By the end of the parade, when the pets and their owners wound their way through the farmers market to the stage on the Village Green, all but one wheel had fallen off the cart and the boy and girl were forced to carry it.

Then came the awards ceremony. Snowball the guinea pig won Safest Pet, with the two puppies in SECURITY vests coming in a close second. Most Colorful went to Cookie the Rooster, though I have a sneaking suspicion that was just because Cookie’s owner was wearing about 700 different patterns at once. I missed a big portion of the awards because I was almost trampled by a horse that seemed keen to back over me. Then I saw the goats. Two little brown goats with daisy chains around their necks. Are you kidding me? Goats wearing daisy chains? Can you get any cuter? I wound up stalking the goats for quite some time, as well as the adorable little girls walking them—who were, as it turned out, the grandchildren of a woman who works at the shop.

I needed to get back to to the shop to do some shipping, so I said a silent farewell to Snowball and Cookie and the bunnies and the goats and the Up with Pups, hopped on my bike, and pedaled away.