Blue Lights, Christmas Parades and Harem pants

Our X-mas Parade was today. I caught the tail end of it. Right before Santa Claus rode by on his float, one of the local high school marching bands waltzed by. The drum section sounded off and man, they jammed. I wanted to toss down my stuff and go wild with some belly dance hip moves. A perfect shimmy shake sound! Made me wish I had my harem pants and coined scarf on!

My Dad is such a procrastinator. We were suppose to have our windows decorated by Thurs. The Downtown Merchant Ass. wanted white lights in the windows...for the 'White Light Festival' that we have every year. Guess what color lights we have.. "Ice Blue." lol.. so far no one's said a thing. I drove by last night and I'll say this... our window is the first thing you see... so maybe Dad's on to something.

During the fierce battles last weekend in Iraq, this area had its first casualty--a young soldier of 22... He was due to get out in Jan. Its sad. Well, any loss is sad. He was an only child. His mom died when he was a teen and he was all his father had. I know his aunt and she told me his body would be back in the state on Friday (yesterday). I was on Fayetteville Road, which leads to I-95 at around 7:00 last night. I saw blue lights flashing... turned out to be 4 police cars with their lights on, escorting a hearse. The hearse was followed by a Red SUV with USA Flags streaming from it. I realized it was the young soldier, so I pulled over and turned off the radio. No one else stopped. It made me wonder just how many people realized what was happening... that one of our Heros was coming home to rest! It was a somber moment for me... but I did feel pride in knowing that I witnessed his arrival, even if it was in the dark... I still saw the light of a Hero.