The List

Everybody has a list of things that they want to do in their lifetime. Having grown up in Southern California, I always wanted to help decorate a float for the Rose Parade. As many years as I lived there, the chance just wasn't there for me to do it.

I was in CA for Christmas in 1998. The local paper had a blurb about volunteers wanted to help with Downey's Rose float. It took me forever to find the place, but when I found it, I got there ready and excited. Because it wasn't close enough to New Year's to add the living flowers, they were doing seed work with the dried materials. I only stayed a couple hours, but long enough to say that I did it!

When I came back to my parents' house, I was head to toe in chile oil stains. The seed work I was doing was making bricks out of ground chile pods and the mortar out of white rice. Messy, but oh so fun!

Later that week, Dad and I drove over to the nursing home that Gma was in. I didn't know it at the time, but the warehouse where the float had been constructed was right around the corner. After visiting Gma, we drove over and saw the float already completed and on the flatbed ready for transport to Pasadena.

It was so much fun that year seeing a float that I got to help decorate in a parade that was always so much fun for me each new year's day.