Finally starting to recover from the Fremont solstice parade.  This year was epic.  Seriously.

I suspect there were like eighty of us.  A fair sized group, and as usual, we pretty much dwarfed the other groups in the parade as far as numbers.  The costumes this year were amazing.  Most wore blood red punctuated by bits of black, and a smaller portion wore oily black, as our theme was Blood and Oil.

This was one of the more striking color combinations, at least during the last six years of my participation.

Here’s a quick video from King 5 news.  I’m front right.

We broke two of the traditional rules, at least for our group.

First, we wore black.  For some, it was just a touch of black.  For others, they were covered.  Black generally blends into the road, cutting those wearing black hip-scarves in half.  People in 100% black, well, they’d totally disappear.  We pulled it off, however.  The black accessorizing wasn’t overwhelming, and that oily bunch stood out against the sea of read.  Very effective.

Second, we danced in the rain.  Normally, we would have cancelled.  Breaking an ankle on a slippery road would suck, and rain and costumes don’t necessarily play well together.

In the hours leading up to the parade, we huddled at the end of the parade route, shivering in the rain and wind, hoping it’d let up.  I bit of Jaegermeister, whisky and vodka was passed around, and that definitely helped cut the cold, but still….

Eventually, the rain let up.  It was still chilly, and the clouds remained a bit ominous, but Delilah made the call, and we danced, wet roads be damned.  Fortunately, our footwork wasn’t really that complicated.  Most of the action was in the arms.

The road was, however, wet enough to completely soak the veils of seven of us.  Veils get heavy when they’re soaked.  The don’t float gracefully either.  The tend to spray anyone nearby with dirty water picked up from the road, so both the spectators and us bellydancers experienced a delightful splatter from time to time.

Anyway, we made it through the entire parade, doing pretty much all of our dances and having a blast.

It was exhausting and I totally crashed when I returned home, but it was motivating.

I danced at the tuesday show last night, first time in ages.  Did my 80’s number.  A veil dance to ‘you spin me right round’ by Dead or Alive.

Hopefully, I’ll get back on that horse and do the show regularly.