OOOH pretty lights - on boats!

There's an annual boat parade on the river here, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We've gone several times in the past several years. It proves to be interesting and sometimes chuckle-worthy to see what is festooned on marine equipment. Some years the weather is nice, like last night was. I seem to recall more cold events though, but honestly it's a total crap shoot. Welcome to Florida. I was talking to Beast and conversation came around to snow. It hasn't done that here since um 1989 I think. I won't say how old I was, but I will say I was a teenager. The redneck neighbors "sledded" down the nearby overpass on a car hood. Looking back, to call them redneck was classing them up a few degrees. Which every boating community also has its rednecks, like the ones who only decorated the side of the boat that faced the riverbank. There was one boat that had a stationary ferris wheel made of lights, with flamingos and the lights blinked to make it look like the wheel was turning. This boat also had palm trees, and Santa in swim trunks. And somebody's son and his friends decided it was a great addition to have a gaggle of teenage boys with no shirts on the bow. When Clone saw this, she shrieked "OMIGOSH! They have NO shirts on!!" to her cousin and two new friends. Iddle Budder was there with his friend and her two girls. My niece and E's daughter were in the same class last year if memory serves me correctly (it's been known to fail). Four girls, a boardwalk, water, and crowds. We were incessantly telling any number of the gaggle to sit down, get off the railing, stay away from the edge, we're not going to jump in after you if you fall in the water, stop tattling, quit fighting over song lyrics, get down off the stairs, no we do not have food you have to wait till we get home, get away from the railing, stop shaking the railing, I can't swim too well, so you better hope someone else can, scoot back away from the edge, whining means we leave, be patient the boats have to circle around from the other side, but you can see them on the other bank from here, yes we heard you yelling at Santa on that boat, sit back down so everyone behind you can see, scoooch over a bit and let so-and-so sit next to you, don't tip over the chair you just fell on that lady now apologize, get down off the railing, get away from the edge, if I have to tell you to get away from the edge one more time I am probably going to just throw you IN the water myself. Then our revelry was thrown to a screeching halt by a certain someone who does everything they can to make life difficult for someone else. Someone was told in nice terms to pee or get off the pot basically. Everyone commented that the diplomatic person was way nicer than any of us would be. And I lost the heel tip on my boot, making that the 2nd pair of shoes needing the same surgery. They're going to a shoe shop tomorrow. I got both of those buggers on the cheap, and repairing them will actually be less expensive than replacing them. Shoe shopping is a blog post all its own, due to the size of my feet. I'm not going there right now. I enjoyed the fireworks too much to lament a shoe. Two bridges, three barges, 30 minutes of explosive choreography. Umpteen number of boats with lights going in a circle twice for everyone's entertainment. It beats cleaning the house.