Pride Parade Weekend

It’s been a while since I have written, but I promise that this story will be worth it.

I sit here munching on an English muffin, thinking about my weekend. It was a gorgeous, sunny weekend for the most part, with a few showers on Sunday.
Friday I got off at one, met my girlfriends from ST and sat on the patio at the Pilot for a few hours, catching up and chatting. Jess is visiting from her new home in Newfoundland, so it was great to see her. We went back to Hayley’s, got ridiculous, and then Ian and I met and went to the Jays game. (Jays won, yeah Jays!) Then, leaving Ian so he could study, I went to Dani’s and saw her new house. It is adorable! She and Jay have it set up so cute!!!

Saturday I had to go do a dress fitting and then headed to Burlington to see Brittania. We had a “Kel and Bee Day”. We went to the beach and laid out on the sand, listening to tunes and keeping hydrated by means of our Bubas. It was such an amazing day to catch some rays! We felt like we were burning up a little after a few hours, so we got some ice cream, and went to the Wal-Mart Superstore. My first time there! We bought Bee a little air conditioner/ tower fan for her apartment and it ended up working swimmingly. The rest of the evening consisted of appitizers, a Caesar salad, mimosa’s on the patio and April coming over to watch super girly movies.

Sunday I drove home and worked out, then got ready for Pride. I met up with Courtney from work and we were a little late for the parade but stillw anted to go, especially when the rain stopped. So we got off at Wellsley Station but decided to go meet Hayley’s friends, Mike and Nina, on the (are you ready for this?) roof of the Brass Rail. Now, Hayley had warned me that it is super dangerous, especially since it had been raining (she went on top of the Brass Rail last year) but Courtney and I were up for a little adventure.

For those of you who don’t know, the Brass Rail is a famous strip joint at Yonge and Bloor. And it doesn’t have one of those roof’s that you just climb the stairs to get up. Try and follow me, and visualize: We headed (following Mike’s directions) to the back of the Brass Rail, into a parking lot. We shimmied down a narrow alleyway that you had to go through single profile. We walked past a garbage pit and headed up the rickety stairs. You’d think we were finished. I glance across at one of the roof’s to my left, and Mike is point to my right. ‘What is he talking about? I need to get on the roof he is on.’ I thought. Then I turned to my left. That’s when it hit me that we had a few more roof’s to climb before we hit our final destination. And of coarse, I was wearing a jean skirt.

I threw my purse up over top of the wall onto the second roof, my flip-flopped feet struggling to grip the bars of the ‘fence’ we had to climb. I was up first, and then it was Courtney’s turn. Mike was now at another roof, closer to us. “Now you have to climb up the slated roof,” he said, pointing to an intensely slanted roof, “But don’t run up it too fast, because the other side is death.” I tried first with my flip flops, and then realized that I should probably take them off. I was on all fours, climbing the slant and didn’t dare look down once I reached the peak, as the other side was a long was down to Hayden Street. Two muscular men stood at the top roof, where Mike had been calling out instructions. I was standing on the peak of the roof (my feet are tingling just thinking about it!) and gripping onto the top roof. I grabbed the two guy’s wrists, and they hoisted me up and I was just dead weight. However, I did have to use my feet to kick myself up along the brick so I didn’t scratch myself. Made it!! Courtney did the same, and we were up. It was quite the trek. We walked along the rooftop with Mike, over to the small crowd that had gathered on the rooftop, watching the parade. It was a great view. One guy had a water gun and was spraying it down on the people below on Yonge. We caught the last ½ an hour of the parade and then it was time to head down. Scary stuff.

Luckily a few of the guys, including Mike, were gymnasts. They helped everyone down and it was equally as scary getting down as it was going up. Two guys stoop on the peak of the slanted roof (Court and I couldn’t believe that they did that!) hoisting people down, one by one. Then you had to crab walk down the slanted roof. Everyone was clapping as one by one, everyone made their way down. Once the last guys made their way, they were running down the slant and jumping, showing off their gymnastics skills.

Court and I walked around for the rest of the afternoon, both having cuts and scratches from our hilarious rooftop experience. We met up with a guy from work, watching in awe as men were dressed in S&M clothing, and even saw a naked man walking down the street, happy as a clam. The police brushed arms with him and didn’t even mutter a word about him putting clothes on.

The Pride Parade was such a great celebration and it was my first time there. Everyone was so happy, friendly and proud. There was no animosity in sight, just the feeling of acceptance for everyone, by everyone. I will definitely be going back, and most likely watching it from the best seat in the house again, even if it is a little too adventurous for a typical Sunday afternoon.