YAAAA-HOOOOOO!

That’s what we say here in Calgary during Stampede time. For those of you who know Calgary, yes, I realize it is only June. BUT the kids’ school had a year-end party in the form of a Stampede Breakfast. For those of you who do not know Calgary, essentially in July during the Stampede everywhere you turn there are free pancake breakfasts complete with entertainment of varying quality. Also the entire city dons western wear, which can be a terribly frightening thing. I remember back in the day when I worked, certain colleagues – who just seemed like regular people – would show up to work wearing skintight Wranglers and shirts emblazoned with pictures of wolves howling at the moon, or a desert landscape at sunset. I’m not judging this particular style, although it is not my fashion cup of tea, but what I found alarming was that my regular, seemingly normal co-workers had whole other lives, ones that involved a lot of cowboy fantasies. A male colleague confessed that he had many, many sexual fantasies involving, of all things, rodeo trick riders and barrel racers. Two things: that is far too much information to have about someone with whom I had a working relationship, and also, I had no idea that rodeo competitors were a source of fantasy. I just didn’t know. I mean, schoolgirls, nurses, flight attendants…but trick riders? Someone might as well have told me that quantitative analysts were the bomb, that would have been just as startling. I was just totally taken aback by that information, and by the fact that a Stampede party and the accompanying drinks led to my reception of that information.

However, now that I’m not working, I’m always up for a good Stampede party, even one in June. The sun came out just in time; my kids could care less about the actual food, but there was a DJ who was playing such songs as YMCA and Who Let the Dogs Out. Who can stop their dancing feet with those tunes? I certainly cannot, and neither, apparently, can my kids:

Mark’s checking out the crowd, Jake is getting jiggy with it.

Mark’s starting to get into it.

Mark looks deflated. Jake is still grooving.

Maybe he was just resting. Check out the sweet moves! Jake, apparently, is embarking on his very own chicken dance.

This may be my all-time favourite picture of Mark. And really, is there anything better than disco dancing at 8:30 in the morning? Given my love of dancing and also my love of going to bed early, I can say with authority that it was a perfect party.