Bananas. Pirates. Super heroes made of cardboard boxes. It was an interesting weekend.

I started off this weekend working almost 2 hours late on Friday night, but thankfully things got much better after that.

Saturday morning consisted of boring stuff like cleaning house, then I went to a nearby town and had something appraised, and then the fun began.

As I told y'all I might do, I went to the Little 5 Points Halloween Parade with my neighbors.

Little 5 Points (or L5P as we call it here in Atlanta) is by far the most eclectic area in all of Atlanta.  It's known as a hangout for the bohemian crowd.  It's become a little more hipster than it was back in the 80's and 90's, but it's still full of some of the most interesting people around.  Halloween brings out people of all kinds.

We went down a couple of hours before the parade started to get a little ahead of the crowds and we grabbed a table at Brewhouse Cafe to watch the second half of the LSU game (my neighbors are HUGE fans) and then we walked outside on the sidewalk for the parade.

Y'all.

I think 80% of the Atlanta population was there.  It was packed.  And y'all please remember, I am a legal assistant and part-time painter.  I am not a photographer and I take sucky pictures on my phone.  And if they don't suck enough for you this small, I think you can click on them to make them even bigger and suckier.

I'm not a fan of gigantic crowds, so I was not particularly a fan of all this:

 My word, there were so many people there!  My neighbors were not fans of all the people from the burbs coming down and invading our 'hood.  Ha!  They commented several times and you really could pick the suburbanites out pretty easily.  It didn't bother me, but apparently my neighbors weren't the only ones noticing it.  I heard someone in the crowd next to me complaining about it too.  And he was talking about how many people bring their young kids down there when, if you live in Atlanta and know anything at all about L5P, you should know it's going to be a bizarre crowd and not a kiddy type parade.

My neighbors' daughter came with us though.  She's lived in the hood from birth so she's used to the craziness.  A lot of people in the crowd come dressed in costumes.  My neighbors' daughter was no exception:

 There were Super Mario characters in the crowds (with their butts hanging out of their little tan costume)

There were Angry Birds:

And there was Mitt Romney drinking a beer:

 I don't tend to talk politics much on here or on Facebook, but let's just say I'm not the most conservative person.  So I think it's funny that Mitt Romney's wife or girlfriend was dressed up as Big Bird.  You can kind of see her here in the middle of the crowd:

There were guys dressed up as a bunch of bananas.  They ended up standing next to me during the parade.  They yelled a lot.  Right in my ear.  They were a loud, drunk bunch of bananas.

There were daddy pirates with cutie patootie baby pirates:

And all of that craziness was before the parade even started.

My neighbors' daughter was getting a bit impatient for the parade to begin.  So she stood in the middle of the street waiting for it:

Here is the beginning of the parade.  Finally!

I could not begin to tell y'all what some of these groups were there representing, but here are some random parade marchers:

This bloody guy was kind of scary!

The Seed & Feed Marching Abominable band.  I saw this drummer girl walking through my 'hood a few hours before the parade started.  She must have been tired of walking and rolling her drum by the time the parade was over:

I have no idea what group these things were from, but they were really cool!  And really, really tall.

Spy vs. Spy:

The Box Hero Corps.  I had never heard of these before, but they make costumes out of cardboard boxes painted to look like superheroes:

This blond woman with one of the worst hairdos I saw all day got in all of my pictures after a certain point.  She and her husband who looked vaguely like Eric Clapton were really getting on my nerves.  They started out beside us on the curb but just walked down into the street in front of us and then a whole bunch of people followed their lead so we couldn't see as well or take photos as well.  They were already in the front of everyone!  Why did they have to be even closer?

Apparently this group either didn't plan ahead very well or their transportation had problems so they had to rent a UHaul for $19.95 to be in the parade.  Or maybe they were just trying to be funny.  I have no idea.

There was a group of these little bitty cars.  And someone behind me said to his wife, "BMW's!  Those are really, really old BMW's!"  Y'all.  They said they were electric on the side and they looked brand spanking new.  I don't think BMW has really, really old electric cars.

This guy looked awesome as Johnny Depp/Jack Sparrow:

Remember the Mitt Romney/Big Bird couple?  L5P is not exactly the epi-center for Republicans.  This group came by and the girl was holding a sign that said "Democrats Vote on Tuesday" and the guy's sign said "Republicans Vote on Wednesday".  Big Bird ran out into the street and hugged the girl.  It was pretty hilarious and the entire crowd around me roared with laughter!

The Mayans came with signs telling us "The End is Near!"

About an hour after the parade, we were leaving to head back home.  As we were going down a side street, this band from the parade was apparently not ready to quit, um, parading.  So they were driving through the surrounding neighborhoods in their pick-up truck still blasting some music:

And now I remember why I don't do posts with a lot of pictures.  They take forever!

So, in honor of the Little 5 Points Halloween Parade, the theme for Music Monday this week is:  Costumes!  The song(s) you submit must contain a word in the title that is associated with costumes (pretend, make up, dress, disguise, mask, etc.)  Can't wait to see what y'all can come up with!  I have a few songs in mind already......