Speaking Of the New Year

After three years of attending the Families With Children From China lunar new year event, and reading the book Inside Transracial Adoption, and realizing that once again FCC had scheduled on a day when we have 30 other commitments, this year we decided not to go.  Instead, we would go to the festival in the International District, where the real Chinese people go, on a Saturday when it doesn't conflict with ski school.
I have a friend whose stories always begin, "So, blah de blah blah.  Great.  The trick is..."  The trick is, Rose Red has aikido on Saturday mornings.  But it's done in time to get to the ID and watch the lion dance.  Great. The trick is, I forgot her clothes at home and she has to go in her gi.  Then she falls down and hits her head at the end of class, and cries for 15 minutes so we're running late.  We finally get to the ID and find parking in a sideways lot on a very steep slope.  Afraid that the stroller will get away from me, I give Red the parking pay stub and ask her to put it on the dash for me.  She opens the door against gravity, but it slams back on her finger.  By the time we are calm and make it two blocks down the hill to discover that the "stage" is a blocked off bit of pavement visible only to the first row or two of the crowd, we have missed the lion dance anyway.
So we push through the crowds to get dim sum.  And that part was actually nice. But next time I think we'll do it on a normal Saturday.  We did swing by the "culture tent" on the way back to the car.  We stood in line for 10 minutes to get balloons twisted into swords.  But over all, the crowded downtown event was more crowd than event.  We are still looking for the right new year celebration.