Just outside my front door, four blocks west, a parade involving a myriad of Portland oddities struts up Martin Luther King Boulevard. A group of sassy tweens in pink glistening spandex dance to a marching band. A multiracial hippie troupe bang on found objects in the back of a smoking pickup. One small child tosses candy from a mostly empty school bus window. A car decorated in antlers, mermaid residue, bottle caps, seashells, roses and dirt chugs by. A prospective council woman sits atop a BMW waving like a beauty queen (or fish) does.
