I am depressed about this lack of a digital camera thing. Or rather, we had one, and a certain someone in my house (he is around my age but wears a pair of balls) left it out in the weather and… kaput. Anyway, for the past couple months I’ve been either forgoing pictures, taking them with Ralph’s assy Treo camera, or – and yes, I am not kidding – holding my Mac up at something and using the iSight.
Opportunities like today are what make it hard, though: we went to the Jefferson County Fair.* Our first trip of a few this weekend, since we got the season pass (which features Sunday Beef BBQ, sorry purple-ribbon cows!) and are going to drag our sorry-ass family out there several times before it’s all over. Tonight was just a “warm up” touring various displays of animal husbandry (ever noticed most of those 4-H livestock girls are knockouts? Is it the goat milk or what?), touchingly crafted feline bungalows in the piss-smelling “Cat” building, and “a ribbon for everyone!” kids’ artwork features (P.S. don’t comment on the overabundance of ribbons to the director of the Art Dept – he has no sense of humor). We barely had time to skirt the creepy, hilarious, or just plain sad vendors with shelves and shelves of tie-die articles or polyester trucker hats or “genuine Native American” crap. And every year I vainly hope some booth mix-up (deliberate or not) will put the Beef Council next to the vegans next to the JeffCo Republicans next to the PFLAG next to the pro-lifers. Then I could walk by and nod and then awkwardly smile, then frown, then smile again! and one last disapproving frown.
My special love is the fiber arts. The quilts, the knitted goods, the denim purses. One very sweet display of the wedding dress, bridesmaid gowns, and mother of bride suit the bride herself sewed. And the food – displays of various baked goods, all preserved behind glass with one very happy fly entombed with many generations’ supply stale sugary goodness. The last glass case of goodies included a cake shaped, I think, like a cheerleader but with frosting teeth that were so horribly rendered I had to leave the area because I was doubled over laughing.
Tomorrow will be trickier: the sunshine will reveal the bouncy castle with screaming, red-faced kids and pony ride in all it’s glory and my daughter will be apeshit to ride and participate in everything and the elephant ears will be smelling divine (three weeks and counting with no sugar) and I will have hands that smell like goat from the petting zoo and the odd pedophile will be casually strolling about. But! We plan to enjoy ourselves nevertheless. And maybe even beg, borrow or steal a camera to share with our readers.
Oh and one other thing: tonight Sophie bottlefed a baby nubian goat named Levi (like this, but in a less “pagan god”-like pose). This whole display was so cute I had tears in my eyes. Or maybe that was the goat-smell, I’m not sure.
* I’m probably going to regret saying this, but there are some assy aspects to this website. I’m sorry if the webmaster, who is probably someone I know, is reading this. One offense I notice is that one of the headlining bands on the “entertainment” page is repeatedly misspelled as “MuchMore County” when it seems very obvious from their flock of giant, giant cowboy hats that their name is in fact “MuchMore Country” (yes, the running together of “MuchMore” seems deliberate on the band’s part). Listen, Jefferson County Fairgrounds: errors and typos on a professional website are a big turn-off, people. P.S. don’t go looking for typos on MY SITE because I am merely a BLOG, thank you.