Fair to Middling

Yesterday I went to the State Fair. And yes, I went by myself. I know that's kind of weird, but I really wanted to go on a weekday. Last year I went on the last Saturday, and it sucked. It was so crowded that it was nut to butt, and I couldn't even get in to see the frisbee dogs because the arena was already full. I asked Mabel if she wanted to go to the Fair at some point, but I haven't heard back from her a week later. None of my other lame friends wanted to skip work, so I just went by myself. It was a lot better crowd-wise.

The first food stop was for a roasted ear of corn. They give you an ear of corn and you hold it by the shuck. There are all kinds of spices that you can put on your corn. I went with the Cajun spice. Damn that was good. The next stop was for the fabled corny dog. I went with the regular variety rather than the cheese and jalapeno. I figured there was no need to add insult to injury (I would change my mind on that later). As a kid I used to put ketchup on my corny dogs in the school cafeteria, but at some point I was taught that is a no-no. So, I slathered on the mustard and chowed down. The third stop was for a root beer from the cart with the giant root beer barrels. I like how the bees hang out around the root beer tap.

Next I did a walkthrough of the domestic part of the Auto Show. It's amazing what being jobless will do to your desire to even think about buying a car. I planned to go to something billed as a 'Tropical Greenhouse Tour' so I had to hoof it across the fairgrounds. I made it to the specified location but the 'tour' ended up being a lady standing in one location in the greenhouse who would answer a question if you had one. You pretty much had to tour the greenhouse yourself. It was very interesting though (at least to me) and then I looked at their butterfly garden outside. I am pretty fascinated by plants. I am thinking I may have throw that fact into my giant boiling 'potential career cauldron' from which I'm hoping my true calling will emerge.

The next item on the agenda was to go to the Top-Flight Canine show. They have some really hyper dogs who catch frisbees, jump over some big hurdles, and jump into a pool of water. One of these dogs jumped a hurdle that was 52" off of the ground, which was pretty impressive to me anyway. After that I caught about 5 minutes of the African acrobats, who did some pretty amazing stuff. Then I went to the import section of the Auto Show. I found further proof that I am getting old when I noticed that I spent most of my auto viewing time in the Toyota section, along with a healthy number of senior citizens. Yes! I am interested in the same cars as 75 year-olds! Sweet!

I then went to see the butter sculpture. This is something I do every year, although I think last year when I got to the usual location there was no butter sculpture. This year the sculpture is Elvis, along with a contingent of hound dogs. It was pretty cool. Not too many people work in the medium of butter so I have to give it some props. Although to me Elvis' face looked more like Robert Mitchum from 'Night of the Hunter'.

I swung by to take a look at the Budweiser Clydesdales. Those are some damn impressive animals. I then felt the need to further punish my stomach, so I decided to get some fried okra. I love fried okra. I didn't love this fried okra. It was way too greasy, and as a bonus I even got some oil in the bottom of the cup. Blech.

I should have left at that point, but I felt the need to try one of those disgusting fried desserts that everyone is always going on about. Fried twinkies, fried Snickers bars, fried marshmallows. I had my heart set on a fried Twinkie, but when I got to the booth I discovered they didn't have them. There must have been a lawsuit or something. So, I settled for the fried Oreos. They weren't nearly as bad as I was expecting, although I kind of wish I hadn't gotten them. I had a low-grade headache all day which blossomed into a full-blown one by the time I got home. I blame the Oreos. Or the okra. I almost didn't have to eat dinner since I ate so much crap at the Fair. But I did eat a bowl of tomato soup. This morning I caught sight of the organic honey nut 'Os cereal that I have and wish I would have eaten that instead. Since I've been out of work I don't really eat breakfast anymore and the cereal just sits there, forlorn. Poor cereal. Holy crap, I almost forgot the title of my blog! Anyway, I guess the Fair itch has been scratched for this year.