2018 FAIR – Day 2

I remembered this morning that I don’t usually eat a bunch of crap and then get only 5 hours of sleep (yay cats). So it took my body and motivation a few hours to kick into gear today.

It was a bit of a slow, meandering day with only a couple of planned activities. Otherwise, we walked around, bumped into friends, chatted, ate, sat in the shade, and generally enjoyed just being at the Fair. Ahhh…as it should be.


I’m only slightly terrified of snakes
With reluctance, I joined Rob ever so briefly in checking out the Big Attraction this year.

Typically the “Walk on the Wild Side” collection of cages and glass tanks filled with warming lights and prehistoric creatures is aptly relegated to a corner of the fairgrounds you have to work to find. This year the Creepy Reptiles Exhibit has center stage in the middle of the fairgrounds and takes up about two barns’ worth of space. Wonderful.

Although I personally think this icky expansion is totally unnecessary and utterly misguided and a complete waste of prime fairgrounds real estate, apparently I am quite alone in this assessment. The Big Attraction barn was crawling with little kids and patient parents and brave souls who actually think snakes are harmless.

I refused to look at any snakes but Rob did manage to convince me to touch some molted snake skin. It felt like textured paper and was sort of waxy and really shouldn’t have freaked me out. But it only took a few seconds before I was all in my head about the skin I was touching having once encased a snake. I made a dash to the nearest hand washing station and symbolically washed every trace of snake down the polyethylene drain.

I have no pictures of this inexplicably popular exhibit. Not now. Not ever.


Speaking of creepy
We caught the tail end of a kid’s show so this is totally out of context. But for some reason, there’s a guy named Eric doing a marionette routine with one extraordinarily creepy monkey.

Giuseppe the Monkey ogled a mom in the audience, flirted with her, jumped in her lap, repeatedly asked if she liked the monkey, demanded she pet and hug the monkey, and otherwise prompted me to thank the woman after the show for taking one for the team in dealing with the questionably appropriate Giuseppe.

Mind you, Giuseppe is made out of wood, is controlled by strings, and speaks with Eric’s interpretation of a monkey voice. A very creepy monkey’s voice.

I will report back with more details after we investigate this further…from the back row where Giuseppe can’t find me.

Even this picture gives me the heebie jeebies

She’s still got it
Our county seems to like both country AND western music. As such, the free concerts offered in the grandstands during the first half of the Fair are often twangy, cowboy-hatted singers I’ve never heard of (last night was Gary Allan? And anyone know who Granger Smith is? He…they?...is on Monday.)

But tonight…tonight…was THE concert I was most looking forward to. Pat Benatar was at the Fair!

The flyer said she was with some guy named Neil Giraldo. Clearly I am not a die hard Pat Benatar fan; Rob had to clue me in that Neil is Pat’s husband and long-time band mate. Oops. Nevertheless, that man plays a mean guitar!

The concert was honestly one of the best we have ever seen at the Fair. Despite being 65 years old (omg?), Pat’s voice is still strong. She belted out her hits with volume and confidence and power. The only song she slightly modified to avoid some high notes was “Love is a Battlefield.” She sort of eliminated the “ohha ohha ohha ohha ohha ohha ohha ohha aaaah” part but that’s ok, I filled it in for her. Sorry, lady sitting next to me.

I recognized most of the songs, much to my surprise. Pat’s discography is more extensive than I realized.

Pat told stories, gave background, shared tidbits (like, did you know one of her videos was the second one ever played on MTV? A fun fact I plan to win a trivia contest with someday).

Pat engaged the audience in a way that actually felt like we were in a small nightclub rather than in an impressively populated aluminum stadium. At the end, she quietly gave the spotlight to her hubby who wailed on his electric guitar and went into rifts of Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, and I *think* Red Hot Chili Peppers. I’m not sure Pat knew were Neil was going…and I’m not sure Neil knew either. But we sure had a blast of a ride together.

Thank you, Fair Organizer People, for booking an ‘80s icon! She rocked!

Psst, Fair Organizer People: Berlin would be a nice add sometime... Just saying.

Is that Pat Benatar or what??  LOVE this picture...and my zoom!

We’re older and have better insurance
We decided to enjoy a Ferris Wheel ride to end the day. Approaching the ticket stand, I noticed the line of teenagers waiting to get on the ride was quite long and filled with hair flipping and awkward flirting. I was tempted to suggest to Rob that we wait to ride another night.

Then I noticed that…as often happens on this ride…the second line farthest from the ticket booth was being ignored. I gave Rob the knowing, sage, life-lived smirk of silver haired wisdom and said, “Follow me.”

We casually sauntered past all of the teenagers, entered the second line which was completely empty, walked directly to the head of the line, and were immediately directed to an empty car. Our feet barely stopped moving the entire route.

As we got settled in our car, I noticed a teen girl near the front of her line literally staring at us with her mouth open and eyes wide. I just smiled at her as I snuggled into Rob, our car lifting above her head for the ride she had undoubtedly been waiting 20 minutes for.

By the time we had made one full rotation, the second line was full of teenagers.

Being 50 is a BLAST!



DAILY STATS:

Number of miles walked: 3.1 miles

Re-entry hand stamp: squirrel on inside of left wrist

Earrings: pretzels! Which our friend Monica…who works at a pretzel kiosk in the mall…was decidedly NOT interested in acquiring for herself, she being smart and not wanting to think about work during Fair.

Number of goldfish in plastic boxes: So now that we are officially tracking this prize from the arcade, we saw exactly none today. None. We’ll give it one more day.

Random freebie: a weird “Magnetic Man” from the Washington State Lottery booth. It’s not clear what I’m supposed to do with it, but they gave me two and one is clearly attracted to one of our cat brushes.

If the Magnetic Man could brush our cat, that would be helpful

Number of friends we said hi to: I forgot that Rob was tracking this yesterday. Oops! Yesterday’s tally was 21. Today was slightly less at 16. Some of those are overlaps but not all. So fun to see familiar faces!  And in some cases have a nice, relaxing time just to catch up.  I LOVE FAIR!

Time crawled into bed: 1:35am!! OMG! That is so civilized! I'm really afraid I forgot something. I never get to bed that early after a day of Fairing, writing, and uploading pix.



FAIR FOOD FEAST PARADE:

My body always takes a few days to get with my indulgence program so today was a bit of a light eating day. I’m asking a lot of my GI tract so I’m trying to be kind to it and ease into the grease and fat and intense quantities of processed sugar. I take it as a win that I didn’t have to pop any Tums today. Score!

In our garage and getting a head start on hydration with a
fizzy cherry sparkling water.  Oh, how I wish I could
find these bubbles at the Fair.

I was still in my pjs when my friend John sent me a
motivating text regarding today's Treat from John. 
His wife Michelle makes The Best Banana Bread.

THANK YOU, MICHELLE!!  I told John I tried to make
your bread during the year and it just didn't taste the same.
Totally operator error since I am a disaster in the kitchen.
I will try again...but it's really worth just waiting to have
your version once per year.  Sorry again, Great Grandma Edna.
Your recipe is still really really really good.

Lunch!  Smoked Mac and Cheese from Big E's BBQ.  They
forgot to ask if I wanted bacon...and I forgot to mention that
I wanted bacon because I am waaaay out of practice.  Next time
there shall be bacon!  Still creamy and tasty like last year, so I
will continue to avoid the Yellow School Bus that had
the oddly seasoned mac n cheese a few years ago.

Today's Smasher:  secret menu Strawberry Mango.  I really
like the kick of the mango.  I mean, if I can't have pineapple.
Thanks for letting me create my own blends, Stan!

White Cheddar kettle corn.  I typically get a small bag
and carry it around for daaaays.  Today, I ate at least half
the bag.  Perhaps that's why I wasn't hugely hungry for
dinner?  In any case, this is one of my favorite Fair Treats
because in real life, I only eat air popped corn lightly sprayed
with extra virgin olive oil and dusted with fancypants salt.
Mmmmm, artificial cheese flavoring...

Chocolate Raspberry milkshake from the Dairy Women's
Milkshake barn.  Soooo good!  While enjoying my treat,
I was also noting that this location might be a safe spot from
which to watch Giuseppe's show in the yellow tents behind me.

Dinner?  Yeah, pretty wimpy.  But I'm trying to pace myself.
This ear of corn is from the Dogville stand behind me.
It's boiled and smothered in butter.  I got it because it's not
quite as big as the roasted ears at Big E's.  Still very tasty
but lacking that roasty flavor.