 Fairs, Roofed Cats, & Dog Doo |
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Another weekend. On Friday night, Karla and I went to an arts and crafts fair and out for sushi. I got up early on Saturday morning and did a fun run with some girlfriends. By "run" of course I mean "walk." I went to World Market and spent $100 on throw pillows and co-worker holiday gifts, which I never give but most of them do, and I figure it's high time that I start, especially after how nice they have always been to me. So the women are getting bars of soap and the men are getting chocolate. I then headed to the fair. The fair! The fair was a huge event in my childhood. My parents worked one of those pull-card booths where you rip off the tabs and win money if you get three cherries or goalposts or whatever. It was a very popular booth and for some reason they don't have it anymore, sadly. Shelley and I would always buy a hamburger and sit on the girls' monkey bars and talk about things like world peace and training bras. And this year, I worked it for the first time. The fair is no longer small potatoes. It has massive scary rides and even scarier carnies. My friend originally signed up for the beer booth, but she got pregnant and didn't want to work the beer booth if she couldn't drink the beer, so we worked the ring toss both wherein kids toss little plastic rings around cokes, and if they actually ring one that doesn't bounce off as if surrounded by a magical force field, they win the coke. Why any small child would want to tote a heavy 2-liter bottle of coke around all day is beyond me, but maybe that's what parents are for. These kids were too much. TOO MUCH. I realized early on that my pregnant girlfriend was not physically capable of all the bending required of this booth, because you have to bend down and retrieve the rings after every kid goes, and kids are going from four sides at all times, and my knees and back were not having it after a while. I noticed one little boy kind of lurking around and bragging but not in an obnoxious way that he had one six times, and I finally asked him if he wanted to hop inside and be our ring retriever since clearly he had won enough times already. To my surprise, he totally did! And he saved my soul! My friend went to roam with her husband and child eventually, so it was just me and Charlie, and he scurried for the rings and gave out pointers to the throwers and even totally reprimanded an obnoxious eighth grader who swore that he didn't lean over the railing, and little fourth grade Charlie was like, "YOU DID TOO!" And I was like, "Dude, I believe Charlie. Charlie knows the ring toss rules." Dude was like, "But I didn't lean! I swear!" I was like, "Dude, you totally were cheating earlier!" Dude was like, "But I didn't this time!" I was like, "Dude, why would Charlie lie? You are being such a total jerk! Back off and find another booth! And don't come back!" He bratted off stinkily and one little tiny cherub of a girl who had been silently watching just looked up at me in awe. I was like, "Do you know that dude?" She nodded. "Nice or mean?" Immediately, she said quietly and surely: "Mean." Ha! Luckily, most of the kids were downright hilarious, because maybe 1 in 20 tries actually made it onto a coke, and they became obsessed. I met one ninth grader who went to my high school and I gave him a bunch of extra tries because he was passing English in my very hard but beloved teacher's class. I saw some of my old teachers, including Charlie's, and I was like, "Charlie, I totally had your teacher in 1984." I told her to give him some bonus points. I felt old, but it was okay. When it was time to close up the booth for the day, I said, "Charlie, take a coke with you." He said, "But I didn't win!" I said, "Charlie, I could not have done this without you, and you totally laid the smackdown. For God's sake, take two!" So he smiled at me, and he took one under each arm, and then he was gone. Charlie was good people. And I left that fair with the hugest smile in my heart, not only for all the memories it brought back and because all I ate all day were sweets from the sweets shop and a grape and strawberry sno-cone and I had peanut butter and oatmeal raisin cookies in my purse to eat for dinner, but because I loved being around all of those stinky, giggly kids with lips stained red from snow-cones and cotton candy and silly string in their hair. Kids like me, and I am so amused by them that I left feeling happier than I had in a while. I know I don't want to go back to teaching them, but I'd like to somehow hang around them more often. Maybe that's how I will do some box-stepping-outing sometime soon. I just don't know how yet. That night, I went to check on my neighbor's pets, and the cat whom I had not seen for three days was finally spotted on the roof. I called his cell phone, and was like, "Do you think I need to get her off the roof somehow?" And he said, like it was the easiest and most obvious thing in the world, "Oh, yeah. There's a ladder in the store room!" Despite my annoyance at his casual assumption that I risk life and limb to rescue his cat who had about ten easily accessible tree limbs to scamper down if she should so please, I was not about to leave her up there, so into the dark, probably roach-infested store room I went, retrieving a ladder so wobbly that it careened back and forth with every breath I took. The cat was not about to gingerly crawl into my arms, so I put some food and water up there, and she ate a little of the food, but mostly I could just tell that she was scared shitless, as every time I would reach for her she would cower backwards, and we were making no progress whatsoever with my cooing and coddling, so finally I just grabbed her by the back of the neck, and she tensed, and screeched, but we were halfway down the ladder in no time and she sort of half ran down the side of my body and half hurled herself onto the ground and into the house where she proceeded to drink about a gallon of water. Last night my sister and I picked up my parents at the airport. She was highly annoyed at me for getting us there so early, but I cannot help it. I am cursed with punctuality. We passed the time by listening to her new mp3 player as she tried to convince me that "She's My Kind of Rain" is a good song. (I will never be convinced. Never!) We talked about Alan Jackson and how despite the mullet, we really like his songs and enjoyed his performance on the AMAs the other night. She got so excited by a Shania Twain song that I got a little worried. I think I want an mp3 player now. I think my sister and I might be rednecks. I am very glad that my parents made it back from Italy and seemed to have a great time. They ended up having breakfast with some Irish nuns in Rome and my dad stood up, clinked his glass, and announced that he wanted to thank the Irish for all they did for this country and got teary when saying that while listening to the nuns pray the Our Father in Gaelic, he could hear his mother and aunts doing it, too. My sister and I did not know whether to laugh or cry during this story so we did a little of both. My parents were both delirious. They went to the island where Il Postino was filmed because my dad is obsessed with that movie. I can't wait to hear more about their trip. Daisy has had diarrhea the past two nights, and let me tell you, the cleaning and the washing and the drying and the bathing and the worrying and the suppressed gag reflex while cleaning and smelling and nearly vomiting has really tested my patience as a pet owner. I am lucky in that my pets are never sick (knock wood) and this madness has got to stop. I took her to the vet this morning who said she probably has colitis and prescribed sulfasalazine, advising me not to give it to her with a treat since she has diarrhea. Funny. Hysterical. I am not one of those people graced with the ability to hurl a pill down my animal's throat, hold her mouth closed, and stroke her neck until she harmoniously swallows said pill. So she got it in a piece of cheese. Sorry, Daisy's bowels. It's pouring outside today so she's inside in her crate, probably positioning her tired backside out the metal grate and letting loose all over the floor, again. This time I was smart enough to put a towel there just in case. I feel bad for her, I really do, but I really do feel worse for myself. Because she is running around, jumping around, chasing the cats, and wrestling with Zuko, so aside from the early morning humiliation of having to be hosed off and bathed repeatedly and getting a plastic rod shoved up her bum at the vet's, I don't think it's bothering her much. I'm going to leave in a little while to check on her, as of course I am worrying she is going to have a freak reaction to the medication, and I'm sorry to say it won't be on my usual lunch hour because I really wanted to see how the Salemites react to Caroline Brady's death. "Don't shoot him, Bo! He's your fathah!" Ah, memories. Diarrhea Be Gone! About this time in ...
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