Sunday, August 29, 2004

The State Fair Diaries

This weekend was my annual trek to the Minnesota State Fair. My recommendation is go early, go often. We went early- 6 a.m. and were suprised to find there were still people who managed to get to MPR's Morning Show. We carried our bench to listen to Ann Reed sing songs about the state fair at about 6:45 we went in search of food on a stick.
There are some really wonderful things about the state fair. One of my favorite things is the hand outs. Like a kid at halloween I empty my state fair bag at the end of the day and count my magnets, pencils, post-its and recipies. My favorite free stuff from this year- a mini-fan from Toyota, a Spam magnet, a Camp Ebay t-shirt and (my overall favorite) a smelly thing for my car that smells like steak. Although not as useful I also got "Prince on a Stick" and "Garrison Keillor on a stick". These are fans actually made from local seed artist Lillian Colton's work.

Saturday, August 28, 2004

This is me

I've wanted to do this for a while. Mostly because the most random and strange things happen in my life. I am sure that odd random things happen in other people's lives as well but perhaps not in the frequency that wierd things happen to me.
For example last spring I came home from work one night and on the stairs up to my apartment there was a baby ferret. I've never et a ferret so I was freaked out. My first thought was that someone had gotten more pet than they could handle and had dumped her in our building. The other option was that it belonged to one of my neighbors- I ruled out the little old lady who lives below me and I ruled out the lady next to me because she doesn't have pets so that left my friend Micheal. When I knocked he wasn't home. I tried to go to my apartment but everytime I came up the stairs the ferret would charge towards me. It was a little weird as I thought she would climb up me like I was a telephone pole. I finally made it to my apartment by reminding myself that I was bigger than the ferret. I also told myself that I was definitly more freaked out by the ferret than it was of me- this makes me feel safe because an animal who isn't experiencing fear is totally less likely to strike at me out of fear.
I finally made it to my apartment followed closely by the ferret. She nearly got in due to her inate ability to follow right up against my heels. She didn't get in but I wanted to make sure that she camped out in front of my neighbors door instead of mine. That way if she didn't belong to him he would have to take her in because she was outside his door and not mine. I set her up a box and water outside his door and it turns out she did belong to him.
Sadly she and her ferret friend escaped for good a couple weeks later.