Seventy-five degrees and sunny?
Check.
Supersoft gigantic custom-made striped stilt pants and a silver stick with ribbons?
Check. It was one year ago, at our fair, that I met Big Man's classmate Nature Girl and her mom, who last week convinced me that I needed to learn to stiltwalk, supplied the stilts, and then made me all the accoutrements. Dude, Molly, well met.
Falling?
Check.
Not getting hurt?
Amazingly, empoweringly, check. Now that the worst has happened and I didn't break my kneecaps or my neck or my coccyx, I have a lot less fear. Although out of respect for my loved ones and my knees, I am in the market for a slightly-less-clapped-out pair of used drywall stilts.
Sack races?
Check.
Fascinating puppets?
Check. Requiem for a Landfill deserves a MacArthur grant.
Two-dollar brisket tacos with queso fresco and chipotle sauce?
Check x 4.
Running into almost everyone we know at the neighborhood fair?
Check. Our kids could run and play and there were so many parents who knew them and would look out for them that we didn't have to get all tweaky if they were out of sight for a few minutes.
AAAND...
Junker cars roaring past the cornstalks and into the derby pit (I got video)?
Check.
The smell of diesel and burning motor oil ("white-trash aromatherapy" says AH)?
Check.
Slightly toasted lesbians manhandling my children?
Check, and my kids have two new grownup (well, ostensibly they're grown-up) favorite friends. Dudes, AH and LF, well met.
Red dust and white smoke seeping up into the dark country air under the sodium lights?
Check.
Running into a dozen people we know at the Arcadia Volunteer Fire Department Demolition Derby, the worst-kept secret in Baltimore?
Check! Only the best of Baltimore boho society makes the trek, though - they run an indie credit check at the door. All my pictures here.
Fireworks arcing into the black black sky, reflected off a thousand car hoods and windshields and roofs, like a field of faceted beetle carapaces?
Sigh. Check.
Best. Day. Ever. But everything, as I say, hurts.
God, all we did this weekend was watch the Orioles lose again. Next time I'm coming up your way.
ReplyDeleteYour kids are more fun than the derby! Seriously! Glad you guys finally made it.
ReplyDeleteI am still impossibly relaxed from the WT aromatherapy. So soothing.
AH -Careful, you'll destroy your curmudgeon rep!
ReplyDeleteGlad someone's relaxed - I seriously feel like I was hit by a truck. That stiltwalking is brutal.
Jamaila - totally, more derby next year!
Fine, now you have tried and failed on those clumpy heavy drywalls, it is time to try again on peg stilts and enjoy the thrill of being uphigh knowing that you cannot stand still without falling over. But you have already fallen over so that will not be a problem will it?
ReplyDelete