It's no fair for me...

We went to the fair last night.  Harley was actually the first human being to walk through the gates this year... We didn't plan that, it just happened.  He was stoked to say the least.

Then for some reason I went completely insane.  Stark raving mad.  I began reminiscing about the last time I was at an Italian Feast with my dad.  We always had the Italian sausage with onions and peppers hogie... so in his honor, I did that.  I found the only northern vendor in the whole damn place and because his name is Ray (said so on the van) it seemed serendipitous.  That is my late brother's name also.  So, I walked up and ordered a sausage sub, and he says "Just one?"  

"Ah yea, my husband's a vegetarian.  He don't know what's good."

So, I get my 6$ sammich and my 3$ lemonade and I'm off.  It was good and hit the spot, but not as good as I remembered the one's at the Feast of St Margaret Mary in Cleveland. (Actually, I'm not sure about that name, but it sounded like a good Catholic one, so we're going with it)  After a little while, it occurs to me, well, if I honored dad, then it's only right to honor mom and grandma too.  Off for some fried dough with powdered sugar! It was a mission people, not like there was any choice involved.  My mom and grandma used to make fried dough from the left over pizza or cavatelli or raviolis.  They called it pizza Frit.  (Not sure if the spelling is correct, but it's Italian for fried dough, or fried pizza dough)  Every culture has it's version like the wedding soup and wedding cookie, so there you go.  

After grounding that crazy fair energy with a bunch of saturated fat and nitrates, we went to the fun house, the Ferris Wheel, and the bumper cars (3X)!!!!  All was well and we were having a fun fun fun fair time!  But then, against every once of good judgement I had left, I was talked into the Tilt O' Whirl... Oh Sweet Jesus, was this ever a mistake.  Marc, my beloved, somehow managed to convince me that you can control the tilt and spin by leaning...  I fell for it because there is a ride at Disney called the Tea Cups, where this is actually true.  Tilt O Whirl, not so much.  In fact not at ALL.  That dude at the controls was a Sadistic bastard too.  I had my eyes closed after about the first 30 seconds and was holding on to the side with my arm straight out.  Marc kept saying, "hold it in honey, hold it in"  I must have been forest green by this time. (I am normally a pale shade of olive anyway, but I passed Olive after about 10 seconds.) Oh, and the best part, when ever the damn thing was spinning so hard like it was about to fly off the hunk of metal it was spinning on, every time I felt had to take a deep breath and hope I didn't toss my sausage, I'd here this little gleeful voice next to me shouting "THAT's what I'M talkin about!"  Needless to say, Harley wanted to go right back on.  That boy.  I'm sure all the onlookers were laughing their arses off, as probably the evil controller.  What fun!

When that 3 minutes was over, which only seemed like 3 hours, I had to sit down.  I knew I wasn't going to puke at this point because I was not getting the pre-puke watery mouth thing... but I was far from ok.  After a while a strange gentleman sat down at my table even though there was a whole other free table right there.  He smelled weird. You know how when you feel pukey, you have bionic smelling powers.  So it was time to move on and find the boys.  I wandered in the direction they were walking to find the big slide, but I found a bathroom instead.  After unloading my lemonade I decided to try them on the cell, even though I was sure they would not hear it.  But they did!  So we finally met up and by then I knew I had to go.  So we parted ways which made me very neurotic because I have this unnatural fear of my kid disappearing into a crowd and never found again.  But even so, I had to trust that neither of them would get so distracted as to loose track of each other.  

Then I turned into one of those sad (or funny) people you see leaving fairs and carnivals sometimes.  Sort of hunched over holding both my mouth and my stomach and walking as fast as I possibly could.  And something I noticed is that MANY of the food vendors are located on the fringe where you have to pass by them to get out.  This was the most challenging part of my grand exit, but I finally made it out of the gates intact.  Sort of.  Then it was the looooOOOOoong ride home.

I made it home and was in bed about 10 minutes when I got a call from my ex. who was worried because I'd fallen off the map.  I do that.  So, we had a lovely chat while I was drinking a carbonated beverage, and by the time we were done, I felt much much better.  Oddly though, this morning I felt sort of hungover.   Slow and stupid.    

When the boys got home they told me of all their adventures and all the strange creatures, both two legged and four legged they saw.  All the junk food THEY ate, plus they came in the door with tri-colored cotton candy. Sigh.  Thank God I couldn't smell it.  That's all I know.  That and they stopped putting cotton candy on sticks. It now comes in a bag, which is probably more practical, but I don't have to like it.  

One last thing that is worth mention.  The chap that was manning the "Headless Woman Exhibit" HAD to be more frightening than she.  He was a scary and angry looking dude with a shaved head and one of those bad ass spider web tattoos that was allover one side of his head and I think stretched a bit onto one side of his face.  There are lots of rumors about what the spider web means, and I won't speculate... but MANY of the guys on the row have that tat... Although I have yet to see one on a head before.  So that's my story.