The Topsfield Fair Traffic Debacle of '09 & Other Stories
This weekend was a three day weekend (yay!!) since white people love to immortalize the terrorists of history in national holidays. But the past is the past and I got the day off, so thank you Christopher Columbus, you imperialistic son-of-a-bitch. Friday I just chilled at home and went "oh my gods I've been back almost a week and jet lag still has a hold on me..." My bedtime was something like 10pm that night. Saturday was more fun. Marc and I joined Sarah and Ben in a trip to the Topsfield Fair in Topsfield, MA, one of the finest county fairs around if you believe what you hear. (But of course it doesn't hold a candle to the ones down south!)
The fair was pretty nice though, once we got there over 2 hours later... The drive down 95 was not even an hour. But as soon as we hit the local roads off the highway, the traffic became first annoying, then ridiculous, then it was insane and finally unreal. At one point, we literally sat and watched a spider crossing the road - rooting for it and crying out when the cars so callously almost ran him over. He made it over safely, lucky little guy. And that was probably the high point of the drive in. That we were sitting still long enough to witness this death-defying arachnid is proof of the torturous traffic jam we found ourselves immeshed in. It was pretty clear what caused the jam by the time we made it the few miles from the off-ramp to the fairgrounds. The parking attendants were mostly jerk off kids who just kinda milled around doing not much of anything. Where is the work ethic of our youth? (More on that subject later...) The fair was filled with animals, barns, games & rides (which I did not participate in), award-winning produce, K-9 dogs, fancy chickens, the Cavies!!, calf petting, and the FOOD! I ate so much and it was all so good and so bad at the same time.
Ok, here is one example of the kind of people that go to the fair (besides the obvious external features: fat, clumsy and wearing the finest redneck fare they could dig up)... we went to the pig barn to see the big pink and black blimps waddle around with their young running around their feet (these are the pigs i'm referring to, not the people) and there is a long line to go in and file past the pig cages. So we wait in line at the back, patiently, and get our place inside finally to see the cutie piglets and mommas. The other side of the barn is open as well since that is where you exit and there is also a huge red and white sign that announces "EXIT" at waist height. But does that stop any of these fine specimens of human beings from entering? Nope. They just wander in, with their hideous children and then act all indignant when nobody lets their little kids in front to get a good view of the pigs. And they all stared right at the sign before they went in the wrong way. And they could all see the long line going out the entrance of the barn. Marc and I decided later that this would be a good test to see if a person should be allowed to breed. If they see the sign, think about it and then walk the wrong way into the pig barn, instant gas chamber. (Just a joke, P.S. Everyone calm down) I got cider donuts, a caramel apple, local honey and made my own beeswax candle. It was a good fair.
Sunday consisted of Marc and I going to brunch at Pepperland, and then I ran off in the afternoon to UNH to start dance practice for a couple of dances I'll be in for the Indian Diwali festival. If you've never been to a Diwali fest, look up the one in your town, probably at a university and go. It's coming up soon. Last year I had a blast and I offered to be a dancer for this year so they held me to my word and now I'm in a Yoga dance (very slow controlled poses, holding two burning candles in my palms) and a traditional folk dance called Rajasthani (lots of twirling with big skirts on and bellydancing type moves). I danced for 4 hours and promptly came home to fall asleep. By the way, back to the miscreant youth topic of earlier, while at Pepperland we witnessed possibly the worst busboy ever doing absolutely nothing to hurry and clean off the tables while many groups of us were waiting to be seated. He was a snot-nosed little 16 year old and he must have been the owner's son, because honestly there's no other way he wouldn't have been fired by now. The worst part was when we were finally seated and the kid goes over to his hipster friends at the table next to us and says "Hey guys, I just got the best idea for a song..." What a jerk. You do not go visit with your friends while you're supposed to be working and you definitely don't go shoot the shit with them while other customers can see and hear you. I messed around a lot on the job when I was a teenager, but it wasn't while there were customers around! Maybe we would not clean when we should have been cleaning or steal some frozen chocolate covered cherries from the back. But when you're around the customers, you act right. Kids these days don't get that. Grumble grumble grumble.
Monday was my day off but I went and did a bunch of errands such as taking the trash to the dumpsters and stopping by the farm to get apple cider and more cider donuts. Marc made a wicked greek calzone for dinner too.
In other news, I am NOT going to Antarctica this year. Possibly in January or possibly next December. The NSF pulled us from the list after it became known that one of our instruments was not sending data properly and was therefore deemed inoperable. Actually, this is excellent news for me. I was not looking forward to spending another 4 weeks away from home and missing Christmas. And also I now get to attend the December AGU this year and spend a week in San Francisco, all expenses paid.
Um, pictures of the Trans-Siberian trip coming to facebook soon, possibly today, possibly tomorrow.
And remember what we learned at the fair this year, kids:
The fair was pretty nice though, once we got there over 2 hours later... The drive down 95 was not even an hour. But as soon as we hit the local roads off the highway, the traffic became first annoying, then ridiculous, then it was insane and finally unreal. At one point, we literally sat and watched a spider crossing the road - rooting for it and crying out when the cars so callously almost ran him over. He made it over safely, lucky little guy. And that was probably the high point of the drive in. That we were sitting still long enough to witness this death-defying arachnid is proof of the torturous traffic jam we found ourselves immeshed in. It was pretty clear what caused the jam by the time we made it the few miles from the off-ramp to the fairgrounds. The parking attendants were mostly jerk off kids who just kinda milled around doing not much of anything. Where is the work ethic of our youth? (More on that subject later...) The fair was filled with animals, barns, games & rides (which I did not participate in), award-winning produce, K-9 dogs, fancy chickens, the Cavies!!, calf petting, and the FOOD! I ate so much and it was all so good and so bad at the same time.
Ok, here is one example of the kind of people that go to the fair (besides the obvious external features: fat, clumsy and wearing the finest redneck fare they could dig up)... we went to the pig barn to see the big pink and black blimps waddle around with their young running around their feet (these are the pigs i'm referring to, not the people) and there is a long line to go in and file past the pig cages. So we wait in line at the back, patiently, and get our place inside finally to see the cutie piglets and mommas. The other side of the barn is open as well since that is where you exit and there is also a huge red and white sign that announces "EXIT" at waist height. But does that stop any of these fine specimens of human beings from entering? Nope. They just wander in, with their hideous children and then act all indignant when nobody lets their little kids in front to get a good view of the pigs. And they all stared right at the sign before they went in the wrong way. And they could all see the long line going out the entrance of the barn. Marc and I decided later that this would be a good test to see if a person should be allowed to breed. If they see the sign, think about it and then walk the wrong way into the pig barn, instant gas chamber. (Just a joke, P.S. Everyone calm down) I got cider donuts, a caramel apple, local honey and made my own beeswax candle. It was a good fair.
Sunday consisted of Marc and I going to brunch at Pepperland, and then I ran off in the afternoon to UNH to start dance practice for a couple of dances I'll be in for the Indian Diwali festival. If you've never been to a Diwali fest, look up the one in your town, probably at a university and go. It's coming up soon. Last year I had a blast and I offered to be a dancer for this year so they held me to my word and now I'm in a Yoga dance (very slow controlled poses, holding two burning candles in my palms) and a traditional folk dance called Rajasthani (lots of twirling with big skirts on and bellydancing type moves). I danced for 4 hours and promptly came home to fall asleep. By the way, back to the miscreant youth topic of earlier, while at Pepperland we witnessed possibly the worst busboy ever doing absolutely nothing to hurry and clean off the tables while many groups of us were waiting to be seated. He was a snot-nosed little 16 year old and he must have been the owner's son, because honestly there's no other way he wouldn't have been fired by now. The worst part was when we were finally seated and the kid goes over to his hipster friends at the table next to us and says "Hey guys, I just got the best idea for a song..." What a jerk. You do not go visit with your friends while you're supposed to be working and you definitely don't go shoot the shit with them while other customers can see and hear you. I messed around a lot on the job when I was a teenager, but it wasn't while there were customers around! Maybe we would not clean when we should have been cleaning or steal some frozen chocolate covered cherries from the back. But when you're around the customers, you act right. Kids these days don't get that. Grumble grumble grumble.
Monday was my day off but I went and did a bunch of errands such as taking the trash to the dumpsters and stopping by the farm to get apple cider and more cider donuts. Marc made a wicked greek calzone for dinner too.
In other news, I am NOT going to Antarctica this year. Possibly in January or possibly next December. The NSF pulled us from the list after it became known that one of our instruments was not sending data properly and was therefore deemed inoperable. Actually, this is excellent news for me. I was not looking forward to spending another 4 weeks away from home and missing Christmas. And also I now get to attend the December AGU this year and spend a week in San Francisco, all expenses paid.
Um, pictures of the Trans-Siberian trip coming to facebook soon, possibly today, possibly tomorrow.
And remember what we learned at the fair this year, kids: