Block Party 2018
It's become our annual tradition, heading downtown to our town's yearly Labor Day gathering. Since I wasn't up to anything on Saturday, dad and I went grocery shopping Sunday, which meant he bought himself a can of chili for lunch, meaning he was full when we went for dinner. :P Nice job, dad. He tends to eat that with either leftover pasta or a single-serve package of rice, and he doesn't get that it's too much food for one person--it fills the entire pot he cooks them in. Oh well.
We didn't get there for a while. Sometimes we'll go right around 4, when it starts, but this year it was more like 4:30. That meant all the close parking was taken and we had to park up at the library. We were stunned to see nobody else parked there--both the upper and lower lots were completely empty. Wow. Even when we returned, just one other car was there. Maybe people walked; maybe we were party animals this year and just missed everyone. It did mean we were able to walk past a number of bulldogs this year. They'd brought back the Bulldogs on Parade that they'd done back in 2011, and I'd meant to walk around and check them out again, but it didn't happen and I imagine they'll be coming down soon. Oh well. My parents did take a few pictures of them but I left my camera in my purse.
As has been the case recently, the classic car show was on River Street, and we headed there first. The temporary parking lot on the river just north of the pedestrian bridge once again worked out really nicely for the show, and dad quickly spotted his buddy's orange car on display. We did walk around a little bit, but dad spent time talking to the guy, Jim, maybe? Mom and I were bummed to see that the Thai place just up the street did not have a table outside, plus they appeared to be closed. Mom said, but the sign says Open! I said, but the sign's not lit up. It will always say open. ...Oh. So no Thai food for us.
Back on the west side of the river, they've started cordoning off the Riverwalk area for festivals, which is both good and bad. They can keep any alcohol on the premises, but then of course there's just the one entrance and exit, and the food ticket booths are right off the pathway (though at least not directly by the gate this year), so that clogs the sidewalk. Dad wasn't hungry, and I wanted to see what was available before buying tickets. Mom didn't get that each ticket was worth $3; she thought they were $1 for some reason, and said, I'm going to buy $10 worth of tickets! If I can't use them all, will you help me out? Uh, sure mom, we'll help you spend your whole three tickets. Most things were one ticket, though some were two; it wouldn't have been hard to spend them. She ended up getting five tickets, I think. I happened to find one on the ground, so I got a steak taco at Fernando's Street Kitchen. His was one of the booths where I realized I'd gone to high school with him, where he was known as Freddy. I think I had my Foods & Nutrition class with him, which makes sense; his family has owned a restaurant in town the entire time we've been here. There was also Team FIB BBQ (sat behind him in Earth Science); Music Matters School of Music (had band with him--they sponsored the stage performers); and then Bernie's Bully Dogs (run by a former teacher--never had a class with him, but my friend Judy had a crush on him...if she were alive, I wonder what she'd think of that?). But that's also the nice thing about my town; people stayed and helped invest in it. River City Church was there with bounce houses, and they had these shirts that read "We Love Our Town" that they were wearing and selling; we saw a lot of them last night.
Mom got herself a fish taco, some street corn, and maybe something else (maybe she only bought four tickets); all I know is that she had two tickets left and gave me one for pie. They did the pie bake-off again, and between the dancers and Dick Diamond and the Dusters, she and I walked over for slices. I was the only one of us who'd noticed the pie tent to the right of where we'd come in, hidden by some trees. Thankfully this year we didn't have to go back three times for a slice! I saw one and went, that looks like baklava; it ended up being Nutella baklava pie. Sold! Yep, it had a fillo crust, honey, and the filling was Nutella and nuts. I liked it, as did a particular bee, who kept landing on my pie! Get your own! :P At the end, I think I was going to wipe my hands off but the bee happened to fly past my palm and I inadvertently grabbed it briefly. Luckily I didn't get stung, but I'm not in the habit of grabbing bees; that felt weird. Mom got something like a dark chocolate sea salt caramel pie. That was pretty good, too, but rich. The caramel was on the bottom and the chocolate reminded me of a thick ganache. I think I liked mine better since I'm not a huge chocolate person. Mom did, too, I think because mine was a little lighter, though still rich. Most of the time you eat baklava in smaller servings, so by the time we left, I wasn't feeling too hot, though I did eat oddly the whole day so it could have been anything, but I don't eat a lot of sugar anymore and that tends to make me rumbly in the tumbly when I suddenly OD on it. (I was out of milk, so I had the last of our frozen waffles for breakfast, and then for lunch I tried veggie White Castle sliders. Not bad, but they're green on the inside.)
We stuck around for the band, which was to start at 6 but didn't until between 6:15 and 6:30. A couple had been sitting on a bench by us but got up and offered it to us, so we were able to sit the whole time, which I liked. This was on the west side of the stage, so we couldn't see the front of the stage due to the thick decorative roof supports, but oh well. We could see Seamus the drummer and Walter the keyboardist, who is a beloved member of the band. His character is this geeky older guy, but he gets out there and sings and dances and he's a crowd favorite, and he appears to be a pretty good musician. Dad realized right away that this was a different Dick than the past couple years, and the band even called him out on it as part of their shtick--you get older and shorter with each passing year! Yep, dad said he wasn't as tall or slim as the previous guy, and he didn't do as much--nowhere near the same amount of banter, and only once did we see him go out in the audience and sing on a bench. He was going all over the place last year, visiting all the picnic tables, it seemed. Though this one did ride a bicycle around the crowd at one point. I wonder how new this guy is--he didn't seem like he did that much, and when he did, he was kind of pitchy. Since we were basically on the wings of the stage, I could see him at times going back to take a break, or dig through equipment for another set of monitor earplugs, something like that. Also, the female vocalist, Polly Esther, it seemed like she sang way more than she did in the past, like about half the songs. She's good, so that's fine (and no busted ankle this year!), but the past couple times we've seen them she's only had a few features and then sang backup much of the time. It was kind of odd, but stuff happens.
We stayed until about 8:30. I'm sure my parents could have left before then, but I was enjoying the music. It's pretty eclectic, from the '70s to recent music, and I knew nearly all of it and was singing along. The last 20-30 minutes, though, the pie or whatever was kicking in, so I finally relented and said, let's go. The good news is that the weather held off, and though it rained slightly when mom and I went to get the pie, it only lasted a couple minutes and that was it. Overall I'd say we had a good time and it was fun to hang with our town.
We didn't get there for a while. Sometimes we'll go right around 4, when it starts, but this year it was more like 4:30. That meant all the close parking was taken and we had to park up at the library. We were stunned to see nobody else parked there--both the upper and lower lots were completely empty. Wow. Even when we returned, just one other car was there. Maybe people walked; maybe we were party animals this year and just missed everyone. It did mean we were able to walk past a number of bulldogs this year. They'd brought back the Bulldogs on Parade that they'd done back in 2011, and I'd meant to walk around and check them out again, but it didn't happen and I imagine they'll be coming down soon. Oh well. My parents did take a few pictures of them but I left my camera in my purse.
As has been the case recently, the classic car show was on River Street, and we headed there first. The temporary parking lot on the river just north of the pedestrian bridge once again worked out really nicely for the show, and dad quickly spotted his buddy's orange car on display. We did walk around a little bit, but dad spent time talking to the guy, Jim, maybe? Mom and I were bummed to see that the Thai place just up the street did not have a table outside, plus they appeared to be closed. Mom said, but the sign says Open! I said, but the sign's not lit up. It will always say open. ...Oh. So no Thai food for us.
Back on the west side of the river, they've started cordoning off the Riverwalk area for festivals, which is both good and bad. They can keep any alcohol on the premises, but then of course there's just the one entrance and exit, and the food ticket booths are right off the pathway (though at least not directly by the gate this year), so that clogs the sidewalk. Dad wasn't hungry, and I wanted to see what was available before buying tickets. Mom didn't get that each ticket was worth $3; she thought they were $1 for some reason, and said, I'm going to buy $10 worth of tickets! If I can't use them all, will you help me out? Uh, sure mom, we'll help you spend your whole three tickets. Most things were one ticket, though some were two; it wouldn't have been hard to spend them. She ended up getting five tickets, I think. I happened to find one on the ground, so I got a steak taco at Fernando's Street Kitchen. His was one of the booths where I realized I'd gone to high school with him, where he was known as Freddy. I think I had my Foods & Nutrition class with him, which makes sense; his family has owned a restaurant in town the entire time we've been here. There was also Team FIB BBQ (sat behind him in Earth Science); Music Matters School of Music (had band with him--they sponsored the stage performers); and then Bernie's Bully Dogs (run by a former teacher--never had a class with him, but my friend Judy had a crush on him...if she were alive, I wonder what she'd think of that?). But that's also the nice thing about my town; people stayed and helped invest in it. River City Church was there with bounce houses, and they had these shirts that read "We Love Our Town" that they were wearing and selling; we saw a lot of them last night.
Mom got herself a fish taco, some street corn, and maybe something else (maybe she only bought four tickets); all I know is that she had two tickets left and gave me one for pie. They did the pie bake-off again, and between the dancers and Dick Diamond and the Dusters, she and I walked over for slices. I was the only one of us who'd noticed the pie tent to the right of where we'd come in, hidden by some trees. Thankfully this year we didn't have to go back three times for a slice! I saw one and went, that looks like baklava; it ended up being Nutella baklava pie. Sold! Yep, it had a fillo crust, honey, and the filling was Nutella and nuts. I liked it, as did a particular bee, who kept landing on my pie! Get your own! :P At the end, I think I was going to wipe my hands off but the bee happened to fly past my palm and I inadvertently grabbed it briefly. Luckily I didn't get stung, but I'm not in the habit of grabbing bees; that felt weird. Mom got something like a dark chocolate sea salt caramel pie. That was pretty good, too, but rich. The caramel was on the bottom and the chocolate reminded me of a thick ganache. I think I liked mine better since I'm not a huge chocolate person. Mom did, too, I think because mine was a little lighter, though still rich. Most of the time you eat baklava in smaller servings, so by the time we left, I wasn't feeling too hot, though I did eat oddly the whole day so it could have been anything, but I don't eat a lot of sugar anymore and that tends to make me rumbly in the tumbly when I suddenly OD on it. (I was out of milk, so I had the last of our frozen waffles for breakfast, and then for lunch I tried veggie White Castle sliders. Not bad, but they're green on the inside.)
We stuck around for the band, which was to start at 6 but didn't until between 6:15 and 6:30. A couple had been sitting on a bench by us but got up and offered it to us, so we were able to sit the whole time, which I liked. This was on the west side of the stage, so we couldn't see the front of the stage due to the thick decorative roof supports, but oh well. We could see Seamus the drummer and Walter the keyboardist, who is a beloved member of the band. His character is this geeky older guy, but he gets out there and sings and dances and he's a crowd favorite, and he appears to be a pretty good musician. Dad realized right away that this was a different Dick than the past couple years, and the band even called him out on it as part of their shtick--you get older and shorter with each passing year! Yep, dad said he wasn't as tall or slim as the previous guy, and he didn't do as much--nowhere near the same amount of banter, and only once did we see him go out in the audience and sing on a bench. He was going all over the place last year, visiting all the picnic tables, it seemed. Though this one did ride a bicycle around the crowd at one point. I wonder how new this guy is--he didn't seem like he did that much, and when he did, he was kind of pitchy. Since we were basically on the wings of the stage, I could see him at times going back to take a break, or dig through equipment for another set of monitor earplugs, something like that. Also, the female vocalist, Polly Esther, it seemed like she sang way more than she did in the past, like about half the songs. She's good, so that's fine (and no busted ankle this year!), but the past couple times we've seen them she's only had a few features and then sang backup much of the time. It was kind of odd, but stuff happens.
We stayed until about 8:30. I'm sure my parents could have left before then, but I was enjoying the music. It's pretty eclectic, from the '70s to recent music, and I knew nearly all of it and was singing along. The last 20-30 minutes, though, the pie or whatever was kicking in, so I finally relented and said, let's go. The good news is that the weather held off, and though it rained slightly when mom and I went to get the pie, it only lasted a couple minutes and that was it. Overall I'd say we had a good time and it was fun to hang with our town.