now that, my friends, is what we call a Gong Show

[kettunainen]

The plan was to head down to Cherry Beach for promise, a electronica event, running from 3-11 today. We went once last summer and had a fantastic time, so we thought we'd try it out again. The Smallest had a pair of toddler-sized, sound-muffling headphones borrowed from my friend. No need to worry about the bass killing his ear drums and giving him future speech problems. We put together a picnic dinner, got the picnic blanket, all our fun gear (hoop, poi, etc.), and set out.

We waited AN HOUR for the bus from Union Station to Cherry Beach. No explanation. Sunday service runs every half hour and that's what holiday service is supposed to mimic.

The new location is a 10-minute walk from the old location.

The new location is spot in the middle of a pasture area, which means native flora and fauna are getting trampled and terrorized with each step and each throb of bass.

We I saw two children. Last year, there were families everywhere.

There were no safe places to sit, as every single person around us, no matter where we went, was smoking.

There was blatant alcohol, despite a no alcohol policy.

We forged through the crowd feeling Very Out of Place, whereas last year, we felt like we'd found our long lost tribe.

We followed the crowd and left the path because we (meaning us and the group of people we happened to be walking near) were told that that's where the party was. We ended up trekking through a jungle, complete with gnarled, muddied roots to trip over and plants so high I could only see sky around me. I did not sign on for this.

Why is hip-hop following me around? From the time we arrived to the time we left (all of maybe 30 minutes), there was a female artist rapping (or whatever the hip-hop version thereof is called) the whole time. Great! That takes talent and she was good. But it's not my style of music and it's not what I came to listen to.

By this point, I've had to pee since we got on the subway.

We decide to set up the picnic blanket away from the music and smoke, only to discover, after we'd already begun eating, that we'd somehow managed to find ourselves directly over fire-ant central. Maybe they were just aggressive red ants -- no actual bites -- but I didn't want to find out for sure. The blanket was covered on both sides with red ants. Ugh.

We trek back to the beach to finish our dinner there. As we left, good music came on, but the cigarette/pot smoke kept me from wanting to go back.

N settled on the beach with the boy and I went to find the washroom. And there. was. no. toilet. paper. or soap. OMFG.

Came back to blanket after rinsing my pee-covered hand, only to nearly get clothes-lined by a falling kite.

Discovered the Smallest gleefully kicking sand all over the blanket, refusing to stop or to clean up after himself. Colour me seriously unimpressed. Sand in my food? Not what I needed right then.

We almost got hit with a volleyball 4 times and there was a frisbee that was in dangerously close proximity.

The moon was nice.

And soon after, we found a used needle (sans actual needle) in the sand.

Once we decided to leave, our day went incredibly smoothly. Too bad it was after 9pm at that point.

Am I just not supposed to experience electronica right now? Is that what this is? Someone, please tell me so that I can stop trying and save myself the agony of defeat.