Simple Little

I'm not overly complicated. The only place that I really get complicated and exactly organized (other than school, and even then that's sometimes a fail of epic proportions for all good intents and purposes) is work when I have anywhere from twenty to twenty-four people to look after and serve four courses to. Then it requires timing and, for lack of a better phrase, having all your shit together. Other than that I'm fairly simple. My favorite cookies are chocolate chip or sugar cookies - though there is, of course, a soft spot in my heart for my sister's Monster Cookies - and I'd rather spend a quiet night at the house than out on the town. Which doesn't mean that I don't get out. When I do, it's the little things. Well, okay, they might not seem like little things, but they're not what I would consider big and grand.

Big and grand is going abroad. Simple and little is going to the State Fair with the family.

And yeah, it's as easy as that for me.

After sitting in the car for about two hours and completely ignoring the end of the printed directions - because Mama knew sortakinda where she was going, though it had been a good twelve years since we'd been there last - we made it to the Fairgrounds in Syracuse. And started off the day wandering through the ox barn. Then on into the Youth Building. I didn't make it down to our county's display, but that was okay, because there were baby chicks at the one end of the building. They're such fluffballs. All cute and yellow and little. Mads wouldn't hold one because she didn't like the way their feet felt, but Mama held it and she petted it. It was soft, like "Morephy."

Have I mentioned lately that I love that three foot tall three-year-old?

Then it was wandering through the sheep barn. If I found one named Russell I think I might have laughed hysterically right then and there. There was one named Molly - and she looked exactly like a sheep looks - and some of them weren't overly happy. Somewhere in there we took a detour through the beef cows - who were bellowing worse than the sheep - and baby pigs are so cute. Baby goats, on the other hand...well, I'm not overly fond of goats.

Grandma E and Willis used to have a goat. Nasty thing, mean spirited and it hated me. It would come close enough to let me touch it, wait until I had my hand on the rope it was tied to, and then run in the opposite direction. Gave me the most wonderful rope burns on the palms of my hands when I was, like, seven. Needless to say I was not overly sad when the damn thing died.

Anyway. At noon we watched this fabulous thing called "Dueling Pirates". High-diving pirates. Yes, please. They were a little crazy, and that's okay. You kind of have to be to jump from seventy feet into nine feet of water. After some lunch it was on to the almost one mile trek to the middle of nowhere in the fairgrounds to get to the Hollywood Circus because you could feed a giraffe. I'm not joking. It was a legit giraffe and it could bend over the railing of its enclosure and come about head level and eat carrots from your hand. It was one of the most amazing things that I've done, being that up close and personal with a giraffe. A giraffe, I should remind you, that doesn't know the difference between carrots and fingers. Don't worry, I still have all ten of mine. And so does Mads.

By then it was getting into the afternoon, and it was a scorcher (don't ask how many ounces of water I'd drank because the answer would probably scare you) and we went back into the dairy building to have ice cream. Yes, they have an entire building devoted to dairy, including the butter sculpture. Which is an entire sculpture made of butter. Which is really cool when you think about it, pun not intended.

Mads was tuckered out by then with all that she'd done since arriving at the fair, and Mama wanted to take in the Beatles tribute concert so we were going to stick around. And we went and caught up with the rest of the family, catching the tail end of the Sea Lions show (which was free) and then moving onto the Wild Animal show. That was pretty cool. Monkeys are more spastic than you would probably believe.

I took a break then and indulged in some carnival rides. You know the thing with the swings? You sit in the swing and then it takes you up and starts spinning around? I love those. The swings are still my favorite playground apparatus, and to sit on one of these things, it's really cool. Only, the one that I rode at Darien Lake on Senior Day in high school wasn't quite this high or this fast but it was cool. Felt a bit like flying. I decided to wait a bit after that for the Ferris Wheel, because that's one of those things you want to do toward twilight.

Mama, Aunt N, and Uncle K staked out seats at the Beatles tribute concert and I went back through the midway to the Ferris Wheel. And standing on the ground and looking up...suddenly, this seemed like it might not be the greatest idea that I've ever had. Dad likes Ferris Wheels, though. When we could come to the Fair when I was little, he'd go on the Ferris Wheel. Not the little one, either. He'd go on the big one. So it was one of those instances of okay, go big or go home.

So I went big. You only live once. And the view was awesome.

And that Beatles tribute concert? If you had never heard the Beatles actually sing, you'd think you were watching them. It was quite lovely.

It was well worth the insane amount of walking I did, as well as the sunburn, backpack strap tan lines, and I did I mention that we brought fudge home? Any day that ends with fudge is always a good day.