The Golden Ticket

Papa and Bam are here, and we went off to the State Fair yesterday. for the first time, we went EARLY in the day - 8am out the door, 8:30 arrival. We had breakfast, and got into the miracle of birth barn right away (and yes, it was amazingly crowded even at 9am - we just loooove the baby animals, I guess.) Since you never know when a cow will start calving, they have greatest hits playing on huge 42" monitors hanging from the ceiling, so you had people clustered watching the miracle of birth, while it was actually quite easy to cozy up and visit with the miracles themselves (the newborn calves).

After the barn, we went to see the animals. In previous years, we'd hit these barns around 6pm. Seeing it at 9am is much different. For example: In the poultry barn, the roosters were all CROWING non-stop. It was a glorious cacophony. I halfway want a few roosters in the house just for the sound. One of my favorites was an ENORMOUS rooster, who crowed with a lusty, throaty warble, not unlike Fat Albert or Louie Armstrong. I got a little video of it.

The rest was standard State Fair story - lots of food consumed, Bella ate TWO corn dogs, was a bit relaxed in her stroller for the day, wasn't into the rides too much (just 4 rides, thanks), and dozed off near the end. We were home by 4:30, and many of us napped, while Papa and Bella did a project - making a cardboard house for small ceramic figurines.

A highlight for me at the fair was watching the nerdy teens cutting rugs on the Dance Dance revolution machines - there is a variant which was very scary - not just front, back, right, left, but a middle square, AND a whole second board you need to dance across to. 10 different dance pads to fast fast techno music.

I was pleased to note that the song that Bailey and Tyler were hooked on when they were up here (Roll over Beethoven) was selected quite frequently by the superdancers. So that's that cool song. (I'll also comment that Bella STILL dances like a maniac any time we put on that Butterly song from DDR... she gave us quite a show today).

In the evening, Bella went to a B-Day party and had a blast. I went out to meet a friend of a neighbor's who is in town from Finland and wants to know about the IT Job Market in town to see if he wants to move back. We hit it off well, chatting for a good half hour beyond when the neighbor had to leave. We may keep in touch!

Today, I went off to my AM weights workout (I had ramped down in the past weeks - once a week for 2 weeks, then a 10 day break - I'm right back to square one really). But it was very fun, and they asked if I had time this afternoon to come back for a practice session....

My little workout place is starting something called Body Jam, which is just dancing based, with some jazz moves, some hip hop style (yes, there is "crumping" as well as something called "chicken wings"), and lots of wiggling of hips. For 90 minutes, it was non-stop dancing (usually it's 60, but we had 30 min of learning basic steps). I LOVED IT. It's going to be in regular workout rotation in 3 weeks, and I can hardly stand it the waiting. I felt very uncoordinated and TRES BLANC, but mark my words, I will be a funky creature by the end of this!

I felt very happy to have been invited to the preview, and i really felt like I had won a golden ticket (see: Willy Wonka).

Tonight we're off to dinner out, and then a relaxing evening in (I'll probably work on my secret project a little).