Rag Files Of A Fashion Diva

Sunday, August 14, 2005

A day at the fair

Exercise: Cleaning house

Friday I left work at noon. I went and got the grocery shopping for the week out of the way then came home to do some more car buying research. I had talked to TBB and she told me she had been out looking for a replacement car. She told me that she thought she may have found her new car but she was going to look some other places too. I told her that I was going to call my mom to see if her, my dad, and nephews (Chi doesn't like to go) were going to go to the fair on Saturday but if they weren't we should get together and go car shopping because I've got to start test driving. As it turned out, my family had decided to go so test driving has now been left to another day.

Saturday morning I got up early and got ready to meet my family at the Capitol to catch the state fair shuttle. The guy driving the bus was dressed up like a clown and I made some comment to my mom about there being a real clown driving the bus. LOL Oh boy was he a real wise cracker. He gabbed on the intercom pretty much all the way there but at least he was funny. He even had everyone on the bus singing Happy Birthday to the guy whose birthday it was. LOL

Once we arrived, we started off with the tourism building which I can't say I was overly interested in. I don't really have much interest in touring my own state boring as I find it. From there, we made our way over to the Varied Industries building. We only walked about one aisle because my mom wanted me to meet the mom of the kids she is a nanny for who was working at the public tv booth and she was only going to be there for a little while. It just so happened, however, that the Lotto booth was in the aisle we went down so of course my dad and I made a stop. He bought one of those electronic games, a Powerball ticket, and "won" a t-shirt with his purchase. Knowing the odds for a big win wouldn't be that great for the electronic game, I opted for a Powerball ticket and $2 worth of pull tabs (4 $.25 ones and 2 for $.50/each). As it turned out, I made the right choice. I won $3.50 on the pull tabs meaning I made back the money I spent on the tickets plus the shuttle fare. I also got a key chain prize because I got a pull ticket with a dot on it. :) I told my dad if he won $500 on his ticket he was in big trouble though. LOL

When we got done there, it was off to find the younger of the two nephews a turkey leg. When we walked up to the stand, I saw another item on the menu was turkey nuggets. Oh boy did I have a heyday with that and of course the rest of the gang being who they are knew just where I was taking that one - straight to the toilet of course. LOL Once we got the turkey leg (which even though I like to eat turkey, you couldn't have paid me enough money to eat one of those nasty lookin things), the rest of us went to find some lunch. We ended up going to some family owned buffet stand. I only got french fries because I wasn't that hungry but at least they were good ones. :) My dad played his lottery game when we were having lunch and he only made back $7 of the $20 he paid for it. Yup, it would seem I did make a good choice not getting one. LOL

When lunch was done, the eldest nephew and my dad wanted to go up to Pioneer Hall to look at coins (they are collector freaks). The younger nephew didn't want to walk the big hill to go up there and said he wanted to take the skyride. I said I would go too since I don't think he really wanted to go by himself. My other nephew decided that he would go too. Normally I wouldn't ride the thing because it costs $3 but I figured what the heck. It was a one time thing and it was nice to be able to spend some extra time with the youngins. I ended up riding with the older one and the whole time we were cracking jokes about the different things we saw and yelling back and forth to the younger one who was riding in the seat ahead of us. They are both such crack ups.

After we got done at PH, we stopped at the bathroom before going down to this place that sells those huge ass pickles (the older nephew wanted one). I only mention this stop because of the humorous moment that arose from it. When we came out, my mom said something about heading down to "pickle town" and my dad said he just came from there which totally cracked my mom up. My nephews and I didn't quite get the joke. I guess when my brother was little and would poop, he would say he did pickles. LOL

Once J (the older nephew) got his pickle, we went back to the VI building to finish looking at the booths we didn't see the first time we went in. Most of it was the same old same old that was there. The one thing that really caught my eye was the Saturn exhibit. They had their new Sky roadster on display. Let me just say that pictures just don't do this car justice. Although it was said the base model would be under $25000, it doesn't have the look of something that cheap. The drawbacks - it is now set for release of early 2006 (I was thinking I read before that it was supposed to be out this year), it's only a 2 seater, and it's a convertible - nice in some cases but they can also be bad news for several reasons (i.e. more mechanical parts that can break, not as safe, etc). Even so, after having another look at the Cobalt which was sitting out at the Chevy tent, that one is slowly slipping from my top pick. I really like the design of it on the outside and it does rate well in crash tests but the inside just looks so cheap. I mean my ex-boyfriend had a '92 Cavalier and let's just say the dash design hasn't changed much in nearly 15 years time.

So after we got done in the VI building, we were talking about leaving but J wanted to go back up the hill to see something at the cultural center. My dad decided to stay behind and look at the machinery while my mom, my two nephews and I went up there. On our way up, we walked through the "Fun Forest" and there was this Flush The Joker game. It consisted of a guy who sat under a toilet and people threw rolls of plastic wrapped toilet paper at this thing in attempts to knock it off and let the water from the toilet rain down on the guy sitting underneath. We stood and watched for a few minutes and then told A (the younger nephew) he should do it. He's a baseball player (pitcher I believe) and a damn good one at that so we knew if anyone could Flush The Joker (and let me just say the guy who was the joker was rather fine looking - slurp LOL), it would be him. He finally gave in to trying it and paid the two bucks to do so. Wouldn't you know....first try he hit it and everyone cheered! Once we finished there, we went on up to the building we were headed for. As it turned out, the exhibit that was there wasn't what my nephew thought it was so we left and went back down to meet my dad and make a couple of pit stops on the way (A wanted corn on the cob and a funnel cake. I wanted to make a traditional Salt Water Taffy purchase). At least we went back the way we came so I got to see Mr. Slurp Slurp again. LOL

You know, the theme of the fair this year is "America's Favorite Fair" and it is said that ours is the best in the country but I'm still trying to figure out why. I mean I go every year mainly out of tradition but I just don't find the same "excitement" in it that I used to when I was little.

After we got back to the Capitol, my mom asked if I was coming back to their house to visit. I originally hadn't intended to but decided to anyway. We got back there about 4pm and I ended up staying until about 9 or so stopping on my way home to wash my car. It had rained a little off and on yesterday and it was enough to make their gravel road kinda muddy which in turn jumped up on my car when I drove the 10th of a mile to the driveway.

Well, that was my day yesterday. Today was pretty dull. I spent most of my time cleaning the house, having an allergy attack and trying to sleep off a headache which was a result of the attack. Unfortunately, the headache never went away so I think I will be off to bed in the hopes that another rest will finally take care of it.

Till next time....

Knocked Off By The Fashion Diva
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