Had a lazy weekend. I really only did a couple of things; yesterday I cleaned my apartment, read a lot of a book (a memoir called Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight), and went over to visit with A and T and get Chinese food delivered. We watched the first 20 minutes of the Emmys (Garry Shandling - not so funny. Jon Stewart - hilarious) and then the girls insisted we watch an episode of Sex and the City on DVD. I've only seen a couple of episodes, and this one was a really great one, dealing with Carrie attempting to be friends with Big, discovering he's engaged to his new young and bland girlfriend and accepting that she needs to find someone who will appreciate her complicatedness. Not that expensive-shoe-wearing makes her complicated, but the sentiment was good. Anyway, I completely missed seeing a friend onstage, when the writing team for the Daily Show won, for Best Comedy Writing for a Show that's Hard to Categorize. He's really my sister's friend, but I've spoken to him several times, so that counts...

[If you hate the "today I had a ham sandwich" entries, skip this next paragraph... In fact, you may want to skip my entire blog, Mr. Judge-y Pants.]
The other thing I did was go to the Big E, which ended up being the sun around which my entire weekend revolved; I had to prep for it beforehand, and I was completely wiped out after. I was to meet up with my sister, her husband, and her in-laws (including two bro-in-laws) around 1:00, so I spent the late morning getting the car gassed up, getting cash, eating breakfast, dropping the dog off... By the time I got on the road, I was all set to get there on time - if there was no traffic. But there was. A lot. I'd been to the fair twice on two other years and never, ever did I deal with traffic. I have no idea how; I guess I just got lucky. This year was horrible. Stop and go traffic on rte. 20 with no end in sight, so I took a chance and slipped off onto a residential street, eventually making my way close to the Big E. In previous years I just parked on someone's lawn for $5. This year I wound all around the side streets and everyone's little lawn lots were either full, or $15. Fuck no, I said, and kept driving. I managed to get on a main artery by accident, and spent a good half an hour going about a third of a mile; hopeful locals on this road were asking $15 or $20 for their remaining spots, with signs that were clearly taped over from when they once said $5 or $10. Fuck no, I said, and kept driving more. Eventually I got free and circled around once more, seeing that the high school lot I rejected because it was too far away (though only $5) was now full. That broke my spirit. I found a close-ish lawn with space available for $10 and just sucked it up. By the time I got to the meeting point I was an hour late. Thank god for cell phones.

Anyway. As for the fair itself, well, it was going to be hard to feel it was worth the $22 I'd paid just to get in. I was also working with someone else's itinerary, namely that of my sister's in-laws. Once we all found each other, all the parents wanted to do was visit the various buildings.

The State buildings are always kind of cool. Highlights: The lobster rolls in Maine (much better than the cheaper ones in Massachusetts); free samples of maple sugar cotton candy in Vermont; and the Flatbread people in Vermont, who were friendly and cheerful though they were using a big fire-burning oven and it was wicked hot in there. Also, the much-hyped (by the in-laws) clam fritters (in Rhode Island, maybe?) were completely clam-free as far as I could tell, though give me a little deep-fried doughy puff and I'm gonna love it no matter what. They also sold old-fashioned coffee-flavored syrup and fritter batter whose package design hasn't changed for 60 years.

But then, instead of wandering through the midway, or seeing the farm and animal stuff, the in-laws wanted to go to the other buildings, which are big-ass open spaces divided into flea-market-type rows of booths and cubicles. Some of the booths sell handmade jewelry and crafts, but an alarming number hold what are essentially live infomercials, with a patter-spewing pitchman or woman selling convertible ladders, plastic blocks, pressure cookers (at least ten different locations selling those! Weird), chamois car cloths, blenders, and finger-grating mandolines. And then you'd stumble across a lemonade stand or a fried dough booth, looking totally out of place indoors. My sister and I were very tired by the middle of it all, and we kept stopping and sitting on the greasy concrete to rest our legs.

But then it was parade time, and the inlaws had said they really wanted to see it. So sister and I went and stood close to the route. Several marching bands passed by, all in band-stasis, holding their instruments straight out in front of them but not playing them, while the drums pounded out a marching beat. There were the usual slow-moving antique cars - does anyone think these belong in a parade, ever? I mean, unless it's an antique car parade? - though it was very funny to see a modern Comcast Cable van in the middle of them. Wow, I never see those around anymore! Then there were a bunch of 4-H kids, and then Smokey the Bear, whose pants were falling down and would have shown bear-ass-crack had he not been so hairy. And then a huge white RV came by, with Ronald McDonald standing on the top, waving an American flag. Uh, whatever. Then, finally, came the much-hyped Mardi Gras floats. We waved our hands frantically and aggressively but ended up beadless. I had said I would flash my boobs, but the bead-throwers were mostly preteen girls so I abstained. The six floats passed and that was it. We turned around and saw that the in-laws had remained at a picnic table a good 50 feet away the entire time. If they wanted to see the parade, why didn't they get all up in there like we did?

After that everyone disbanded, going their separate ways home. I was going to hang out by myself for a bit, taking photos of stuff at the midway, but then A called telling me to come home and get the dog immediately. So I had to leave. Frustrating. And then on the way out I got caught in another traffic flow which detoured all of the exiting fair traffic so far south that I ended up in Agawam! I was furious, stressing about picking up the dog on time, composing angry letters to the Big E traffic cops in my head.

Conclusion: It was very nice to see my sister once again, and would have been fun if had been us "kids" without the adults, especially since my sister had never been to the Big E before. But I will never ever go on a sunny Saturday again. It was crowded and expensive and generally unpleasant. We only ended up seeing about a third of the fair.

I did get some nice french fries, though.