kitty litter, new friends, apple "chips", and Saving Jane

I went to a community festival over the weekend - one of those smallish town kinda things. The day I went was after several days of the festival being rained out, so the ground was saturated. The parks department used an absorbant material to help with the water and mud - kitty litter. Unfortunatly, there's only so much that kitty litter can do - and after a while, even that got saturated and started to smell. I thought it smelled like rotten grain, and it was decided that was better that what other people thought it smelled like.

The area in front of the stage was filling up fast, so I staked out some turf in the beer area at a picnic table. I had my bottle of soda and a book with me and was settled in for the concert about 40 mintues before it started. Unfortuntaly, I made a new friend. A guy staggered over and asked what time it was. I told him, and he then sat down. Which is fine, I was more than happy to share the picnic table. He then, however, proceeded to tell me is life story. I tried to toss a couple comments out there and then go back to my book, but he kept going on. So, I put my book away and tried to listen. Why? Because people that are really drunk tend to be more than a little crazy. And Anthony's rule #1 - Don't F#@% with crazy people. I didn't want to talk to him, but I also didn't want to end up on his bad side.

Eventually, I chugged the rest of my soda, told him the time, and left with an excuse to get something to drink. When I eventually came back around to that area, I saw that he'd trapped a couple more people and manged to avoid him.

During the rounds through the carnival area while looking for some bottled water, I saw a sign for Carmel Apple Chips - which sounded pretty good to me. Now, I was thinking that this would be dried apple with some kind of carmel coating or a dipping cup of caramel. Not the case. In this instance, Apple Chips refered to Apple Slices in a small bowl filled with caramel, whipped cream, and a cherry. Totally not what I expected. It was difficult to eat since you couldn't really scoop up enough caramel to make it worthwhile. So, I just ate the apples and found some bottled water.

Finally, back at the beer tent area - I staked out a claim on some standing room and waited. I did a little folding - 'cause that's what I do - and gave away my creations to a toddler, much to the surprise and amusement of her parents.

The concert started and Saving Jane rocked. The sound could have been a little better, but it was still good. The crowd, however, didn't really get it. I was pretty much the only person jumping around and shouting, like you're supposed to do at a rock concert. Even the people who seemed interested, taking photos and the like, weren't even tapping their feet. I think the crowd was mostly people who were at the festival and noticed - "hey, look, I think there's going to be music, let's get the stroller and some chairs and go on over".

Chairs? At a rock concert? You see what I'm working with here, don't you? Anyway, the band was cool and one of my friends got to hang with them after the show, so that was cool too.

So, my shoes are still a mess, my calves hurt from jumping around, and I'm tired from not nearly enough sleep over the weekend, but I still had fun.

And now, back to work...