Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Dutchess County Fair

It's Fair week again! Yay!!

One of my friends has gone to it every year since he moved
to the area, almost forty years ago. It's a total obsession
with many people - the turkey sandwiches, the cows and
sheep, the bunny pavilion, the poultry building, the old farm
implements, the petting zoo, the funnel cakes, etc., etc.

The Dutchess County Fair does in fact have a reputation as
one of the best county fairs in the country. It's superb if you
like these kinds of things. My kids and their kids come to
the Fair every year even though sometimes Johnny forgets
to buy them blue ribbons (heh).

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Friday, August 24, 2007
Sparse posting
Dutchess County Fair weekend. Many visiting family and friends. Computer readjustments, housework, food buying, socializing, entertaining, waiting for things and people, etc., etc. Hardly any time to get near the computer, let alone wax rhapsodic or attempt anything like perceptive remarks. Back Sunday evening. Have a terrific weekend and try not to miss me too too much.

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Sunday, August 19, 2007
Sunday schmunday
One of those errands and putzing Sundays that are restful because they're different from the usual everyday day but aren't relaxing because there's too much to do. Actually, that's not fair. My life is pretty darn easy, rarely in an uproar, and I shouldn't sound as if I'm complaining. I have other neatenings and things to do now, though, so 'ta ta' and hope your day is pleasant and uneventful except in ways you wish it to be.

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Sunday, May 6, 2007
Home made simple
I don't know if it's a new show or if I've just not been paying close attention, but Home Made Simple is very cool. It's got loads of faily simple things one can do to accomplish clear goals in one's home. (I say "fairly" simple because so many of the terrific home improvement shows have plenty of oh-so-simple ideas that are indeed totally simple as long as one has the dozens of preparers and off-screen assistants that they have. And inexpensive enough, if you get wholesale prices and have special stores to go to.) I'm one of those people who thinks I know tons already but I learned a few useful (and simple!) things today. Of course, now I'm hungry because of the mac 'n' cheese they made, but you've got to take the good with the bad.

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Tuesday, December 5, 2006
survey : what do you knit by?
Diane (whose blog is listed as Fall of the Empire but which I cannot find and hope she will enlighten me blogs are Diane's Stuff and Dead Guy on the Sidebar, both delightful places to visit) commented at my post about The Swimming Pool that she watches Court TV when knitting. Which made me think to ask what other people like to watch when they're knitting - or do you prefer knitting in silence and/or with music? I'll update it as people tell me their choices:
music, radio, movies (British comedies, British films, French films (no languages where I absolutely have to read subtitles, though), anything with a decent story line but not tooooo absorbing), current TV shows (e.g., The Unit, Criminal Minds, Numbers, NCIS, Shark, reruns of Becker and Sex in the City), Court TV, . . .

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Sunday, November 26, 2006
the season has begun speeding
There was a nice craft fair two weeks ago and another one this weekend, capping the jollity of the last four days. About thirty years ago, we went to the first of this one at the local community college, and it was wonderful. In fact I still have the duck push-toy that we bought there, slightly abstract body with heavy floppy leather webbed feet that go slap! slap! when you roll it along, and a cute painted face. Over the years, it's been pushed and giggled at and talked to by my and my best friend's four children as well as by all but the newest of their six children. How cool is that? It's good to have lived long enough to observe the threads and some strange qualities of life in the creating and existence of handmade artistry. And on a crasser level, I must say it's good to have bought some nice presents for some of the people on my list.

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Tuesday, October 31, 2006
happy pumpkin day!


Click here for some wonderfully eerie music and click here to carve a pumpkin online, amazingly enough.

For the carving-pumpkin side, thanks to Kitty Litter (who is back to posting, happily for us!) and for the lovely kitty amid pumpkins, thanks to chezmaya.com.

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Sunday, September 17, 2006
celtic celebrations
Mills Mansion in Staatsburg, NY has an annual Celtic Fair which we went to today. It was sunny and hot (!!), a gorgeous day though I wish they had some tents to retreat under for occasional relief. The food was, as always, delicious (fish & chips tops the list), the bagpipe music rousing, the border collie herding demonstrations fabulous, the sheep shearing fascinating, the dancing performances terrific, the many wonderful dogs who come out every year charming and fun to see. New great t-shirt slogan is "Bagpipers put the fun in funerals" although "Real men wear kilts" is good, too. Seriously, hardly anything is lovely as bagpipes playing Amazing Grace or God Bless America. All four bagpipe bands played several numbers during the closing ceremony, ending with both of those. I sat on the grass with one of t2cgitw and she swayed and sang, smiling, through it all. As each band took its leave up the hill, she waved and said "bye bye band, see you next year". Indeed.

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Friday, September 15, 2006
photos speed
I found three undeveloped one-time cameras in a drawer last weekend. (Does everyone have those drawers where you throw stuff? The trick is to remember to look in it now and then, right?) I got them developed and found some lovely pictures - some from my wonderful trip to San Francisco in September and October of 2004 (hard to believe it was so long ago) and from visits to t2cgitw at various times. I thought I had those pictures and (now) I do!

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Thursday, August 24, 2006
a feast of family fun
One of T2CGITW is coming to visit today and staying until Sunday. Yeah!!. Tomorrow we all go to the 161st Dutchess County Fair (don't miss it if you're anywhere near - it's always grand). Saturday we're traipsing off to the birthday party of the other of T2CGITW. I'm making two cakes, one a watermelon look-alike and the other a swimming pool! I'll post photos when they're done. I did a test of the watermelon one, a couple of weeks ago, and it was very cute - and tasty, according to everyone who taste-tested. I am very lucky to get to spend two entire days with both girls and another half day on either side with the elder. I'm so excited! Also here all weekend will be my friend of over three decades (eek) and one of her daughters and that daughter's two children. A veritable feast of family and extended family.

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Sunday, August 6, 2006
intolerance?
Went to a county fair yesterday. I love them - fresh air, cheery faces, turkey sandwiches, funnel cakes and fried oreos (oh they're so good), local crafts and business displays, local government officials, food contests, animal games and contests, etc., etc. I avoid the rides like the plague ever since a ride I took many years ago at the Palisades Amusement Park in which you stood, strapped in, and rotated left-right and around; I get queasy just watching most of the rides.

Yesterday's fair was in an upstate town known for its ultra-liberal character, a place where people and behaviors of all colors, types and sexual persuasions are welcome and encouraged to visit and live. Thus it was bemusing that simply getting into the fair was highly regulated and regimented. First, there were no instructive signs but when you got to the entrance, all set to pay and have fun, you were sent back across the highway (i.e., the side where you just parked and walked from), to pay admission (twice last year's) and be handed an i.d. band. Then you crossed the highway back to the fair - but you'd better cross precisely between the painted lines because guards with dayglo shirts yelled at you if you so much as stepped near the lines, let alone on or outside the lines. Then you got to the entrance and someone said, "put your wristband on!" but if you started to put it anywhere other than your wrist, you were told you wouldn't be allowed in. Wrist or nothing, no belt loops, no purse handles. I mean, come on, how many people do you suppose would rip their belt loops or take their pants off to pass wristbands out so someone could sneak in? The fair wasn't great but I'm not sure if there really were fewer interesting exhibits or we were just worn out from getting in. On the other hand, it was interesting to experience inflexibility and ridigity from folks who always assert and demand tolerance from the rest of us.

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Sunday, April 30, 2006
altered books
Altered Books is an exhibition and project at the Portland Library in Maine. Its proposition is that many books are no longer being borrowed for all kinds of reasons (subject for a different discussion), and that alternate [sic] treatments may make them intriguing and appealing all over again. My personal favorite is Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass remade into Fields of Greens (see photo). It may at first seem like desecration but library copies are used, not the only extant copy, and the literally recycled project is fittingly relevant to the book itself. How apt it would be to make Sophie Kinsella's Shopoholic books into bright colorful bracelets like this one of a Maggie Dunn book. Anyway, the idea behind the exhibition is best expressed by its curator and artist, Doug Beube: "The book, threatened as it has been in this century by radio, television, film and the Internet, seems determined to survive as a staple of human expression, communication and knowledge." If you go to the Portland Library's search-by-subject page (here) and type "altered books" as the subject, you can page through all 177 altered books, some of which could be borrowed anywhere in the country through inter-library loan.

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Friday, July 29, 2005
Dutchess County Fair
Here's a plug for a delightful end-of-August event, the Dutchess County Fair from Tuesday through Sunday, August 23-28. There's over 1600 animals (goats, sheep, hogs, cows, horses, chickens, cattle and rabbits all being judged), 300 vendors, lots of food (my faves are turkey sandwiches and powdered dough), horse and pig shows, amusement park rides, outdoor music, and tractors of all shapes and kinds. There's even the 3rd Annual Hudson Valley Idol Contest. Come one, come all!

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Friday, June 10, 2005
Zoos
The Paris zoo, known as 'Zoo de Vincennes' is in the 12th arrondisement near the Bois de Vincennes. Whatever else may be true of the French, an amazing two hundred and twelve years ago they opened the first public zoo and I, for one, am eternally grateful. In the last few years I have visited zoos in Edinburgh, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo Ueno, Paris, New York, Washington DC, Buffalo, Boston and San Francisco (in no particular order). These are all wonderful places to share time and space with spectactular creatures. In Paris, they have 1200 animals (600 birds of 82 species and 535 mammals of 85 species, including a giant panda). The other zoos I've visited have equally impressive numbers. Some are known for special moments like San Francisco's penguins and big cat feedings, and the National (Washington DC)'s pandas. Some are known for research or saving a particular species or developing techniques around one or another species. They are all beautiful and fun.

P.S. I've linked to each zoo's website on the city names above. Check them all out since the websites are absolutely delightful. And if you have time only to visit one, you must go to the Edinburgh Zoo front page to see the walking elephant!

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Thursday, March 24, 2005
National Gallery of Art
Today is the anniversary of the 1937 establishment of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC on the National Mall between Third and Seventh Streets at Constitution Avenue, NW. It's truly a wonderful fabulous fantastic not-to-be-missed refreshing place for the mind, soul and eyes. Its online display is superb, too, so go visit today, here! And don't miss its physical and/or virtual store either.

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Monday, February 21, 2005
Presidents' Day
Kenneth C. Davis's "don't know much about" books and quizzes are fun and informative. His "Don't Know Much About the Presidents" provides factual tidbits, some trivia and lots of humanizing facts about the 43 people who have led our country since 1796. Whatever one's feelings and ideological stand, it's good to pause for a few moments every year to honor those who have steered our ship of state. And to thank them.

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Thursday, January 27, 2005
Don't miss this
Michelle Malkin pointed out an online exhibit at the Library of Congress website that is absolutely a must-see. It's called the September 11, 2001, Documentary Project and is organized by the American Folklife Center which called upon the nation’s folklorists and ethnographers to collect, record, and document America’s reaction to the events of 9/11/01. The description of the collection says that it "captures the voices of a diverse ethnic, socioeconomic, and political cross-section of America during trying times and serves as a historical and cultural resource for future generations." Especially be sure to see the gallery of drawings by 14 Knoxville, Tennessee third-graders.

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