Saturday, October 4, 2008

Of Hand-me-downs, Carrots, and Experimental Ukulele

It's funny how a day can get away from you, full of stuff, nothing planned.

The last wee carrot harvest, all of which were later consumed by Sydney, dirt and all:A big bag of hand-me-downs from Will's best girlfriend, all requiring extensive patching and repair in the little model's fabric of choice, pink satin stars:
One of the beautiful things about little kiddos, by the way, is the way they look at things. You'd think that Willow wouldn't want to wear her best friend's cast-off clothing--that she'd be ashamed of wearing hand-me-downs, or be afraid she'd be teased at school. Nope--Willow is THRILLED to dress like her best friend in her best friend's VERY OWN CLOTHES!!!!! Too bad said best friend has a habit of walking around on hands and knees to play "doggie."

We were supposed to get the fall yardwork done today--putting in the lasagna garden beds, moving shrubs, sowing grass seed, etc. But instead we biked over to Lotus in the Park.

Lotus Fest is our own nationally-renowned world music and arts festival, with prestigious international acts performing on multiple stages both weekend nights. Willow and I were able to go together last year--my favorite act is perennially the Tuvan throat singing, but Willow perked right up at 11:00 pm for March Fourth, an urban marching band with goth costuming, fire-breathing, and stilt-walkers who'll swing by during every number to high-five a tiny little girl bopping along up on her mother's shoulders--but we just couldn't afford to all go as a family this year, so I played the martyr and refused Matt's offer that I go alone, and then I sulked.

Thank god, then, for Lotus in the Park, a day-long, family-friendly, FREE event during which many of the visiting artists perform at an outdoor park. By the way, experimental ukulele? AWESOME!!!Of course, the monkey spent most of the time here: Oh, and of course there was art! See? Masks!
We seriously do have to get back on task tomorrow. The lasagna gardens have to be set, and Matt has a softball game, and I have to choose a semiotically rich scene from the atrocious 1976 remake of King Kong for my students to analyze in class on Monday, and the house is seriously pig-filthy, and I'm almost done making Willow some headbands and would be done if I didn't have to also make identical ones for little sister and best girlfriend, and we've picked out the "Halloween tree" and just need a pot of gravel to stick it in and some ornaments to put on it...

It's funny how a day can get away from you..

4 comments:

Kimberly said...

Did you all get anything good at the red cross book sale?! I was totally intimidated to walk up to you and your family...It felt very stalker-esque!

I look forward to the booksale all year. It's one of the best things in Bloomington :-)

julie said...

You goof! Hmm...did you see me carrying a screaming Willow out of the sale because she couldn't find a book "with animals, and they're all with a bunch of Band-aids," or see Matt sticking a Chinese cookbook behind a shelf to come back and rescue on free day?

Not that any of that actually happened, of course (ahem).

I know--the Red Cross book sale free day, the Monroe County Public Library book sale free day, and the Monroe County History Center garage sale free day are totally the highlights of my year!

Kimberly said...

LOL! No! The girls were sitting quietly on the floor in the kids area with Matt. They were far and away the most behaved children we encountered the entire time we were there!

julie said...

Wait until free day tomorrow morning, at the crack of nine--the girls are bringing their own child-sized, real metal shopping cart! I am already torn...should I supervise them in the children's area and let the craft table get picked over, or insist on going through the craft table first and let the children's area get picked over?

Decisions, decisions.