Free Your Glee

Yesterday evening I drove with some family friends to meet my brother Michael in Bellevue where he works. Michael and I, plus our two friends, plus his coworker, piled into the car and headed down to "Do the Puyallup" (or as my dad says, "Pu the Doyallup"). In case this is a foreign concept to you, the Puyallup (pronounced "pew-all-up") is an enormous state fair in basically the middle of nowhere. It has everything, from the requisite stomach-inverting rides and tiny barnyard animals to a "Godmobile"--the occupants of which will reveal, in just two questions, whether or not you're going to Heaven. Yeah. That happened.

We arrived at the fairgrounds around 7pm, said a quick hello to my parents who were both working--my dad does lighting for the concerts and my mom was nearing the end of her shift at the Artists in Action studio--and went immediately to the ticket line. It is imperative that I mention here that I am not a rides person. Aside from the addictive Log Ride at Bell's Amusement Park in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I have never been a rides person. I get enough of an anxiety rush walking down the street and seeing a discarded ball of black thread that bears an uncanny resemblance to a poisonous spider. I don't need to be thrown up into the air or shot down a wooden track in a tiny car with no windows or spun around until I can no longer mentally confirm the existence of my own organs to be sufficiently jolted.

So I did what I always do: take pictures. I moseyed around the fair for a couple hours while the sun set and night came on. I watched people, lamented the fact that I had missed Mutton Bustin', a hootenanny for the whole family during which small children who I would imagine do not weigh very much attempt to stay atop a galloping sheep (yes, sheep gallop). It's basically a rodeo for small people and their sheep. It's fantastic.

I know this one is totally blurry, but I had been stalking this poor sir for probably seven (which is also the speed limit in the parking garage of the building where my brother works) minutes and I needed urgent documentation. This man was strolling through the fair with who I assume was his wife, carrying this giant stuffed banana over his shoulder. For some reason he and his jacket and his banana (and don't think I don't know where your mind is going) intrigued me. I was so scared that I would forget how enthralled I was that I took out my creeper notepad and wrote--and I quote--"I can't lose Michigan Banana Man!" Actually, the exclamation point was not part of my note; I did not conclude the statement with any sort of punctuation, but the exclamation point conveys precisely my level of insistence that this stranger would not evade my memory. I think this makes me a journalist. Right? Right.

I feel that you need proof of the existence of such a...thing...so here you go, a little prezzie for you. When I passed this truck, the two people inside seemed to be engaged in quite an intellectual conversation with a couple of teenagers. This was right outside the animal barn (or whatever the heck it's called), and between the earless goats, tiny snuggling bunnies, swan/duck things that stared at me as if they could see into my soul, and the Godmobile, I got quite an eyeful.

That's pretty much all my Puyallup Fair excitement in a nutshell. If I think of anything else that needs to be said I will say it later. When I'm not watching Weeds.