Fair, Weather & Friends

Here's my future Auto Show Model proudly showing off Pixar "Cars" #95 sponsored by Rust-eze at the AT&T booth at the Fair.
So since the temperature has started hitting the triple digits, our air conditioning decided to break. Now, for those of you who are not familliar with our humble abode, it's a huge apartment that falls in the category of "vintage". I suspect the original air conditioning was 4 open/10mph WsW, but our poor little wall unit looks like it could be from the Regan era, and on Friday it cheerfully started leaking water out the front and directly into the wall socket to which it is plugged in. We were alerted to this phenominon by the "bzzt" sound and arcing coming from the outlet, so we wisely cut the power to that location.

Despite 2 box fans, 4 ceiling fans, and 2 window fans by mid morning Sunday it was starting to smell like BBQ'd cat. So when Doug & Tina called to say they had lost their minds and were taking James to the Orange County Fair in Costa Mesa, I lost no time in convincing Jeff that we should definately join them. I was actually surprised at Jeff's reluctance: we used to live about 6 blocks from the fairgrounds and I thought surely he would remember that CM is usually about 10 degrees cooler than the Inland Valley. Truthfully, I think the hell of spending 8+ hours working at Disneyland on Saturday in the blazing heat and humidity was still fresh in his mind, but he was a trooper and agreed to go.

Fortunately, my memory was good- it was only in the mid 80's, and despite being opening weekend it wasn't even all that crowded! The OC Far is a much longer and slower process with little ones and a stroller, but we still saw everything and had a good time.

We hit the Commercial building and picked up a few items, and then we went to the Community building and Tenley picked up a few firemen. After we tore her away from the dashing men in uniform and their chalkboard tables, Daddy took her to see the stuffed animals (like coyote & bobcat) at the Wildlife Conservation booth, while Doug & I answered trivia questions and spun the "wheel of morality" at the County of Orange Health Care Agency to get chip clips and coloring books for the kids.

Hot Dog on a Stick detained us briefly on our way to see the animals. Then Tenley detained us with the animals. She loves animals. She usually doesen't identify them by name, but rather by the sound they make. So as we approached one of the show rings, she began mooing and pointing excitedly at the cows & their owners who were having a little meet & greet with the fair guests. She grinned from ear to ear as she rubbed a steer's nose, felt his ears and rubbed his shiny black neck that looked like velvet. James promptly stuck his hand up a cow's nose. Then it was on to the "baaa"s where Ten was completely entranced as they led this sheep in and began shearing it. I thought the noise from the clippers would frighten her, but it didn't, and I didn't my best to explain that the sheep was just getting a haircut. The poor sheep kept looking around and bleating unhappily, and Tenley would smile and bleat back at it. Then we went for a quick wander through the cages of poultry and bunnies. Well, it started out as a quick wander but Tenley was determined to touch a chicken and a bunny and as soon as we would finish a row of plain white chickens, she woulld smile at me and say "Mooore??" as she pointed to the next row. I guess the chickens did it for her- go figure.

Speaking of chickens, we decided it was time to eat some, so we trooped off and got these massive fajita plates and Jeff and James had chicken fingers with some of the worst fries on the planet. Tenley was still full from the corndog and gave the finger to all of it except Jeff & I's Diet Pepsis.

After our meal, we headed over to the kids carnival and I bought some ride tickets so we could take a spin in these hot air balloon things (think hanging tilt a whirl) and ride the killer bees that are the Fair equivalent of Dumbo. She was too short to ride anything by herself, but next year I think I'll have to get her a wristband because she should be tall enough to go on a good number of them.

The petting zoo was right next to the kids carnival, and I cheerfully schucked out $2 for an ice cream cone of feed so we could be accosted by pushy goats. This years growth and learning to walk made a huge difference where the petting zoo was concerned- Ten was confident and happily ran from animal to animal patting their heads and giving them hugs. I showed her how to hold the feed in her flat hand and she was delighted when she was mobbed by 2 pygmy goats and a deer who ate the feed and then licked her to death. She gave half of the cone to the wallabies and the other half to a greedy llama. She finally agreed to leave after a goat came up and bleated in her ear unexpectedly.

We got ice cream cones and watched the Peking Acrobats, and then stopped at the Hyundai booth to take the Hyundai Challenge to find out what kind of drivers we were and win Starbucks and In-N-Out gift cards. At that point it was 7 something and we were beat. We changed the kids one last time, and called it a day. I guess Ten was pretty beat too- she fell dead asleep before we even got to the car.