A little State Fair reflection

My friend Tiffany is a State Fair warrior! She's too cute. She was our fearless leader as we galavanted all over the fairgrounds yesterday. She made sure we experienced everything that we possibly could in the five hours we were there, and by the end I was a shriveled up, worn out, drowned rat. A drowned rat who had seen pigs race nonetheless! The animal parts of the fair were the best. I wanted to take them all home with me. The pot-bellied guy in overalls chewing on straw...not so much. Just the pigs.

Angela and Tiffany approached the fair like eight year-old kids and it was fun to live vicariously through them. I may have been a kid for the first twenty minutes, but at some point pretty early on I think I transitioned back to the gal who is just as content sitting at home on the couch gnawing on a hunk of white cheddar cheese. It was an NFL Sunday and I missed 12 games! But luckily I had downloaded NFL Mobile on my phone and I was able to get real-time scores and stats as were were meandering through the PT Cruisers and Toyota Camrys at the car show. Thank God for that. And thank God that the Colts happened to be having their bye week.

This was Tiffany's 11th fair; my first. The gap was glaringly obvious! I was such a rookie. I talked myself out of all the deep-fried goodness and the only thing I participated in with passion and vigor was introducing Lisa Loeb because that was part of my job. :-) She rocks! I'm much more of an observer anyway, and have much more fun watching than I do doing. Especially when fried Coke is involved. I did try the free throw game (becuase Denise paid for it and pushed me up to the free throw line), but the ball had so much air in it and the angles were so sloped, my high school basketball skillz gave me no chance. I thought I tossed up the perfect shot once and it was on line to swoosh, but it fell about two feet short. It was the slopes I tell ya, the slopes.

The petting zoo was awesome. That was my favorite part. I was particularly fascinated with the long necks. (Well yes, we had a couple of longnecks, but here I'm really talking about the long necks.) When the ostrich felt like looking down at her toes, her neck just took her head right on down there. One minute she was upright looking at us, and the next thing we knew the top of her head was touching the wood chips on the floor and she was a half inch from her toes. That's talent.

I had a couple of good conversations with the animals. I totally think I could have been a horse whisper in another life. I crouched down with a baby goat that was peaking its head through the fence, and we talked about life for a few minutes. It was mostly me who did the talking. I talked low and calm, and he listened. I won't tell you exactly what we talked about because that's private. But I will tell you that he is indeed a "sweetie pie good boy." We shared a moment and really connected, and now that goat will remember me forever. And his little black eyes will always be imprinted on my brain.

I almost had a similar moment with some bison, but then I decided maybe I should stick to goats. I'll work myself up to bison next year. And perhaps a fried Snickers.