Omigosh.
I’m at school.

And it’s as bad as I thought.

I woke up at 4 a.m. worried. Worried about waking up at the unholy hour of six.

But my classroom is all clean and waxy. I can see my face in the tile. Not necessarily a good thing. Right now my face says I need more sleep. And lipstick. But who wears lipstick on the first day of teacher inservice? Not me. They’re doing good to get with with deodorant and clean teeth and leaving my LUCIFER CREATED SCHOOL t-shirt at home.

So last night I went to one of my favorite yearly events–a grape festival. There’s a town close by that has had this festival for 110 years! It’s actually a fundraiser for the local Catholic church. You eat their homemade spaghetti dinner (this is an Italian town) THEN…you eat grape ice cream. It’s a little odd, but you learn to love it. And then every night there’s some entertainment. This week they’ve had the winner of Nashville Star and some other folk. I’d tell you who I saw last night, but he wasn’t good, and we left when he started singing happy birthday to people.

There’s also a midway. Is this carnival slang for midget-sized fair? Anyway, I’m not a fan of fairs. Or circuses. Not into clowns either, but that’s another story. But carnival rides are weird, aren’t they? The whole theme of them all.

Like this. WHY do I want to bounce on something where the exit is a tiger’s butt?

And I’m a total baby when it comes to rides. Why are even kiddie rides scary? I mean is the head of a big cobra going to persuade me to get on? Um, no. Maybe if kiddie rides were friendlier–like a big smiley face roller coaster–I would’nt be scared of them today.

Carnival rides always look like they’re one loose bolt away from disaster too. I know NOTHING about engineering or how things work, but when I’m on a ride suddenly I’m inspecting every detail. And if there’s one SINGLE questionable looking piece of metal, my eye is drawn to it like money on the ground. I mean look at the people in this picture. Sure, they look happy. But really they’re just one revolution away from plunging to the ground. I didn’t want to tell that, being their final moments on earth and all.

And maybe this is the real reason why I’ve always hated rides.

I never passed the height test. I hate those stupid rulers. Rulers of Rejection. And now that I’m tall enough to meet the sadistic height requirement, I don’t want to ride. So there. I’ll keep my ten dollars per ride.

Here’s what I DO like about fairs.

The food. The weird drinks. Like what’s a lemonade shake up? Probably you drink a lemonade then go ride the Loopty-Loo and hurl on those below.

Fairs are GREAT for people watching too. Like this guy who obviously likes the food trailers as well.

Let’s get a better look, shall we?

Ew. I don’t know what that is, but I hope it was worth it.

Changing the subject, it was a sad weekend with the passing of Bernie Mac. AND Isaac Hayes. And don’t get me started on John Edwards. Ugh.

Something else I don’t want to get started on is Breaking Dawn. I finished it. I will give you the full report on Wednesday. But if you want some entertainment and are familiar with the series, definitely check out the reviews on Amazon. I think people are about to break out in civil war over this book. And I know which side I’ll be on. . .

Have a great week.

JEN