My dad's Intertubes fell apart last night after the thunderstorm, and we had to get out the pipe wrench and reconnect the network hub. Yada yada.
Yesterday, my sister and Cam had to leave early in the afternoon, because Cam had already been insistent about not missing his soccer game today. (Yes, his town has a league for the very young. I don't know if they play by the Posh-Spice's-hubby rules so much, but this year he's on Team Italy, which represents some kind of advance over his previous year for Team England. Cam, that is, not Beckham.) We hit the other festival: the People's Choice Festival, a few miles down the road in Boalsburg. The artists and crafters there are all local to Centre County, unlike those at CPFA, who come from all over the country. There tends to be more of a country-folksy-craftsy vibe to People's Choice, so it's not my greatest fave rave, but I've found some nice stuff there.
Day 2
The brooms were decidedly more boring than those made by the guy who has the Nimbus 2000. There seems to be a new fad for cinnamon-scented beeswax ornaments, which bummed me out; I've been wanting some entirely natural beeswax candles, and one booth had them in red, green, and the natural color -- all ideal for my purposes -- but full of goddamn cinnamon, to which my eyes and nose react badly. Many birdhouses: natural logs, painted gourds, natural gourds, traditional wood pseudo-buildings, from the rather nice to the cutesy. Another maker of wooden toys; this year's fad in those is early roadsters -- a 1928 Chevy downtown at Arts Fest, here a Stutz Bearcat. More leather; one stall has a nifty but expensive pouch for your belt in which you cache your knife or Leatherman and, I guess, a wallet or something else flat in the zippered compartment behind.
I take my blue teddy bear, Daniel (I call him that because I imagine a facial resemblance to the "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" puppet Daniel Striped Tiger, sans stripes), to his maker, Sue Spalvins, in search of a new tie; his original ribbon is rather crumpled by now, although his seams and joints remain in good order. (That makes one of us.) She promises to look up some ribbon. I can't afford any of the bears she has on display this year, some of which (whom?) are made with mohair, some with real fur. Egads. Beautiful, but for lookin', not so much for huggin'.
Alexa, Cam, and Nita meet me at the Mad Hatt'r booth. Oh dear. She wants to buy Cam a sun hat, because yesterday he complained of being overheated. Aha, Nita is buying! And when I can't decide between two hats, I wind up with both of them! The real success of this mission, however, is finally getting Nita (I don't think I'm spilling any big secrets here in revealing that she's over fifty) into a really, really nice red hat.
For lunch, I hit a food stand whose server is wearing a "Native Pride" baseball cap. I ask him about this, politely, and he turns out to be about the same percentage Lakota as Doug is -- that is, not enough to be visible if he weren't wearing the ball cap. He directs me to a tent that turns out to be full of portraits of Generic Noble Natives (tm). Egad, spare me already. Where is Sherman Alexie (The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven) when you need him? (For exoticizing of white people, see the booths here and downtown whose theme -- in paintings and distance photographs -- is Aren't the Amish Cute.)
A vendor of fine knives has one whose grip is a turkey claw! I can't afford the knife, but I do buy a deer-antler whistle with a satisfyingly piercing shriek. One, I want to have a sound to train my cats to come to reliably, after Selina's little escape-artist stunt. Two, I can't stand it that, on this bumpy ground especially, people have brought droves of their tiny yappy dogs. I can see the retrievers and shepherds coming a mile off, but the pugs? Are there not enough trip hazards? So in revenge... you get the idea.
And then a few booths down, speaking of gimpitude, there is this fantastic... green... walking stick. Green! I never thought of green! It turns out to be substantially lighter than any other stick (or even standard cane-type cane) in the guy's booth of Wooden Stuff, indeed almost as light as the dogwood stick I currently use. It's smooth and transmits vibrations beautifully. The owner says it's made of something called "limba," otherwise known as "white mahogany" (which may be about as "mahogany" as "white chocolate" is chocolate, i.e. not so much, but whatevs). And it's carved in smooth undulations, and sealed in ship-grade urethane so the dye will never, ever come off in my hand. And... now it's mine.
At 1:30, Alexa and Cam have to leave. I hug her, amazed at the thought that the next time I see her, she may have her second child; the adoption agency may finally be getting off its ass. Cam isn't as bad about goodbyes as he normally is, but his parting gesture to me and Nita is to throw a small twig at us. Poor kid; his world is about to be rocked in ways he can't begin to fathom. He's about to get a great gift -- one that will seem, for the first year or two at least, like an insane nightmare.
Nita and I finish browsing the circle of booths. She goes to get the car while I chat with a ceramist whose work is inspired by Asian stuff. We head home, and Dad meets us at the house -- not before our path (just as we pull into the driveway) is crossed by a black cat! Off to East-West Crossings, a fabulous tea shop and Buddhist/Hindu/lefty/eclectic bookstore that hosts informal poetry gatherings, a Zen meditation group, and tonight, music. I finally meet the owner, Ranadhur Mitra, the son of Arun Mitra, a rather famous Bengali poet. Ran says that, in the fall, once a faithful following has really started coming to the place (which is rather out-of-the-way), we'll schedule a reading there for me.
Off to a restaurant for dinner, and then back to the pad.
Day 3
Back to Arts Fest again, this time with Dad in tow so he can see Susan Soleil again. Among his purchases at her booth is a notepad holder bound in an old map of Paris, to commemorate the time he and Nita were there and got hopelessly lost. (It didn't help that he had written down that their hotel was on rue Cambron, in the 1er arrondissement, when in fact it was on rue Cambon, in the 25ieme.) Alas, the Gigantic Banjo is gone! The luthier explains that he needed trunk space today, and it was drawing too much of "the wrong kind of attention." From whom, drunken hillbilly giants?
Saturday is traditionally the most crowded day of Arts Fest. No exceptions to that today. Having shown Dad the bird art on Allen Street, Nita and I send him off to get the car, and keep walking. She collects business cards from any number of woodworkers, including 2 Griffins, which I take at first to be simply a cool business name -- but their last name really is Griffin! Dad and Nita fancy a lamp in tiger maple; Nita likes bowls made of maple burl with the edges left raw and natural. On the last leg (!!!) of the journey, she buys me a necklace of a jade Kuan Yin (etc.) from the jewelry maker I mentioned earlier, and who turns out to have sold to another Gwyn: -eth Paltrow. Good heavens. I introduce Nita to Cheri Yarnell, one of my favorite teachers (a teacher of social studies) from high school. Cheri retired from teaching last year and is now a full-time potter, and very content. Ah, someday.
We're about to get some food and go have a picnic supper by the lake at Shaver's Creek. My back and leg are throbbing like ten thousand unholy fu dogs shitting jalapenos, but I walked the entire Arts Fest route again today. I think I've gotten stronger since the initial disc herniation. I really, really think I have. Our only break today was for lunch -- I've got to tell my chiropractor when I get, er, back. (Actually, baby got back, but that's another story entirely.) I also think that getting out and walking around a lot this summer has been good for me in that way.
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