Now, back to our regularly scheduled blogging

The weekend goes so quickly! I hate that.

I mean, when you are a kid, you get up at say, oh, seven in the morning. You clean up, brush your teeth, get dressed, go to the kitchen, drink some milk out of the jug, (because no one is looking) make yourself a bowl of cereal and maybe a piece of toast, read the back of the cereal box while you eat, rinse your dishes and stack them in the sink and go out the back door to play, being careful not to let it slam because it will wake up the other kids. You are wide awake and it seems like you have been up for hours already when the true elapsed time is about 21 minutes.

As you get older time races by you like the thing you saw crossing the road so fast you can't tell if it was a fox, a small dog or a large cat. 21 minutes into my morning I am only half dressed and still trying to catch my hair in a barrette.

I have it on good authority that is goes so fast when you are over 60 that watching a half hour TV show only takes 10 minutes and there is no waiting at the doctors office, just time to find a magazine to read and pick an article, then they call you in!

So a year, for me, is about 4 months long. This makes the next Christmas closer but leaves me with too little time for living. After you take out the hours you work, sleep, eat and clean up, mow the lawn and take care of the pets you just barely have enough time to stay friends with your spouse, much less keep up with family and friends lives or party.

Friday night I wanted to go to the Fair. It was supposed to be way hot on the weekend and storm some. I work days so that meant if I didn't get there Friday night I wouldn't get my gyro for another week!

This may not seem like a problem to you city people but out here in BFE I have to go to a place called Kalmazoo to find a real Greek gyro or sovlaka or baklava. It's a two hour drive there - four hours round trip. With gas prices here near 3.00 a gallon it's not gonna happen.

Every year at the fair Christo has his gyro wagon. He makes a trip to Greece to get spices for his meat once a year. He makes it himself and it's a family receipe. His sauce does not come out of a can, the vegetables are fresh and the pita is fresh, soft and warm. There is no more authentic gyro made in the state. I used to only be able to go once a year and have just one gyro. Now I can go twice, and, if pay day's fall right, three times to have this tasty treat. This is looking like a two gyro year.

It's not that I can't afford the gyro or the parking fee at the Fair, it's that I can't afford the addiction I have to the "pushers". These are the game that uses a happy clowns big feet to push tokens across a surface to drop them over the edge. On top of the tokens are glittery prizes you can win. You buy tokens to drop down for the clowns feet to push and it slides the other tokens and shiny prizes over the edge for you to win, eventually, maybe, if your good at it.

There are also big blue tokens, about the size of a half dollar, that you can trade in for other prizes. Three will get you a medium stuffed toy, 5 will get you a giant stuffed toy. 13 will get you a brass and silver looking Foo Dog, a miniature tea set and a pocket ashtray. That's what I brought home with me Friday night. It only cost me about $Undisclosed to keep stupidity. to myself.

Part of the fun of going to the Fair is having someone to talk about it with. My mate is crowd shy and my Mom was busy witha replacement kid she hangs out with so I called the sister next. Cee raced through her chores and got to my place in under an hour.

We took her car and she paid for the parking while I committed to real fries with malt vinegar for her in return. (I spent 4 months in Canada and learned to like chips and gravy as well as the chips and vinegar) We ended up parking a long way from my prefer spot near the ladies bathrooms. I am still having trouble walking for long distances, say two blocks, so this was going to be a problem.

We strolled by the open stage to see some Beatle impersonators wearing Nehru jackets in the 90 degree heat/75% humidity. I took a second to feel sorry for them and say a little prayer that they wouldn't collapse from heat exaustion. We continued on to the relative cool of the Merchants Building. You can find all kinds of fun things in there. Crystals, fudge, chairs that massage you almost everywhere, fresh roasted cinnamon almonds, fences for the yard, artwork, dragon statuettes, and jewelry were some of the usual items.

I stopped by the fudge to get the mate a treat. There was a dark chocolete one that melted in you hands, your mouth and your hips it was so rich and sweet but I refrained because I might need the money for the pushers.

Some of the original art work was amazing and beautiful. I didn't have enough to get any but there were several I would have liked to have. We admired it and moved on to the high point of my night, the gyro. Cristo is usually near the front entrance and, of course, the pushers are at the rear. Allowing for my challenged walking, I didn't want to come back this way later.

I found him and it was him, not his son, this year. We actually had to wait in a long line. Usually there are only a few people there. I noticed he had expanded the menu to include chicken gyros. It was warm and dusty standing there. The sis and I were chatting as we waited.

A round, short as me almost, guy with short grey hair covered by a baseball cap came up and put his arms around our necks and smiled at us. He said something forgetable (as in I forgot what he said) and I looked at Cee and said, "Do you know this guy?" as I was getting ready to nail him with the ink pen no longer in my purse but in my hand and held like an ice pick. I was aiming at the ribs.

That's right, I am not only NOT a touchy feely person but actively discourage close contact from strangers.

"Oooohh, you BOTH know ME," he said, "I'm (insert name of kid your younger sisters age from high school that used to play drums in a garage band)!"

I put the weapon away and we commenced catching up with our histories and have you seens like any other group that hasn't seen each other in forever. I mentioned my friend Leslie I am looking for and he said he'd seen her not too long ago.

Then my neighbors over the back fence came by and we chatted while Cee and the drummer talked some more.

I finally got to the front of the line so I could remind Christo that I only got one gyro a year and to make it with a little extra meat. I asked after his son and he said the boy didn't like the work. Finally I had my gyro in my greedy little hand.

We parted from all the yackers and started off down the midway looking for the fries we wanted. I got to lagging by this time, my hips were burning in the joints, so we found a bench. Cee went back to the first place she had spotted with fires while I nibbled my gyro and rested.

We munched our treats and discussed people walking by us. The heady scents of carmel corn, sausage, and cotton candy wafted past with each tiny breeze. ZZ Top played in the backround from the grand stand stage and all was right with the world.

We agreed to split up so she could see the animal barns while I indulged my addiction. I spotted a pusher, started to walk around it to pick out a "hot" machine and walked right into my friend Leslie's brother, Tie! Then I remembered he was married to my other friend, Rocky! Cee and I were both sweet on her big brother at one time.

We had a great visit, met their son the marine and HIS son and found out where we all were and what we had been doing the past 15 years. That's the last time I saw them. On my 35th bday Rocky and I went riding and my horse went over backwards to land on me. He did it on purpose! I landed in a natural depression but got the wind knocked out of me. I loved it! Most people my age were out getting smashed on the bday, I however, had a horse try to take me out. Adventures still!

They would pass on my phone numbers to Les! I have great hopes of seeing her soon. They left not long after that. We agreed to meet at the pusher and Cee took off, too.

I found a hot machine to play and indulged my need for the pushers. Cee came back and played a while, too. I took my 13 tokens and cashed out when I realized it was almost midnight and I still had to walk back to the car.

It was cooler and dark, the crowds were thinner, the noise level lower and all in all it was a great night at the Fair.