as seen on tv!

it's been a busy weekend. i turned down three last minute invitations to dinners and a cocktail party in favor of two longstanding dates. last night, jeff, mel's fiance, turned 40 and we celebrated at the A-List, a bar for grown people in town. i got to chat with some colleagues and neighbors and friends. it was fun to hang out. there was lots of talk about nailing the coffin on the bypass, connector road, a fight that this lot has been waging for years. and i finally caved to peer pressure and offered my first installment for our inchoate co-op grocery store.

this evening, i attended and participated in a multi-generational dinner party/staged reading of "how i became i pirate,"/drum circle. the dinner party was a potluck grill enterprise that was nice. as for the entertainment potion, we all know i have not one lick of rhythm, and i find it to be vaguely problematic to witness so many white men in ethnic print drumming. (is it too robert bly?) so, about the play....robert envisioned and executed a great play with the star, kiefer, ultimately choosing soccer practice over the life and times of being a pirate. i was in charge of special effects -- these include hand-drawn thunderstorm, a mast (that i tore in two on cue), a map and a repaired mast. many of the families there are families i know principally from the market. that is, many sprouts were on hand. it took the lil ones by surprise that i could be at a party and not just at the market uptown on saturday mornings. upon spotting me, one little girl, eva pointed and exclaimed: i make things. i quite like it that children see me and have such a crafty response.

today, we reprised our spanish vocab scavenger hunt at the market...whereby we posted laminated tags with spanish words for objects, colors, and people at the market. except at the one farmer's booth, a new fellow who reported that he doesn't believe in second languages. that's right, you read it. paula held her tongue, but she wanted to tell him that he didn't belong at our farmers' market; that he may be better suited at one of the other two markets in town. but instead she smiled and kept on moving.

i am reminded of how weird my world is here. again, showing up at these parties on my own and making small talk about how many cenimeters she has dialated, how to put up spiced pears for the winter, etc. but i am especially mindful of it because tonight, in my small town, on the indiana side...the side i recently learned is "god's country" where the residents prize their "family values" above all else....tonight, keggers' pub and grub is hosting another cage fight night. as seen on tv.