Fair Weather

Yesterday my family took a trip to the Lake County Fair. Here are the three things that stuck with me: 1) A teenage band played "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to a crowd of oldies, probably mostly made up of their relatives. The lead singer threw himself on the ground in the most non-aggressive way I've ever seen. Romy clapped along. 2) The County Fair is where I shall teach Romy about eating animals. So disgustingly sad to walk by a bunch of pigs while there is a chart nearby showing you which parts of them are used for which cuts of meat. I always think back to this interesting article from Horn Book by Jennifer Armstrong about how we teach children at a young age about all sorts of animals, and we teach them about love, yet we let them eat all these animals we just taught them to love. I think that's what the article was about. It's been a while since I read it. 3) Not all ferris wheels are created equal. Romy and I have already ridden (is that a word? That looks wrong) a ferris wheel together and thoroughly enjoyed it. Matt is not such a fan of heights, so he stayed off that one. This time we all rode together. For NINE DOLLARS. Can you believe that? And then it went really fast. Like, stomach churning roller coaster fast. Every time we neared the top, Romy began shaking. It was so sad and cute at the same time. She is such a tough cookie. She just said she didn't like it but totally made it through like a trooper. I hope it didn't deter her from riding another one someday. Next time I'll have to bring one of those speed guns cops use to pull people over in order to determine if the wheel is at a comfortable clip.