A Walk to the Fair

A quote from the past week:

"The way we were swinging the bats on the road trip, we could have been playing on the moon and we still would have been scoring runs. Probably more, because there's no gravity on the moon."

- Mike Scioscia, Anaheim Angels manager

Today Debbi and I walked from my place to downtown Mountain View to attend the Mountain View a la Carte festival - a music & crafts fair - going on this weekend. I'd never walked there before, and figured it would be a good thing to try. Turns out it takes about 35 minutes - a pretty long walk, but not prohibitive. Bicycling is probably a better bet, though. But I enjoy walking.

The fair was nice. There are a lot of talented independent artists and craftsmen out there. Debbi and I were both taken by Mrs. Bear's Woods, lovely jewelry carved from a variety of wood. It occurred to me that they might be a source for future gifts for my mother and sister, though I'm not sure what they think of wooden earrings...

I also picked up a pottery toothbrush and toothpaste holder. Probably paid slightly too much for it, but it looks nice and should be more functional than the cheap one I've been using for the last few years (which doesn't let water evaporate from it, so it gathers gross water in its base; eew). And we are both mulling over buying some wooden furniture from a dealer there, since they have nice cedar chests which Debbi's been wanting, and some simple nightstand-style tables which I could use in my study to put my clock radio. (It's been sitting on my industrial shelving, but the reception there is poor, so I've moved it to the other side of the room where there's nowhere to put it but the floor.) They had terrific prices, so perhaps we'll succumb.

It was bright and sunny and not too warm, so it was a great day to go down. Unfortunately, on the walk back Debbi was being hampered by what turned out to be a blister developing on one of her feet. We're not sure why, but my suspicion is that her foot was being rubbed wrong by walking for so long on her flip-flop sandals.

We didn't rest up too long, though, since we had plans to go see Spike and Mike's 25th Anniversary Festival of Animation in San Jose. So we headed down, bought popcorn and Coke, and settled in for the show. It was a collection (or maybe a sampler is a better term) of many pieces they'd featured through the years. We saw Pixar's "For the Birds" again, and also their late-80s short "Tin Toy" (which I guess for a while was the Pixar film). We saw Nick Park's classic "Creature Comforts" (interviews with children about zoos, and with residents of old folks' homes, used as dialogue spoken by animals living in zoos), which was new to Debbi. Also new to her was the classic "Bambi Meets Godzilla", which, well, is a classic.

Of the ones I hadn't seen before, "Balance" - an abstract piece about people teetering on a balanced plane - was probably the most impressive, technically. "Bob's Birthday" was a slightly dirty set of running gags about a surprise party gone horribly wrong and middle-age angst. "Grasshoppers" was a very funny and quick look at human history by an Italian animator who'd done a great comparison of Italy with the rest of Europe at the show we saw last year (a year ago to the day, in fact!). Some of them were just downright weird, like one that played with the viewer's sense of perspective, or the surreal "Your Face".

But as always the quality won out and a good time was had by all.

We opted for the nearby Italian restaurant, Pasta Pomodoro, for dinner, but I was a bit disappointed since their prices have gone up and they no longer have their pesto dish that I'd enjoyed. Debbi made fun of me a bit since I'd forgotten several things I'd told her last time we were in that area (about friends I know down there, etc.) just last week and I tediously repeated them all to her. Where is my memory going?

We rounded out the day by watching an episode of 24 (now we're only 12 weeks behind! The series ends on Tuesday) and another of Smallville. Before doing so we cracked open a bottle of wine. Well, actually four bottles of wine, since three of them - which I've had since 1994 - have gone bad. Unfortunate, but I hadn't realized that wine would go bad in, well, less than several decades. Debbi says red wine keeps better than white, and the three white wines had turned to vinegar. But the bottle of port we eventually opened - vintage 1997 - was just fine. Mmmm.

We've both been suffering from colds (me worse than her, perhaps, since I've been having the occasional coughing fit at night), so we turned in relatively early.