They have this lacey fringe

After a week of sweat and dirt I celebrated by buying myself a new pair of silky pink PJs. (Don't worry they were on sale - way sale)
My "rock-star" plans for the weekend fell through. So, I spent most of my time on the couch, knitting, cooking, drawing and playing with Ms. Chleo. (I also did laundry and cleaned the house - I know I'm sick) But alas it's time to go back to work. Need to pay the man - really I need to buy my friends gifts (at least that's what I tell myself to feel better)
Happy Monday Everybody!

I worked at the Crazy Ball booth Thursday

Oh, the glamous life of a reporter! I got to work on the midway Thursday! The people I'm meeting are just amazing. I'm really enjoying myself. Remember to check The Sentinel for the article

http://hollandsentinel.com/stories/072806/local_20060728002.shtml

And see how much money I had to "play" to win my flower. Hint: $4 gives you a 50/50 chance to win.

Demolition woman

I have three words for you: legal road rage.
All day Monday my body tingled in anticipation of getting to ram one large piece of metal into another large piece of metal.

Now this may come as a surprise to the people who know me. Anyone who has ridden in a car with me will tell you I'm "an 80-year-old woman waiting to happen." Their words, not mine.

But don't let the knitting needles and string of pearls fool you. When push comes to shove, I'm in it to win. And that's exactly what I told Hope College alumni Andy Crocker before I got into his car Monday at the Demolition Derby.

read the rest of the story at The Sentinel website.

http://hollandsentinel.com/stories/072506/local_20060725003.shtml

Your Fair Lady as a child

And it begins - my journey into the world of the carnival. I will be "embedded" in the Ottawa County Fair through July 31.

In a way, it is like going home, both my parents worked at state and county fairs while I was growing up. My mother always worked the "ring toss" a game were participants threw plastic rings at bottles of water. If they got a ring around the bottle they'd win the gold fish swimming in it.

My grandmother would bring me down to visit my mother while she worked and I loved watching the goldfish swimming in their transparent worlds. During the season the game provided an endless source of pets for me - I can't tell you how many goldfish funerals I attended standing beside a white porcelain toilet crying as my parents flushed down yet another fish that had gone belly up over night.

My mother's game was called a "walk down" game, where people threw down their money and than walked away, my father said. He worked the "shake down" rides, where "we shake them up until all the money falls out of their pockets," he said laughing. "It's not like we were going to run down the fairway saying 'Excuse me did anyone loss $3?"

Calling my father after I'd finished up at the office reminded me of the fun we use to have as a family. The season I became obsessed with the "ladder" and my parents kept forking over $20 to watch me try to inch my limps up this rope-ladder teetering as I tried to balance my body only to end up laying on my back under it like a stranded beetle.

Or the family tradition of riding the most volatile rides until one of us pukes. Oh, the nauseous-gut-wrenching memories - I wouldn't trade them for anything.

Well it is now hour 15 and I am finally heading to bed. It will continue tomorrow too early.

By OLIVIA COBISKEY
Staff writer
At 9 a.m. Sunday morning only the chattering of cicadas and birds could be heard at the Ottawa County Fairgrounds.
Fiberglass elephants, caterpillars and bees their smiles frozen in anticipation of the hordes of expectant child waited stacked on the back of semi-trucks to be brought to life.
But by 11 a.m. the carnival started to awaken and with each passing hour it took shape preparing for Monday's opening at 4 p.m.
One of nearly 20 food vendors, Marv Day of Hamilton was busy Sunday getting the signs ready for "55 B.B.Q."
Now, I'm sure everyone knows what pulled pork and ribs are but what are red neck fries? I just had to ask.
"They are fries with chile, pork, and cheese on them," said Day from the top of his 10-foot ladder. "We also have Hillbill-e Tea."
That's sweetened tea for you northern folk.

check out www.hollandsentinel.com for the rest of the column.

How big a fish can your cat carry

another crazy video from YouTube: a Japanese experiment on how big a fish wild cats in Japan can carry. No need to worry, you don't need to speak Japanese to understand or find the humour in this.

Truth found in Fiction

So, I'm reading an article on Biala, aka Janice Tworkovsky, Jewish, Polish a painter, at like 6 a.m. this morning and a quote from one of her husband's, Ford Madox Ford, books made me think that perhaps there is hope for me.
In "Parade's End" one of his character says, "You seduced a woman in order to be able to finish your talks with her. You could not do that without living with her. You could not live with her without seducing her; but that was the by-product. The point is that you can't otherwise talk. You can't finish talks at street corners; in museums; even in drawing-rooms. You may not be in the mood when she is in the mood - for the intimate conversation that means the final communion of your souls."
(So that's why men seduce women? Ummm?)
Ford was twice her age but they married and lived in Paris. She said she became herself when she met Ford. (she was 26 and he was 57 in 1930)
"In living for him - I became myself," she wrote. "He found a little handful of dust and turned it into a human being ..."
However, her most clever response was to her friends, who were dismayed that she would fall for such an aged womanizer as Ford.
"I have looked all my life for a man with a mind as old as my own," she blasted back. "And what difference does it make if, when I find the man, he has a potbelly!"
However, the "long passionate dialogue," came to an end after 9 years in 1939 when Ford died in her arms at a Deauville hospital at the age of 66.
Ah, I really am pathetic but it gives me hope. The story re-enforced what I had already been reminded of recently: that conversation - the act of talking, of connecting through speech - is very important to me in relationships. It helps me connect, it makes me feel safe and secure, more importantly wanted. So, I guess Ford had a point.
It is a point I will have to hold onto in the coming days, months, years as I dream of even a month, day, moment of that "dialogue."
I guess I'm a little more melancholy than usual. My birthday was this week and I, like so many women before me, am not were I thought I would be by this age. Don't get me wrong I am the woman who ran into 30 with my arms wide open ready for anything. But with the passing of each sequential year my fear as increased until Sunday I found myself sitting across from my friend Anne in Chicago, tears cascading off my trembling chin saying, "I don't want to be alone for the rest of my life."
Rationally, I know I need to give up my 1960s idea that marriage, a family, a home will fulfill me as a woman, will equal success. But it's hard.
I guess that is my goal for this year - give up my illusion of what success means and be happy with the concert success that I do have.
Love always, Olivia

Muhammad el-Dura

I remember he asked me if I could raise my children Muslim
I remember a Middle Eastern restaurant on Davon, smoking from a Hookah, burying my face in my hands, and laughing as smoke poured from my nose
I remember the smell of the Turkish coffee he brought me from Egypt - dark, rich, heavy in my hand, heavy in my mouth
I remember the email he sent me of the young Palestinian boy shot in his father's arms
I remember the limp body of a child not grown, brown hair, brown arm, crushed between concrete and a screaming father
I don't remember where, somewhere dry, somewhere hot, somewhere there
I remember my response
I remember begging him not to be violent.
I remember saying we need a Gandhi - a Martin Luther King - a prophet
I remember telling him that a man of violence cannot bring peace
Violence never equals peace
I remember his anger
I remember my tears
I remember the little boy who died in his father's arms in a place between - betweens
I remember his question, "Could you raise your children as Muslims?"
I remember my answer, "No."