An overwhelming turnout at the Mateel Summer Arts Fair this afternoon. It was the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen. Good news for the Mateel. Bad news for my claustrophobia. But I and my son had a great time. The kids’ section is the best and most extensive I’ve ever seen. I enjoyed my annual plate of noodles complimentary of May’s Chinese Food, and my annual KMUD iced coffee. This year the political booths weren’t relegated to the southern corner, and there were plenty of reasonably priced crafts.

Some of the music was very good, except that that in most areas you heard at least two performers resulting in a cacophony at times. Naturally, I took a timeout to get my feet wet in the river and you could hear all of the stages at once which wasn’t very relaxing. Plug to Mateel – next year please consider limiting electronically amplified entertainment to one or two locations make the southern stage exclusively acoustic.

On to the drama of the day. Oh, no, it wasn’t about Reggae. Sorry to disappoint. The antagonists took the day off (gee, wouldn’t it be nice if the detente extended to this blog?). There were plenty of pro-People people attending. Someone actually reported a Tom Dimmick sighting at the event this morning. From what I heard from people on both sides, there were polite greetings between individuals on opposite sides, sometimes limited to awkward nods of acknowledgment. In the worst cases, people just ignored each other.

I received a compliment for my chicken curry recipe, though somebody else suggested that I should have posted a recipe for rabbit curry.

No, today’s drama was at my house. My two-year-old daughter. She – no joking – swallowed my wife’s wedding ring (fortunately not her engagement ring). Naturally, our responses were all calm and collective. We called our pediatrician who basically told us what we expected to hear. Only take her in for an x-ray if we want to be certain she swallowed it. We’re sure. She tried to claim her older brother swallowed it (he wasn’t even in the room), and cried when we asked her to show us where it is. How did she get it? Well, she asked to see it and my wife was on the phone. All of the sudden she was coughing in a semi-choking maneuver, and, well, she’s going to be pooping into a bucket for the next day or so.

In ten years we’ll be laughing, right? Probably not. She’ll be hitting puberty right about then.

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