Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Taste of Fun

Last weekend we made the trek to the big city of Fort Wayne to see Grandma. We like to hit the town when there is some sort of goings on. In this case, it was Taste of The Arts, "downtown Fort Wayne's premiere arts and food festival."

I started out the weekend by scrambling out of the house and out to a cafe near Oliver's school to do one last conference call and cram a soup and sandwich down and before grabbing him and hitting the road. This adventure started at 12:30 for a 1:00 call. Off to get Oliver at 2:00, then out to Eric's office to get him (in HORRIBLE traffic -- a 30 min trip took an hour). So at this point, I'm feeling like a CTA bus driver with all these stops and pick-ups and a little like the victim of poor route planning (again, not unlike the CTA -- sorry Emily) to go west to get Eric then to head east to Indiana.

[Blogger's confession: I had planned a told-ya-so commentary about the irrationality, inconvenience, and unnecessary length of our route. However, while generating the Google map to illustrate my point, I discovered that it's really just about a 10-mile difference to run out and get Eric before going east. It's just a long drive, no matter how you chalk it up. Still think I'm sticking to my guns and making Eric drive downtown next time instead of the perpetuating the standard of curbside service.]

In any case, suffice it to say that it was a LONG trip. We managed to arrive just before Oliver's bedtime, but of course, he fell asleep in the car just as we were pulling into town, didn't survive the attempt at smooth transition, got overly excited to be at grandma's house, and ended up staying up way later than he should have.


We had a great time at the Taste of the Arts on Saturday -- and on our way, a quick stop at the Barr Street Market, because who can resist a Farmers Market, right? At the taste, Oliver spent most of his time trying to climb up on this huge orange sculpture. We watched some belly dancers and some inner-city youth strut their stuff on the performance stage. We ate sausages and drank beer and sampled cheesecake and spicy pasta. Good times. Then we came back to the house for nap time -- for all of us. Lots of zzzzzz's in that house.


Upon waking, it was, of course, time for more food, so we whipped up some turkey burgers and fired up the grill. Before we could get very far into the meal prep, though, Oliver set his sights on some corn we had bought at the Farmers Market. So Grandma shucked it for him as she endured the sound of his gruntlike chant: "Co, co, co," which escalated in intensity to the point where I suggested snarkily, "Just snap it in half and give it to him raw," thinking that either he wouldn't be able to eat it or it wouldn't taste good and he would lose interest, at least until we could get some water boiled to properly cook it. But I was wrong. Very wrong. That kid ate every last kernel off the cob and then sucked any remaining juice until there was simply nothing left. We all thought it was very cute and funny and took a series of photos to commemorate:


What wasn't so cute was the diaper aftermath the next morning. Traumatizing. Seriously traumatizing. But anyway... I digress. After dinner Oliver was quite cooperative and went to bed (we must have really worn him out) and Eric and I took the opportunity to go see a movie: Away We Go at the "dollar" theater. I really liked it. Eric thought it was just OK. Really can't beat an Under $10 date, though: 2 McDonald's sundaes ($2.16), 2 Movie Tickets ($6), Change ($1.84).

Sunday we hit breakfast at Sara's, a home-cooking family restaurant and another of our Fort Wayne favorites (although I think we decided that our standby Ashley's Skillet over there has fallen from grace a bit). After breakfast, we needed our nature fix, so went to Fox Island (a 605 acre park, which contains the largest contiguous forest in the county. Six miles of marked trails through the preserve enable visitors to enjoy the beauty of the park.) While we didn't hit the full six miles of marked trails, we did have a nice walk around the small lake that is part of the park. So nice. A little mosquito-y, but so nice. And we got our fix of critters, too: frogs and butterflies and ground squirrels. Then it was home for naps again. As Grandma and Oliver snoozed, Eric and I hit the road for some toddler-free errand running. A little less than inspired, we went to Target and loaded up on fall clothes for Oliver. Then, sadly, it was time to pack up and head back home.

1 comment:

mrsjtg said...

Your mom looks great! I can still hear her voice in my head. What she must of thought of the crazy Joan and Denise duo. "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, Shlamiel, Shlamazel." Damn we were awesome! And our skating routines to the Xanadu soundtrack...classic style!