We all went to the Fat Tire Festival today in Tempe. It was ridiculously hot. We are all sunburned, and we are all exhausted from the effects of the sun. Had there been, maybe, 20 less degrees outside, it would have been a perfect day, but, we are in Arizona, and such things don't happen coolly in the desert in October. The interesting part about the festival though, was how the event organizers seem to have underestimated the population of the are that would attend the event, by about half. It just seemed as though there was half of everything that should have been there, for the amount of people that were there. Only two beer tents. Only four food stops. Only two water stations. Lines for beer, of course, were incredible, and stretched about 200 to 300 feet. They moved quickly, which was nice, but still, we could have used another two beer tents. And another two water stations. And certainly, more food options.
One thing that they did have there was a Vaudeville-type entertainment tent, with about six shows, which started about every half hour. The show that Katy, Sydney and I saw was The Monster Show, which we were assured, was a kid-friendly show. First of all, the show was in a small-ish tent, which seated about 40 people. There were two air-conditioning units, but they were small, and the overall environment just wasn't conducive to the machines really doing a lot for us in the tent. Too many people, a black tent made of velvet and heavy draping, and 40 people that were toasted to at least 100 degrees each. Sydney, Katy and I sat in the second row, between a man on the aisle and a woman at the wall. I sat between Sydney and Katy.
The show starred two "monsters," a guy and a girl dressed in weird black clothes with bizarre face makeup, doing weird things. They didn't speak, but made faces and grunted a lot. They threw confetti and balloons, did dances, and were genuinely entertaining. Sydney laughed her butt off throughout the whole thing. Of course, there was plenty of weirdness, but that made the show even better. At the end, as the "monsters" were making their final bows, they wandered into the audience to lightly lick, and touch their tongues to audience members. (I told you there was weirdness. This actually made perfect sense in the plot of the show.) The guy monster came to the end of our row, and leaned in, as if to lick Katy. But he actually was leaning farther in, and was going for my shoulder. I leaned away as far as I could, but then just sat there, waiting for it to happen, and resigned to dealing with it. The guy leaned closer. His tongue was about half an inch away from my shoulder when this little arm shot out from my right side and SMACKED the monster on the face. "Don't lick my mommy!," she hollered to him! It was so awesome! To his credit, the monster stayed in character, pretended to slink away, and made his return to the stage. And Sydney was so proud of herself for protecting me from the monster. "People don't lick people, Mommy, and when he was going to, I
smacked his face so he wouldn't!" I'm very proud of her, too. She can't stop talking about it!
Easily, the best part of the whole day!
