White stamens with tiny puff, originally uploaded by Aunt Christina.

Well, I've been meaning to post for a couple of days, but it's been a crazy couple of days and I haven't gotten around to it. Work has been busy, with teen summer reading in full swing and programs like Recycled Crafts (where we made a wallet out of an old audio cassette tape, and tried to finger-weave a lei out of plastic grocery bags-- but did not have much success because despite doing it twice before at workshops, I just couldn't get the hang of it using only the photo directions :-( And we had a horse show at the farm two weeks ago; I took a bunch of photos of "my" horses in that, which you can see on my Flickr stream. (It rained for a solid hour during the English riding portion of the horse show, then the sun came out for the last half, when all the Western classes were on: does someone Up There have something against English riding style? :-)

My July Fourth started on Friday night with some great fireworks at the public park in Independence, Ohio--great place to be on Independence Day, eh? My friend Peggy had invited me along with her family and friends to watch the display together. I took some pretty decent fireworks photos, had some burgers and fair food, enjoyed the company. Then early Sat. morning I was up and in downtown Kent for the annual Kent Heritage Festival, which is a daylong party in the streets with craft and jewelry vendors, information booths, kids activities, a classic car show, lots of food vendors, and live music and dance troups on 3 stages. I sat at the PDC (Portage Democratic Coalition) booth for several hours, asking folks to sign a petition to get Single Payer Health Care onto the ballot in Ohio. Not the most fun way to spend the day--lots of people heard our "get health care for all Ohioans" plea and said "oh but I've got health care!" as if we were personally handing out health care to people. Sigh. And one woman was just so steamed at the idea that she spent five minutes yelling at the top of her lungs at us, despite our calm requests for her to stop yelling and just tell us her opinion like a civilized human being. We weren't twisting anyone's arm, it's just a petition to get the legislature to consider the idea for crying out loud. Anyway, that was a bit disconcerting. But I had the company of my good friend Kat and we enjoyed the weather (70's, sunny then overcast) and the smells (if not the sight) of the pig roasting on a spit right across the way from our booth. (!) The new cajun restaurant was advertising its pulled pork sandwiches (which were very tasty) with this poor naked burning pig, blecch. Quite a risky endeavor considering all of the vegetarians who live in Kent! But it was a very oft-photographed attraction...

The highlight of the day for me was getting to ride in the caboose! Of a train! Whoo-whoo!

It was only a twenty-minute ride up and back on the tracks running from downtown up along the river, but it benefitted the chamber of commerce and I've never been in a caboose before, so it was fun. We got to sit up high in the "cupola" seat and everything. Felt just like a little kid. Even had to wait at a crossing for the dumb car drivers to finish racing across the tracks: evidently the crossing arm didn't go down when it was supposed to, because we were sitting there for a few minutes blowing our whistle as these idiots kept driving across, right in front of us! Makes you wonder about people's IQ sometimes.



After the train ride we walked around enjoying the festivities, and ate a "butterfly fry", which my Nebraska friend cannellfan informs me is called a "spiral spud" or something like that where he comes from. I'd never seen these before, they were quite tasty--made out of one giant Idaho potato spun into one long curly strip. It was like a series of potato chips connected into one strip. Mmm.

I was to end the day with a quick jaunt down to the riverbank to watch the River Ducks Race: they drop about 1,000 rubber ducks (each sponsored for $5) into the river and the first duck to make it to the ending point wins. Something, I'm not sure what (enduring glory and its own song? Oh but Ernie already wrote that song.). So after stopping home to feed the horses I parked at the Kent Free Library and walked down the street to go to the river. THEN DISASTER STRUCK. (cue dramatic music, or rather, the silly Benny Hill music) As I prepared to cross the street at the curb, I looked up for cars, there were none, I glanced back down and stepped off the curb but wasn't looking closely and CRASH! I fell down. Landed on the outside of my right ankle instead of the bottom of my foot. I think I misjudged where I was on the curb; I thought I was on the high curb when I was angled to go over the ramped curb cut instead, so I had farther to land. I dunno, either way I'm an idiot. Passersby were very nice and helped me back up. Now I was mad, because all I wanted to do was see the silly ducks and then I was going to drive to my parents' house to enjoy a fried chicken picnic with them. So I hobbled over to see the ducks anyway, because I was that stubborn (and I was practically there anyway). That turned out to be more entertaining than expected, because one of the girls who dumped the box also had balance issues and slipped into the river! Got soaking wet. It was pretty funny, after we determined she wasn't hurt at all. (Those photos haven't been uploaded just yet, but the little duckies are very cute.) Then I drove home and asked my parents to come to me instead of me bringing the food to them.

Ever since then I've been resting my ankle, icing it, keeping it wrapped and elevated. I have had other people feeding the horses so I don't have to worry about that job, and I stayed home from the library for 3 days in a row. The ankle's much better now, still keeping it wrapped and staying off it as much as possible. But the swelling's all gone and it doesn't hurt unless I bump it. I have nearly all of my mobility back, but I'm not walking on it yet. I've been learning the fine art of walking on crutches, as well as a walker and a cane borrowed from friends, and I even used my office chair at home as a wheelchair :-) I will never take two good legs for granted again, lemme tell ya....