I went to the county fair on Sunday. Since I did such an obsessively thorough job of documenting that event last year, I will feature just a few highlights in this year's post.
First, the parking lot attendant:
Oh, sure, there are always one or two others on foot directing traffic, but the real authorities in the parking area are the ones on horseback. How do you disobey someone who is 50 feet tall and reminds you of every TV lawman you saw whilst growing up?
It seemed that my attendance coincided with local, homegrown music of different kinds:
The tall, shiny-headed gentleman in the back row just left of center is on the county board and the finance committee with me. I sorta kinda knew he was in the Indianhead Men's Chorus, but I didn't know exactly what that was. Now I do. That bunch of men was so full of energy they practically vibrated. I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but I think every one of them was poised on the balls of his feet, ready to leap from the risers if needed. Clearly, they were having a lot of fun.
This is a community band of some sort; I didn't see an identifying sign. The clarinet player visible just to the left of the director is a friend who was in one of my book groups until it fell apart. I didn't know she played in a band. (Note to self: I need to get out more.) Her husband is an undercover cop whose cover was blown when his photo appeared in Rolling Stone. Yeah, I hang out with celebrities. BranJolina and the kids are coming for drinks tomorrow.
The flowers outside the building where I worked were eye-catching.
Let's take a closer look at those delphiniums, shall we?
Truly blue flowers -- not lavender, not pinkish-mauve, but really, really blue -- are rare. The only ones I know of that grow in the Midwest are delphinium (short-lived perennials), bachelor buttons (annuals), and Siberian squill (spring bulbs). There are probably others in warmer parts of the world, but they are there and I am here. Fun facts to know and tell: the reason blue flowers are so rare is that that was the most recent flower color to evolve. In other words, hang around a few more hundred thousand years and there will be blue flowers all over the place. The very first blooms were green; over the millenia, flowers evolved to become showier and more colorful -- yellow, white, orange, red, pink, purple, and, eventually, blue -- to better attract pollinators. These certainly attracted me.
