Yesterday my sister and I went to the L.A. County Fair.Yes, L.A. has a fair. I know. It's more than slightly bizarre and hard to wrap your mind around, but it's actually very nice. Lil' Sis wanted to go because some of her students (have I mentioned she teaches high school English?) were working, and she wanted to do the whole Supportive Teacher Thing. Well that, and the fair is always a most excellent opportunity to gorge yourself on totally inappropriate food choices. Here are some random observations on the day:
1) Oh. My. God. H-O-T! Hot, hot, hot. So, hot. Insanely hot. Inhumanely hot.
2) When it's so incredibly hot outside it's hard to gorge yourself on inappropriate food choices. Nothing sounds good because it's so bloody H-O-T out.
3) I love bacon and I love chocolate but chocolate covered bacon is so wrong on a whole lotta levels.
4) You can deep-fry just about anything. No really, you can! Oreos, Snickers bars, Twinkies, S'Mores - you name it, someone was probably deep-frying it at the fair.
5) L.A. lacks "real" carnies. Maybe it's from my growing up in the Midwest, but carnies are supposed to wear Metallica T-shirts, have a grand total of ten teeth, practice questionable personal hygiene and operate carnival rides that look about 25% safe. All the rides at the L.A. County Fair looked safe, clean and the "carnies" were well-groomed, practiced good personal hygiene, had all their teeth, and were wearing blue polo shirts. Maybe L.A. recruits for carnies at Old Navy?
6) Oh. My. God. Did I mention how hot is was? Seriously. H-O-T.
7) Nothing says L.A. County Fair quite like seeing a giant white mushroom cloud off in the distance silhouetting the Ferris wheel. Yep, fires still burning.
8) I understand that when you have a baby, you do need to "get out" in order to not lose your mind. But did I mention how hot it was? And how many teeny, tiny babies (as in infants!) I saw at the fair? Seriously people. Where are your brains? Wait, stupid question. No need to answer that.
9) It was Karaoke Day, and Lil' Sis refused to get on stage and rap Jump Around by House of Pain. Yeah, she sucks.
10) I got my white trash fix, and Lil' Sis got her scary tattooed gangsta fix. It was all good.
11) Miracle of miracles, I didn't get too sunburned. Thank you SPF 45.
12) They do have animals at the L.A. County Fair (and not just of the human variety). Although gotta say there seemed to be an exorbitant number of goats this year. Cute baby goats - but still, what was with all the goats? Other highlights? Baby piglets next to the largest sows I've ever seen (like, the size of my couch!), rabbits, horses, and milk cows.
Now I leave you with one of my favorite commercials for the fair. Yeah, it's kinda like this.
19 comments:
I am so jealous. I love the fair and when I lived in LA my best friend & I went together every year. I miss it to a ridiculous degree. Although I don't miss the heat because it is always hot enough to make you feel like you're going to keel over. What is up with that?
As for the deep fried food---LA County is way behind the times. Some guy at the Texas State Fair is deep frying butter this year.
And about the goats---the reason it seemed like there was an excessive number of them is that you were there during goat judging. The animals in that section change according to the judging schedule. If you went back in a few days it would be all cows or sheep or whatever.
Funny, funny post.
I just can't enjoy fairs the way I used to now that I'm a parent. All the rides and food are so expensive, and the company somewhat unsavoury!
Chocolate covered bacon? *shudder*
I'm betting the plethora of goats is due to the economy. It's MUCH cheaper to raise a goat (they'll eat just about anything) than to raise a cow or pig.
(It's truly sad that I know that.)
And what's up with the LA county fair being AFTER the state fair?
I prefer our tiny little county (make that 2 county) fair up here. We're so small, two counties get together. We're hyphenated.
And yeah, new parents lose their common sense due to sleep deprivation. It's the only excuse I can think of to take infants out in the summer heat.
Carnies wearing polo shirts? That's just WRONG. And while I can see it being too hot for candy apples, it's hard to believe it would ever be too hot for cotton candy. And I have to admit - chocolate covered bacon is just about one of the weirdest things I've ever heard of.
LoriK: OMG - I saw that story about the deep-fried butter. Part of me was horrified and the other part of me wondered why someone hadn't thought of it sooner - LOL
Fiona: I hear you! Since Lil' Sis and I went on Day 1 of the fair we took advantage of the special they were running. Admission was only $1 from 10AM-1PM :) But yeah - it is expensive. Big Sis always waits to take her kids on bracelet day. I think it's $5 for a bracelet, and then you can ride all the rides you want ALL day.
Katie: I know! Doesn't that sound gross? I love bacon. And I love chocolate. But together? Ewww.
BBB: I didn't think about that. You might be on to something there. Goats literally will eat just about anything and everything.
Since September is always the hottest dang month in So. Cal. you would think L.A. would have their fair sooner.
Kristie: I know! Clean, well-groomed, polo shirts, full set of teeth?!?! I wasn't sure what to make of them :)
It was so hot it robbed us of any appetite. Which is a shame since they had some damn fine smelling barbecue going. All that sounded good in that heat was ice cream - which is what we had.
I went to the Canadian National Exhibition Saturday (basically a huge fair) and it was super hot too waiting in line for the rides! I'm so pale I had to reapply sunscreen every hour on the hour! Some bday for me lol. I should have rethought that whole experience. Getting too old for some rides lol.
LOL My parents are at the CA state fair this week.
I snorted my tea at about 2 and again at 4.
We had real carnies at our local fair when I was growing up too. I haven't been to a fair in years, but still remember it was always the hottest week of the year, the rides never looked safe, and you got to eat some of the best junk food. Will have to make a point to get to the fair when it comes around next year.
Alie: We totally skipped the rides. I've never been good on "spinnie" rides, and Lil' Sis tends to get motion sickness. Mostly we walked around, people watched, saw her students, and took in some of the exhibits.
Aymless: What a dutiful little blogger you are! Checking in from the road while driving cross country. Didn't comment on your most recent post, but sounds like the drive is going well.
Liza: I was really looking forward to the junk food, but it was so hot that nothing sounded good. Just the idea of grease was enough to turn my stomach.
Lil Sis is one dedicated and good teacher. I don't know if I would go out in that heat for my own kids.
Oh and WHAT IS UP with all the deep frying of stuff? Do we really need deep fried snickers bars?
It's good to know that carnies are the same the world round!
Rosie: Big Sis has told me that deep-fried Snickers are highly overrated. The only deep-fried concoction that sounded slightly intriguing were the deep-fried s'mores. But ugh - so hot. Way too hot to eat anything that had been frying in a vat of oil.
Sarah T: Well everywhere except L.A. I'm not kidding. The guys (and girls) operating the games and rides all looked like they could be working at The Gap - LOL.
Is the L.A. county fair still out in Pomona? My mother's family all lived down there, and we used to go if our summer vacation was timed right. My uncle was a champion hog caller at that fair many times. Ah, good memories.
It was also ALWAYS effing hot.
SonomaLass: Yep, still in Pomona and still effing hot! LOL
Our small northern Michigan town uses the same carnival outfit for both Alpenfest and the County Fair. Every. Year. So yeah...my 6-year-old knows those carnies--true carnies in every way--on sight, LOL. And I think they know him.
Too bad it was too hot to enjoy fair food...on a trip most give themselves a free pass to eat whutever they want. Ah well. Next year.
Damn! I bet I coulda won the contest if I rapped Jump Around! Ah well - too late now. :( Next year maybe...or how about Rapper's Delight? :)
OMG,when you mentioned carnies.
There was a traveling carnival that came to Houston one winter and while we were there over Xmas with the in-laws, we took the kidlets and went.
And it was the first time I'd seen people with such a lack of teeth in the United States of America.
I came home and I pondered a long time on it, thinking along social strata and poverty level and lack of good healthcare and whatnot.
I never knew the bad teeth was an occupational hazard of being a carnie.
Is there any reason other than that they don't have dental insurance? Most people in China didn't have dental insurance when I was growing up and went to a dentist only when a tooth hurt too much. And I didn't see teeth like that.
(Is there meth involved?)
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