Mmm...cheese curds

Okay, so I'm home from the fair. What a great day. Pure sunshine with only 75 degrees. Normally this would be too cold for me, but it translates to 85 degrees Fair temp so it worked out. We ate a lot of food, drank a lot of beer and generally had a wonderful time. It didn't start out that great though. We decided to use the park & ride from Northtown mall. The lot was too full so I had to park kind of far away. Annoyed. We pay our $5 and get on the bus. Waiting, hungry. The bus driver is reading a paper and waiting for more people to get on before leaving. Still hungry. An obnoxious alarm begins to sound. Brett, being hung-over from his 10 year reunion is not pleased. Still hungry. Okay, so eventually the bus driver tells us that the bus is breaking down as we sit there and we need to get off and use the bus that has pulled in behind us. Fine, we move and get on our way. A little hitch, but I give the park & ride system at Northtown mall an overall thumbs down (partly due to the ride home where the bus driver decided to take the scenic route). Either way...we made it into the fair, with its masses of Minnesotans. People-watching at its best. Overly short shorts, fanny packs galore, people pushing strollers while looking the opposite direction (Jessica's fave), 2 year-olds having been subjected to the "Fair-Do" by their mothers, mass chaos at the corn roast. We decided to use a method of community food which worked out quite well. I don't think any of us felt icky-full at any point during the day. We tried the deep fried green beans and gave it a resounding two thumbs up! The "Perfect pickle" (deep fried pickle slices) was a little disappointing, possibly because the slices were lava hot, but still tasty. The fried bacon-on-a-stick was really yummy, but that was expected...bacon=yum. We did not partake in the pickle popsicle (frozen pickle juice in a Mr. Freeze-type plastic sleeve thingy), but there's always next year. The deep fried Twinkie almost cost Brett his life as he inhaled the powered sugar before even taking a bite. Jessica got her berries and cream only to find a better berries and cream stand later on...she had both. Or rather WE had both...yummy. Un-cored strawberries with Reddi-Whip the first time and then cored strawberries with Cool Whip the second time. I say good both ways, but Jessica prefers the cored berries with Cool Whip. Kevin got cajun seasoned shrimp-on-a-stick and gave a thumbs up. Brett got deep friend oysters...he claims they were good. I'm sure they probably were, deep fried anything is good. Funny thing was both Jessica and I somehow were picturing oysters on the half shell when he said that's what he was getting. Apparently we both forgot that we were in the land of "if you can, fry it". Of course we also had the staples of fair food: pronto pups (corn dogs), corn and the cob, cheese curds (OMG...yum) and cheese-on-a-stick. We even wandered through the Grandstand building, the Progress building (filled with all things green and eco-friendly), and the Home Improvement building (found carpet made from corn!). Like I said, it was a great day at the Minnesota State Fair. I highly recommend the fried green beans. They can be found in the Food building at the O'Gara's stand. Mmm.

I love storms, but come on!

I don't know how, but my car escaped hail damage even though I was literally driving through a hailstorm. It's nothing short of amazing. I was on my way to California Pizza Kitchen at Arbor Lakes in Maple Grove to meet my girls for dinner and drinks before heading to the theater to see Sex & The City. As I was driving down 94 I looked to the right and saw that it looked to be raining pretty hard over the shopping area, so I rolled up my windows and closed the moon roof in preparation. Oh, was I in for a shock!! I took a right onto Hemlock Lane and drove directly into a hailstorm. OMG! I didn't know what to do. I kept driving, albeit very slowly, but I wasn't sure if it would do any good to stop. I called my friend to let her know what was going on and she said that she could barely hear me over the sound of marble sized hail slamming into my poor car. With every bang and thump I could just picture the damage that I was going to have to deal with. I kept waiting for glass to break...it was really scary. I finally made it to the parking lot by CPK and sat there wondering what I should do. Strong winds were blowing tiny trees sideways and I was told that the area was under a tornado warning. My sister called to make sure that I was okay and told me I should make run for it and get inside instead of being a sitting duck in my car. Just after she said that, it stopped. It stopped hailing and raining and the sun peaked out a little. I wasn't sure if this was the calm before the real storm or not, but I made a break for it and ran into the restaurant. I was shaken a bit, but after a couple of raspberry mojitos all was well.

And Sex & The City was SO GOOD!!! It was pretty cool being in a theater that was almost all women. There is a scene involving an amazingly fantastic closet and when Carrie opened the doors and we first saw it, all the women in the theater gasped and ah'ed. It was hilarious! I'm so glad that I got to see it with my sister and two of my close friends. I was missing Kristy though :(

And afterwards I met up with a friend from college that I haven't seen in years. It was great to see her and have a couple of cocktails. Also, her friends were very cool. One boy in particular piqued my interest. We'll see...that story may have to be continued.