I had such a vigorous (read: not stretched out on the couch immersed in a book) weekend, and so little sleep last night (thanks not to anything titillating but because some very loud storms rolled through starting at about 2 a.m. and the dog spent several hours panting loudly and whining nervously beside the bed, because he is a giant marshmallow), that I resemble a zombie today in both appearance and temperament.

MY COMPANY PICNIC

It was Friday afternoon and evening at a lovely park in Roseville. The food was good (chicken and barbecued ribs); there was a playground and many other short people for Andrew to play with; there were games; and there was a cooking contest, which, I am pleased and proud to report ...

KIP WON!

He concocted homemade pico de gallo, which was drop-dead delicious, and beat out an array of desserts that were alternately boring (chocolate chip cookies in a cooking contest? Really? Unless you're Mrs. Fields or Sweet Martha or Bob Tollhouse, I don't think so) or so sweet they'd send even non-diabetics into insulin shock. Granted, there were a few lovely things, such as the chocolate-and-whipped-cream-and-fresh-raspberry torte that my pal Sigrid entered, and with which she won the prize for Most Decadent. But Kip's pico was fabulous. The best I've ever tasted. If I wasn't already married to him, I'd marry him simply on the strength of that pico.

Anyway, Kip won an MP3 player, which he handed over to me, and which I will happily use once I figure out how the darn thing works, by cracky (which is what my sister Jennifer says whenever someone says something that makes them sound hopelessly old).

Oh, and we played bingo. I won twice and Andrew won once. We left before the other contestants, bitter about our success, could run us out of the park with pitchforks and torches.

THE RENAISSANCE FESTIVAL

It actually started the weekend of Aug. 18-19, but since the Twin Cities were being deluged with rain that weekend (and almost the entire following week, glub glub), we chose instead to stay indoors where we were in less danger of drowning. So we went on Saturday instead and scored our season tickets, confirming that we are, in fact, hopeless geeks. So you don't need to tell us, is what I'm saying. We embrace our geekhood.

It was a perfect day for the festival, and once again we enjoyed picking out the newbies who roamed about in boring t-shirts and shorts (yes, of course we dressed up; we always dress up. See above paragraph), gaping at those of us who were dressed for the occasion. Perhaps because I had my purple coin-bedecked belly-dancing scarf tied around my hips, I was pulled up to join a group of belly dancers and did OK until I got self-conscious and jumped back down, where Kip and Andrew were wildly applauding me, bless their biased hearts.

It was Highland Fling weekend, and I found my way about midafternoon to a booth where a woman was sitting behind piles of books. I picked up one and glanced through it; apparently this woman, Audrey McClellan, was the author of these books, a series of light novels set in Scotland (and appearing to be pretty well-written and well-edited), and not merely someone who was minding the store. I decided to buy the first one in the series, "Westering Home," and she asked for my name so she could autograph it. When I said, "Betsy," she said, "Oh, like the Betsy-Tacy books!" Once I had picked myself up off the ground, I started babbling about the listserv, blah blah blah, and she said she is a Minneapolis librarian who is very familiar with the books. I gave her instructions on how to join the listserv, but I don't know whether I came across as a normal person or as a crazed woman on crazy tablets at a crazy
convention, so she might or might not decide to come aboard. I really need to work on my delivery so I can actually convince people that joining the listserv is a good thing, rather than making them think that they should call security and have me removed from the premises.

THE STATE FAIR

We took Andrew late yesterday afternoon. Since we plan to go at least one more time later in the week, we did not feel pressure to do everything in one fell swoop. So Andrew rode on some of the kiddie rides, and we rode the Skyride and the trams that are suspended over Machinery Hill, and the Old Mill Ride, and we ate, which is one of the primary reasons to attend the Minnesota State Fair, the second largest in the country and, without question, the best. (You Texans, or even Iowans, can try to convince me otherwise, but your efforts will be futile.) Kip had three Pronto Pups (he always dedicates the first one to his late father, holding it up to the sky in a salute before he takes his first bite). He and I shared some cheese curds and some egg rolls. I had a crepe slathered with butter and sugar. Andrew ate popcorn, a foot-long hot dog, a bag of mini-doughnuts, a cinnamon-and-sugar crepe and some free packets of Ritz crackers that were inexplicably being handed out at a radio station booth. And he drank lots of root beer. We looked in vain for the Spam booth, because Andrew, a Minnesotan to the core, has recently developed a fondness for the stuff. We promised him we'd find it when we go later this week. (This is the kind of thing you do when you have a 6-year-old who is allergic to milk and dairy products and you are pathetically grateful to find another food that he not only can eat, but will eat.)

WHAT I'M READING (when not pursuing vigorous weekend activities)

"Shoe Addicts Anonymous" by Beth Harbison, which is lightweight but very enjoyable. "Keeping the House" by Ellen Baker, which is really good. And "The Saturday Wife" by Naomi Ragen, which is surprisingly lighthearted and droll, considering that the last book of hers that I read, "The Covenant," was really *not* lighthearted and droll, to put it mildly.

And that is quite enough from me today. I wish you all a lovely week, free of Spam and geeks and pitchforks.