Festival Fun

Yesterday M and I and our band performed at a lawn music festival in town, and it was hot and fun. Being in our band is a highlight of my life, and after we got home I stayed up late ordering a sound system of our very own even though it cost us a house project or two.

But singing in the hot summer swelter wasn’t the only greatest part of my yesterday. Immediately after our set was up there was a “carry your spouse” race, with a first place prize of $20 to Cold Stone Creamery.

M dashed up to me. “Let’s do it,” she said. We lined up with the other giggling couples.

Did I want to win? You betcha. Unfortunately, ice cream, unlike perspective (as Hamlet says, “there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so”), doesn’t qualify for magical mental to physical materialization.

In the first race I charged around a sun shade tent and back to the finish line, cutting off competitors, M riding me like a jockey on a thundering steed. We landed in third place.

Then the announcer said the top three needed to race again. I gasped for more air, took off, and we found ourselves into an easy second place, and then, in the last ten yards, pulled from a ten-feet lag to a tie for first place.

“Maybe you two couples will just have to share the ice cream,” the announcer said. I didn’t hear who made the final call, though: the charging steeds were to now be the jockeys of their poor wives.

Now, M didn’t have a chance, really. Never mind that her counterpart has a two-month-old baby and is shorter; her counterpart’s husband is much shorter and slimmer than me.

The race host said, “Go!” and I hopped onto M’s back. She gasped and groaned loudly, then did a fabulous job of making second place look worthwhile, stumbling across the finish line under my two hundred pounds of ice cream loverness.

Finally, there was one more greatest part of the day. When another band played “Twist and Shout,” N took to dancing in the muddy pool where she’d spent a large portion of the day. I was able to film just a snippet:

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