There are about 60,000 residents in the town where I live, and we have a few thousand extra with the Katrina evacuees. This weekend, we are expecting 300,000 bikers and — well, whatever you call people who come, as tourists, to hang out with bikers.
There have been festivities going on since Wednesday.The traffic and the noise level have been horrifying. The police are out in force. That Man’s cousin is down on the square with his BBQ smoker and, I have it on good authority, a dancing skeleton in a do-rag.
The place where #1 son works has a sign up: “Welcome, Bikers!” There are lots of signs like this around, but this particular little shopping center contains an optometrist, a wedding planner, and a beauty salon, so I am having a little trouble envisioning a lot of biker activity there. I could be wrong.
I was checking out at the grocery store and I asked the white haired old lady next to me whether she was going to go down and see the motorcycles.
“Well,” she said, blushing, “I was asked to ride…”
I’m envisioning a parade float of some kind here.
“… but I haven’t ridden in years.”
Ah. A procession of bikers, perhaps, inviting a stalwart former motorcycle mama to join them.
“Besides, he’s married.”
I quickly readjust my thoughts.
“I thought it was sort of tacky of him to ask me.”
I agreed with her, adding a bit of shocked disapproval to my expression. Apparently, it is Not Done to ride around on a Harley with a married man. He should have known.
“Anyway, if he’ll cheat on his wife, he’ll cheat on you too,” the lady finished up.
I don’t know what kind of geriatric hijinks are going on down at the biker festival. Maybe I’ll go down myself and see.
However, I have a lot of housework to do first, and I need to get onto that fact-checking, and I am really hoping to finish Brooklyn’s right 
sleeve. I also have a baby shower to go to tomorrow, and I was wanting to make something for that. This does not sound like a realistic plan for the day.
Here are the sleeves of Brooklyn — the completed left sleeve on the right, just to keep things interesting, and the other sleeve, striving to be just like the completed one when it grows up.
Hey, thanks for all your comments. The reason I think there may be an LD involved is he has very specific problems with hearing vowel sounds, Rs, and also sequencing of letters. It’s not just because he is behind.
Although, he doesn’t have these problems with numbers, so it may just be that he hasn’t had the practice he would need to be ready for school. I do think that’s a consideration, too.
Or it may be a combination of these things. Regardless, all my boys have been late talkers, and have had problems with annunciation. It has been borderline and hasn’t really interefered much with their lives, so I (and their doctor) didn’t worry too much about it until now. I just want them assessed now they are in school. So if there is a problem, and their brains are working extra hard just trying to compensate for something, we know and can get them the help they need.
And, really, thanks for saying this:
“I see a lot of parents upset because of their kids’ performance in school, but really it doesn’t matter. There are always kids in every class who are below grade level. It is the teachers’ jobs to help them try to get to where they want them to be — especially now with test mania around — but it isn’t a problem unless it becomes a source of stress and shame for the kids. “
And!… I think we should invent the scratch-n-sniff blog.
300,000 bikers! Are you sure that number is correct? That’s more than twice the population of where I live – your city-town wouldn’t have the room for them.
And yes, dictionary defintions would not be good adjuncts to hymns – they really foul up the scansion.
Disruptive, lucrative – and crazy. I guess there must be a few places like that here in Otago. Queenstown expands its population in winter (skiing) and Christmas/New Year (very big, very boozy parties). Alexandra has just had its Blossom Festival so I guess that its population grew some as well. That doesn’t happen in my town however. We lose about a sixth of our population come November when all the students go home.
I think I’m glad I visited when I did. The way you feel about driving – I tend to feel about crowds. If I’m ever that way again, perhaps I’ll just avoid Autumn Fall however beautiful the trees may look at this time of the year.
Hilarious.
The funniet thing I’ve heard all weekend and I’ve heard some pretty funny stuff.