Friday August 4, 2017
This
was the weekend of the 30th annual Dublin Irish Festival. I was
eagerly anticipating it since we had such a good time last year and there were
some arts and crafts classes I wanted to participate in.
Like
last year, my husband and I met at the festival after I took the shuttle over
(it’s convenient since we both work pretty close to the festival grounds). It
was a nice sunny day, and unlike previous years not quite so hot, at least ten
degrees cooler than normal I would say, though it was still a little humid. I
had to keep my hair tied back since it was so windy though.
We
bought dinner from a couple different food trucks and sat down to eat in one of
the covered pavilions while listening to the first band warm up. When we were
finished we walked over to the tent where the Finger Loop Braiding class was
going to be held. Since Finger Loop braiding wasn’t Andrew’s cup of tea (and
there certainly weren’t many men in the tent), he left me to it and we met up
afterwards.
Although
Fr. Stephen Hayes gave a decent demonstration, I’m not always that quick to
pick up on things, and I was off to the side where he was giving the demo, so I
didn’t exactly have a front row seat. He basically showed us how we could make
a belt (or at least a long braided strand of yarn) while one of the volunteers
held the other end of his loops and helped push the braidings together. You use
five loops – two held on your left hand and the other three on your right hand
and you turn one hand, then loop your right over your left in some sort of a
sequential pattern (there are many different patterns you can do).
Still feeling
a bit confused and not too bothered to make a belt, I left the tent and decided
to meet up with Andrew a little bit early. Still, I guess I’m glad I attended,
but there was no way I was going to get my creation done in the approximately
20 minutes we had left after Fr. Hayes was done demonstrating and explaining
the procedure.
Our
next activity was Irish Laughter: Comic Irish Songs, a lecture and songs sung
by guitarist, singer and Greene Co. Librarian, Karl Colon.
This was the first
lecture either of us had attended at the festival, and it was definitely
interesting and entertaining. However, by this time in the evening the chill
was definitely starting to set in since the temperature was slowly dropping
down into the 60s while the wind kept up at a steady pace. Even Mr. Colon
commented on it and suggested people come closer to the front and huddle to
keep warm. “Who would have thought we’d ever be too cold at the Irish Festival?”
he joked. [it’s notoriously hot every year.] I later found out one of the
vendors sold out of all of their long sleeve hooded t-shirts, which is probably
a first.
Not
wishing to be a party pooper, we stayed for the last event on my list which was
Irish Ghost Stories being told by the foreign born, Yvonne Healy (who was
apparently reared with Irish language on an American Main Street). Andrew even
bought me a cup of wine with our last three liquor tokens hoping it might help
warm me up (not sure if it really helped, but definitely made me have to pee by
the time I was done with it).
The
two or three stories she told were really more silly than scary, but had to be
age appropriate for the mixed crowd. When she was most of the way through her
last story of the night a heckler started interrupting and asking her
questions, which was not only rude, but surprising as I’ve never been to an
event where a heckler has interrupted (except in maybe a comedy routine, but
even then…).
Needless
to say I was glad when her last story was over and we could head back to Andrew’s
car and warm up on the way home. We both agreed we definitely would have had a
better time had we both dressed warmer (I wanted my fleece jacket, hat, and
scarf).
Saturday August 5, 2017
Irish
Festival, Day 2….
Today
on the agenda was a Celtic Knot coaster class being held at noon in the same
tent as last night’s Finger Loop Braiding. Having gotten a good nine hours of
sleep, I felt well rested and ready to take on the world, so I was looking
forward to having more success with this class. However, I guess I overestimated
my ability to follow instructions by studying a series of photos. A kindly
gentleman sitting near me (who was apparently a Boy Scout troop leader) tried
to help me out with the first series of instructions, but gave up when it came
time to do the whole procedure a second time, which is how you get the multiple
layers for the knot. The instructor, Ms. Nancy Flynn suggested taping down our
piece of cord and making smallish loops since your coaster can only be so big
before it’s not a coaster anymore.
While
trying to follow along with the pictures I had flashbacks to doing the same
thing about a year ago when Andrew and I were trying to make origami cranes. I
got as far as about three or four pictures before I was lost, while Andrew
slowly proceeded onward and created a pretty nice crane that he took home and
still has displayed on a shelf in his room.
Later
in the evening Andrew and I were watching “The Great British Bake-off” when
their technical challenge was to create a “jumble” consisting of two different
biscuits (cookies) in the shape of two different Celtic knots, which everyone
totally struggled with (one baker got points off for not leaving any gaps
between the knots). I could definitely sympathize!
Needless
to say I failed again and sadly just brought home a strand of rope. “That’s one
expensive piece of string,” Andrew commented (since admission for that 45 min
cost me $10). The lady sitting to my right, who told me she is does editing and
proofreading for a living (too bad I didn’t get a chance to ask her more about
that) said she has an easier time with words than pictures. “Me too,” I agreed.
She grabbed her piece of string and left before I did, so I wasn’t the only one
who called it a day on that project. I might have stayed longer and tried it
again, but I was short on time since Andrew was picking me up to take me to his
company picnic at the Columbus Zoo (and food was only going to be out for
perhaps an hour or so).
Leading Edje
Summer Picnic at the Columbus Zoo…
Having
just been to the Toronto Zoo less than a month ago, neither of us were really
that excited by another visit to the zoo, but not wishing to be antisocial and
skip yet another company event (it’s been y-e-a-r-s since we’ve attended a
company picnic), we headed over in good spirits (even after having to park
about a half mile away). Upon arriving we helped ourselves to the buffet of
potato salad, hot dogs/sausages, pulled pork, bags of potato chips and bags of cookies
(I saw another company had an ice cream cart which I would have liked to have
helped myself to). After eating (we were pretty much the last ones to arrive)
and chatting briefly with some of his coworkers and Joelle, one of the founders
of the company, we headed out to see which animals were out.
Looking
at the map we decided to head to Asia. Our first stop was to see which baby
animals were on display. We lucked out and saw a couple sleepy Geoffroy cats.
According to Wikipedia, “Geoffroy's cat (Leopardus geoffroyi) is
a wild cat native to the
southern and central regions of South America. It
is about the size of a domestic cat. The
Geoffroy's cat is about the size of a domestic cat, but
has numerous black spots and dark bands on the cheeks, head and neck as well as
on the tail and limbs. The background colour of its fur varies from a
brownish-yellow coat in the northern part of its range to a more grayish coat
in the south. The underbelly hair is cream-coloured or even white. The backs of
the ears are black with white spots. Black individuals
are common.”
Definitely
the most unusual creature we saw all day was a golden Labrador in a pen with a
couple mixed breed foxes(?) of some sort.
All three seemed to be friends and
played together in this rather large enclosure. If I had to guess I’d say this
enclosure was/is also home to a Rhinoceros or perhaps a Hippopotamus, neither
of which we saw.
The
funniest site we saw was a pile of cats, literally, in the pen that houses a
lion and several members of its pride, most of which were sleeping overlapping
each other on the roof of their pen.
That’s not something I can imagine house
cats ever doing, unless maybe they’re still kittens, or perhaps members of the
same litter.
Hence,
even though we were prepared for a pretty routine day at the zoo, we still saw
a couple unusual things, so it was definitely worth a visit. Also, it was a
nice day to be out since the temperature & humidity was similar to the
previous day, so not a scorching summer day (which probably explains why it was
so crowded).
All
in all a pretty fun and busy weekend. Have a great week everyone!
