Nations: gotta catch'em all!

We went to the Festival of Nations today, part of the slow exploration of our new home that K and I have undertaken. It was frankly disappointing. I'll be honest, it can take a lot for this type of festival to satisfy me. I enjoyed it, yeah, but I won't go back next year. Mostly because of the food.

Food is a crucial piece of any gathering as well as an immediate cultural identifier. A well-read or well-fed man could say that food is magic. Kirke turned Odysseus's crew into pigs with her meal; Andhrimnir cooks a feast every night for the heroes of Valhalla. Half of the reason to go to the Festival of Nations was the thirty-four food vendors, from German on one side to Brazilian on the other. Everyone knew that.

Which is why the crowd along the row of food tents was near impenetrable. Most of the time you couldn't see a menu without fighting through the lines. We managed to get some kabobs from Greece-tent and feijoada from Brazil-tent before giving up on getting anything else from the gauntlet. At three in the afternoon of the last day, when hawkers were crossing items off their menus because they had run out of food, the lines were as long at every one of the food sellers as we had seen them. There was no slackening of interest or appetite, no one rushing to the music stages or joining the circle-dancing hippies. The crowd actually seemed to grow as time went on, mocking us. They might as well have turned to us and said, "We're getting a Romanian dessert and you're not. Also, we bought all the beer at the drink tent, all they have left is Diet Coke. Chump."

I'm convinced that the crowd can be beaten. If you started early Saturday, I'm sure by Sunday afternoon you could try something from each of the sellers. Move from one line to the next, methodical, patient, inexorable, and you'll eat your way from Belize to Bosnia and Eritrea to Ethiopia. Look, not many cuisines started with E. The point is you could work your way through the food booths. And I bet that after three or four booths, the magic starts to wear off. You'd be spending as much time in line as you would eating. People who know me may not realize that I consider "completing a set" to be a holy act, but even I would grow restless working that much just to eat something wrapped in goddamn grape leaves.

The rest of the festival was dominated by textiles. Nearly everyone was selling clothes and not much else. There was a highland contingent throwing sheafs and cabers but you can't spend an entire afternoon watching bags of straw get thrown over a pole. There was an ebru painter, which was actually mesmerizing. That's exactly the kind of thing I want to watch for hours, and would have if the crowd hadn't been so thick. No shit, it's like they grabbed some flan and just followed us around the park.

We had to stop for ice cream on the way home. Had to. I almost got whiplash when I saw the sign. The logo isn't quite the same, but it's close.

More dramatic than Shakespearean gophers

Names have been changed to protect me. I may not be innocent, but I have to work with these people.

In the mail room, we sometimes have to cover the reception desk. We used to cover the receptionist, Briana, when she went to lunch, but a few weeks ago Ette, one of the (former) executive secretaries, moved to building services, next to the mail room, and took over covering the front desk. This caused some celebration in the mail room, because my coworkers Hal and Shelly hated covering reception.

Last week, Briana and Ette worked off-site destroying documents with two reps from the home office. Ette was supposed to be there for one day while Briana was going to be gone for the whole week. That would have meant Ette manning reception and Hal or Shelly covering her for lunch.

Monday Briana and Ette started an hour late because the documents had been pulled from storage. They also got a three-hour lunch, and decided they were having so much fun that Ette should stay at the off-site all week. They didn't start work on time during the project. The out-of-town reps also wanted to go sight-seeing while they were here and asked if Briana and Ette would show them around town. Neither of them had time in the evenings for it, so they told the reps it would have to be before four-thirty. One of the reps had a company car and gas card, but she told Briana to keep them both because the rep didn't know her way around town.

Hal and Shelly blew up when they heard about this. Not only did they have to cover reception all day, they were covering for people taking super-lunches and playing tour guide. Hal answered the phones with feeling, when he wasn't taking a nap and bothered to turn the phone system on. He and Shelly have both stated with feeling that Briana shouldn't ask them for any help again. I hope it's clear what feelings they have. It is primarily anger, with a pinch of spite for spice.

Because I'm still capable of having a conversation with Briana, I've found out the situation wasn't as bad as Hal and Shelly imagined. Nobody was playing tour guide. Briana had the car because the out-of-town rep told her to take it. She and Ette had a long lunch Monday and Monday only, because the off-site didn't have the documents ready; should they be expected to come back to work for an hour and drive right back? I think Shelly will get over this, but Hal is going to hold on to it until either he or Briana isn't there anymore. Probably longer.

And there's Al. Al and Sally carpool every day; Al is married, Sally is single. Both are middle-aged, kind of heavy, average people. They are probably the only two native English speakers in their department. For much longer than I've been there, Al and Sally have been watched around the office for tell-tale signs of romance or, at least, the sex. The absence of definite signals hasn't slowed the rumor mill. That changed Thursday when Hal and two people from building services were coming back from lunch, around one-thirty, and saw Al and Sally walking into the hotel two blocks from our office building. This sighting fueled nearly an hour of discussion involving everyone in and near the mail room. All the corners were dusted, from why were they walking to what were they doing, and how did they pay to what does she see in him. Hal used to work at another hotel from the same chain; he enlightened us as to their reasonable daytime rate structure, and stated there is no restaurant in that hotel.

Sociology indicates that Al and Sally walked rather than lose their parking space, that Sally paid so that Al's wife wouldn't notice the deficit, and that they had the sex. If you want to know what any woman sees in any man, you have a lot to learn about women. Meanwhile, the office is watching with bated breath.

Tomorrow an executive will be visiting our office, ostensibly to fire people. Lots of people. Possibly three digits of people. I'm taking a perverse pleasure in thinking about the shit getting stirred since we know our contract for the mail room won't be extended. We're getting kicked out, but that's five months from now, and somebody's getting booted now.

Oh, and Briana is buying food stamps from someone in maintenance. I don't know if she's paying less than face-value, but I don't think she would deal if she wasn't.

Dana

I was seven years old and ready to cross the line with her. we didn't just get in the sack, we put on rubber, there were rubbers for everyone. Thirty people, children, students, in all, plus the voyeurs. She was bound, strapped for me. I saw the grassy field and felt my anticipation grow. All the boys and girls paired off and it started. We were pumping hard from the get-go, a machine with three legs. We may have finished before the others, the watchers may have given us the prize. I don't remember much except being so close to her body, arms around shoulders, hips against hips, so excited and nervous, the pounding heart, the ragged breathing, gasping and sweating when it was over.

I write very poor poetry. Pity me and my madness.

Reunion

Right now people I went to school with
are gathered on a golf course
7 hours away
reliving four years of high school
and the ten years since.

I declined the invitation.

They are probably all wishing
that the drinks were cheaper
and that the company was better.

My drinks are cheap enough
and the company here - nobody - is fine.
We have the most interesting conversations
while I write this,
and no one is ashamed of being
in Cincinnati or the Navy
because no one at the table
is in Cincinnati or the Navy.

I'm buying a round for everyone at the table
and you, too.

Drink up.
I have avoided the company of strangers
one more time
and that is cause for celebration
even if this poem isn't.