Mt. Tabor, Portland, Oregon

An all new video wherein Ronin has a second encounter with a yam. As you can see she still hasn’t quite figured out how to deal with “solids.”

Ronin had her six-month checkup and shots the other day. She was really good and showed off all her milestones for the doctor. The shots were horrible as usual and Dora the nurse again traumatized the three of us with her breezy sense of incompetence. Ronin crashed out the moment we got home, slept for an amazing hour and a half, and woke up crying. She didn’t stop until we put her to bed early. She hasn’t stopped yet. Oh, I’m kidding, sort of. She has been seriously cranky the past four days and yesterday evening/last night/this morning was horrible. I can’t figure out if it has to do with the shots still or something else. Everyone says (everyone = strangers off the street), “OH, she’s teething! Aren’t you? Yes you ARE!” because she likes to chew and slobber on stuff. Of course, I’m all, “She didn’t just agree with you, she doesn’t even speak English.” But I do check on a near-hourly basis to see if emerging dental action is the cause of her beastly temper, but no, nothing there but a bunch of squishy gums. And slobber.

(Stats: 17 pounds, 26.25 inches long, 17-inch head circ. Big girl! All around 60th-ish percentile.)

Three days ago we were thinking we maybe should get a stroller and now we have two of them. Stroller number one is a BOB we got used off Craigslist (we are officially yuppies starting NOW) and the other we found in the trash (dumpster-diving yuppies!). I like to think the free dumpster stroller sort of takes the edge off the super-fancy BOB but unless I put a bumper sticker on the BOB that says “My other stroller I got out of the trash,” I don’t suppose anyone will actually realize that I’m not just another suburban mom walking around with her bright red $300* jogging stroller but in fact, like some kind of dangerously hip crime-fighting super-anime ninja** in disguise.

Of course we didn’t set out to get the BOB stroller, not that I didn’t know they existed, but I considered them to be the ultimate in dorky jock extravagance. I mean, you can get a NEW jogging stroller for less than $100 and why buy new when you can get one even cheaper from Craigslist. Here’s where we went astray. 1) Accidentally touched a BOB stroller in a bike shop we were browsing while waiting for our Lebanese takeout. 2) Put Ronin in it and pushed her around in circles, “DANG this is nice.” 3) Started searching Craigslist for a used stroller; boggled minds at the confounding range in prices and the god-awful photos people take of the zillions of brands and models. 4) Went to Babies R Us to actually look at all the brands in person. Except Babies R Us is a horrid store so evil that despite 13 square acres of baby merchandise, you still can’t find anything you actually want. Also, can I just say now that if you EVER hear me suggesting, “Why don’t we just go to Babies R Us to look at all the models so we have something to compare when we’re browsing Craigslist,” smack me a good one. 5) We hated every single stroller in Babies R Us. 6) We started browsing BOBs used on Craigslist (it’s all downhill from here). 7) Justified ourselves thinking that if we could just get a really great deal on a used (but in essentially brand-new condition and not last-year’s model either) BOB, we could sell it again when we’re through for what we paid for it. 8) It’s red.

* That’s what they cost NEW. Not used off Craigslist haha, whew! But ours looks brand new so everyone must think I bought it new and spent $300 on a stroller for god’s sake. Can you tell I am nursing something of a complex about this? Give me a couple of weeks for my eyes to adjust to the red and my sensitive nerves to settle.

** Oh I’m kidding! I’m not really very hip.

ps – Stroller number two is a lightweight umbrella stroller which folds up into a tidy, um, umbrella-like shape.

pps – We don’t have a photo of the Contraption yet.. I’ll try to get one today.

“It’s kind of like the Renaissance Faire except with hippies.” This was Michelle’s take and I’ve never been to a Renaissance faire but 40,000 people pining for 1969 instead of 1540 seems like it ought to be a marked difference. However, I’m sure she’s right; we had food, we had crafts, we had entertainment, and we had dust. Lots of dust. And we had a great time.

[Set against a backdrop of dust and hippies.]

Our first inevitable stop was Toby’s Tofu Palace where we got into the spirit by infusing our bodies with organic vegetables and soy product.

Fair food is abundant and varied (there are a LOT of ways you can prepare tofu) and overall excellent. The best thing I ate that day was vegan coconut ice cream. Ah, you smirk at the thought of vegan ice cream but I’m telling you, the best chocolate cookies I have ever had were vegan (made by our friend CJ’s old roommate in Menlo Park) and I mock not the vegan treats.

[Dust and hippies keep moving.]

The fairgrounds are huge but primarily wooded and the action takes place along dirt paths under large shady trees. Because of this, spending nine hours wandering dusty vendor-lined streets with multitudes of kindred souls is generally pleasant and largely non-taxing. Architecturally curious permanent booths are constructed along the paths and everything is weathered and covered in moss. Booths sell either food, pottery, tie-dye, beaded jewelry, or sundries such as yoga or massage. (I’m guessing at a Renaissance fair this would be barbecued turkey legs, pottery, crushed velvet Elizabethan garb/feathered poet caps, beaded jewelry, and sundries such as face painting and massage.) A bunch of stages are set up throughout the area and music and vaudeville acts run nonstop the entire weekend.

[This stick structure was jam packed with dusty hippy kids, unless they were hobbits.]

We plotted our course to hit several of the vaudeville acts but it’s hard to get from one place to another in any timely manner (the place is huge and fantastical winged creatures, tree-folk, and naked painted people distract one) so we only made it to three or four shows. Shows we saw leaned heavily toward the juggling/acrobatics, which of course was like 80% of show fodder. The other 20% revolved around jokes about Long Tom River (this is of course the stagnant slough that winds through the fair property).

[Some hippies in the dust.]

I’ve been told that while the fairgrounds are a wondrous thing, even wondrouser are the grounds when there is nobody there, during off-season. Someone I know and his cousin (no names mentioned here!) used to walk the railroad tracks (this is before there was a road) and climb the fence into the property. There they would run the deserted streets amongst the dank hobbity structures while they may or may not have partook in (cough) strong beverages, or something.

[Dusty hippy art.]

[Evening sunlight filters through the dust with hippies in the foreground.]

[Hippies! And dust!!]

It turned summer on Friday and we spent half the day in our pajamas blinking squinty-eyed at the bright light and rotating through morning naps and coffee. Saturday was equally brilliant and we went to the park to check out some bicycle jousting.

We arrived early and ate lunch, played with Ronin on the swings, and then found some slackropers to harass. I haven’t slackroped since Texas (when I was a lithe 11 weeks pregnant) and basically, I suck pretty embarrassingly now. I know that after an hour of playing around, I might recover some of my former glory (which is to say, marginally less wobbly but not anything you’d shell out the big bucks to go see) but in front of an audience, I stepped up, ripped out the crotch of my [PRE-PREGNANCY!!!!!] jeans, made some vague excuses about having not done it for a while, and preoccupied myself with Ronin, who had finally decided to unleash Poop Diaper 1.0 on the day. Somehow she managed to deposit nearly every bit of leakage into Joshua’s front jeans pocket. It was pretty amusing. Joshua was sort of flummoxed that he had poop in his pocket, particularly since sitting in the bottom of the pocket was the cell phone. We hoped nobody would call us.

Bicycle jousting was highly entertaining. We watched people start to gather decked out in their SCA gear and driving tricked-out Portland bikes. One guy had a sweet chainmail hoodie and was on a seven-foot tall custom BMX bike.

They took over a set of basketball courts using eight-foot PVC pipes fitted with large conical points made of foam and duct tape. One guy served as the referee/announcer and there were various guys acting as hecklers, snatching away poles if they were dropped and forcing the jousters to chase them down to get them back. Jousting, of course, has two players ride swiftly at each other armed with their jousting poles with the objective of poking the opponent off his ride. It might be considered dangerous. At this tournament, safety gear was clearly optional. Some wore football helmets and elbow pads, others were naked.

The first few rounds were fairly benign. Two wobbly cyclists rode toward the center and batted inexpertly at one another with their long poles. One usually fell over right there and the other would recover and swerve dangerously away, the victor of the match.

Here’s a blurry cell phone shot of Daryl Hall and John Oates duking it out (it’s a crummy shot but you know how celebrity photos are). Oates: “I will kick you and your pathetic solo album’s ass!” Hall: “Get the hell away from me you mustachioed mulleted freak!” Sadly, yes it has come to this.

The Hall and Oates tournament was a bit boring actually, mostly because they couldn’t seem to either hit each other with the jousting poles or if they did, knock one or the another off and end it already. They spent long minutes riding their bikes around in circles, chasing one another with poles, the hecklers dashing around making a nuisance of themselves. Finally I think Oates won but I had lost interest because a whole herd of naked bikers invaded the park, sporting various wacky props and a very loud sound system.

We cut out early to change Joshua’s pants, rescue the cell phone, and catch a bus to another bike event (because it’s stupid to drive to a bike thing, but we don’t have a baby carrier for the bike). Unfortunately, we missed our bus and then the connecting bus was taking forever and so we gave up and just went for Indian food (Tandoor Indian Kitchen), which was awesome as usual and halfway through, Ronin released Poop Diaper 2.0 and ruined Joshua’s second pair of jeans for the day.

[Here is a pair of BMX/recumbent jousters swiftly dispatching one another.]