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i woke up early this morning to go to 31st annual sheep & wool festival in rhinebeck, new york with shannon. it's about a 3 hour drive from boston, and both shannon and i brought music, she with her ipod, me with my deck of hamptons cd's and my rio mp3 player. as an added treat, our highway journey would be set against a colorful background of new england autumn foliage. in reality, the leaves were changing, but they didn't seem peak yet. this was shannon's second trip to the sheep & wool festival, and she used her previous memories of her last drive down to locate the fairground when we got close to rhinebeck.

the parking was free but admission into the fair was $7 per person. there were several buildings, converted barns and animal stables that housed the various vendors. they came from all over new england and the tristate area, selling bundle of colored fleece, sticks of yarn, knitting needles, spinning machines, pewter jewelry, handmade rugs, felt toys, candles, animal raising equipment, and other handcrafts. there was also family oriented activities, like the merry-go-around, the haunted mansion, or the animal demonstrations, including dog herding trials. in the center of the fairground was a large auction tent, and surrounding it were pens housing the various animals, including sheeps, goats, llamas, and the occasional rabbits. the kind of people who visit the sheep & wool festival are mostly knitting enthusiasts, which i think they themselves would readily admit are not "cool". the demographic is also largely older women, with younger ones the exception rather than the rule. the guys were relegated to the duty of "purse holders". even though it was interesting to be immersed in this strange new world, i was totally confused and awkward, like being at a party where you didn't know anyone. shannon made no effort to educate me in the ways of spinning and knitting, but she answered all my questions to the best of her abilities when i asked her, which was often. so from what i can gather, the basic process is an animal is sheared (whether it be goat, llama, sheep, or rabbit, different animals produce different kind of natural material, like merino or cashmere or angora or felt, but i couldn't tell you which animal's fur produced what) and its fleece is cleaned up and maybe dyed and then spun into yarn which in turn is used to knit clothes. i didn't buy anything from the vendors except a warm bag of honey roasted hazelnuts and a $5 sampler of fragrant natural hand-made soaps. while watching the dog herding trial, i overheard two little boys talking about baseball. being that we were in new york state, they were obviously yankees fans. "i hope they win tonight's world series game," one of them shouted out. i nearly had a seizure.


colored fleece

colored fleece

naturally dyed
yarn

for me, the most interesting part of the whole fair were the animal pens. i've seen so many different varieties of sheeps and goats, and you could pet them too, their owners never seemed to mind the attention. i rubbed a few muzzles and was surprised how warm they were. they also seemed to be in one of two states, either timid or very friendly, never aggressive. i suppose this is the domesticated prey mentality, generations of selective breeding have produced the perfect "sheep" personality. these weren't run-of-the-mill animals either, they were all purebreds, with names and lineage information attached to cards on their pens. some of the sheeps were "coats", which i guess is to keep their fur from getting dirty (those sheeps looked like the ones that produced felt). it's amazing the different assortment of fur color and texture and pattern.

somewhere in the afternoon we got lunch, italian sausages ($5/each) and sodas ($2). we wandered around a little bit more, that's when i lost shannon. i called her cellphone a few times but she didn't answer, so i told her where i'd be and went about exploring on my own until she called me back. i didn't realize it but they were actually selling lamb burgers, which to me seems really weird, like finding dog meat at the westminster dog show. it was really strong lamb too, everytime i passed them i could smell the odor. shannon and i reunited, and she said she wanted to visit the fleece sale tent then we could go home. inside was like being in filene's basement, a large number of people scrambling through clear garbage bags filled with fleece trying to find bargains. for some reason it reminded me of teas as well, how they're essentially all the same but just different variations in color and texture. shannon ended up splitting a bag of fleece with another woman. i waited outside, bored, along with a few other men, waiting for her to pay so we could leave, my capacity for festival nearly overloading.

we left around 3pm, racing back to civilization. at the halfway mark shannon asked if i was tired. even though i was nodding off to sleep, i told her i was fine. "then do you mind driving?" she asked. i told her she could keep on driving, that i didn't want to crash her car - essentially i was saying no. of course at that point i couldn't very well fall asleep, since i was afraid she'd fall asleep. so at the next rest stop, shannon pulled over, parked the car, said something about, "i'm going to take a short rest," leaned back her seat, and then fell asleep. i sat there dumbfounded. what just happened? when did we decide to pullover? and how long are we going to be here? am i somehow being punished because i didn't want to drive? i thought about telling shannon, "hey, if you really want me to drive, i'll do it," but she was already seriously asleep. after having spent a confusing and awkward day at a festival, now i'm going to have to endure an unknown amount of time waiting for shannon to rest up before i could go home. dejected, i got out of the car and went into the roadside macdonalds. after using the bathroom, i ordered a 10 piece chicken mcnugget and ate it will reading some traveling pamphlets. 20 minutes later i looked out the window and it's shannon in the car, waving to me to come out so we can go.

nearly two hours later we made it back to boston, where shannon gave me a ride back to cambridge.

though originally i had no intentions of watching the world series, i watched it anyway when i passed by the channel and saw that the marlins were ahead of the yankees. when the marlins finally won the game, i was so happy. new york does not deserve another world series win. in a year when there are 3 century old baseball teams competing for the world series, i think it's only right that the one team that doesn't belong - the marlins - end up winning it all.