Cookies and Race Cars

This weekend i have been cat and apartment sitting for a couple that live on campus. This means that i get to have a cat around me again, YEAH! I get to cook on a stove and bake in an oven and be on my own in my own homey space. So today, being a Saturday, i planned to get up and make some cookies first thing in the morning and then be lazy and get fat the rest of day. Things started off okay right up until the cookie making part. Lack of shortening and cinnamon had me heading gout the door to Save-a-lot right around 9:30. As i walked across College street i saw a bunch of people setting up a sign and road blocks and a bunch of soap box cars.

It is the Downhill Derby!!! Every year they have it but i have not seen it in a long, long, time. So i went to the store got what i needed, and then headed back to College Street. The interesting thing about going to these events now, as apposed to when i was little, is that i meet people, generally rather interesting people. The first person i met was an older man who was very hard of hearing and kept making random comments pertaining to nothing. Both he and i were lacking chairs to sit in and since the grass was wet we parked ourselves on the side of a trailer. Soon two ladies came and joined him. I think they may have been his daughters, but i am not quite sure. The one came over and seeing the whole length of the trailer and the couple yards of space between he and i, sat down right next to me. I soon found myself right in the middle of a family conversation regarding how the man could not hear on his cell phone. After teaching him how to use speaker phone the conversation changed to Obama and health care. The whole time they keep looking at me for responses and sending me smiles and looks that screamed for my agreement. They treated me like i was an old friend who could share in their years and years of family history in Lima.

Meanwhile, around us a bunch of men in there 60s or 70s were pulling up in their John Deer tractors and lawn mowers. It would be their job to pull the soap box cars back up the hill, but for now they were just discussing about how the sign was being put up differently this year then which didn't make any sense since it had always been put up using the truck and it worked just fine that way.

Eventually they began running test runs. Each kid would run down one hill and then get towed up the next hill where they would turn around and line up to come down again on another test run. The test runs took about an hour and then the actual racing began. i only stayed for about a half hour of the racing and then i went to lunch. The cars dud not go anywhere near as fast as i remembered not was the whole event all that exciting but it was interesting and i like doing things that make me feel a part of Lima as apposed to being caged up on the Holy Hill.

All right, time to make cookies.

(Pictures to come later)