Fall Foliage Follies

[which_chick]

Locally we have a fall foliage festival, a thing where small (possibly even quaint) rural communities shut down the town square, invite in vendors (local and small-batch, one hopes), and sell shit to people from the city who want a nice (quaint) weekend outing when the humidity is low and the tree-covered mountains surrounding the rural poors are particularly attractive.

Fall foliage is big money for the town and while it is generally not my style of thing, I did go up for a light-speed walk through this year. If you go Sunday morning between 9:00 AM (opening) and 10:30 AM (when people who leave the city at 9 am will arrive), you can get through in a reasonable time frame, eyeball all the booths, and get out before the traffic gets shitty and the crowds get too thick to walk through. So, that's what I did.



Item the first: Red popcorn. It's probably for home decor or some bullshit like that but it was $3.00 and I can (a) pop it and eat it and (b) save some seeds to grow for next year AS WELL AS look at how awesome it is. I will totally get $3.00 of enjoyment out of this purchase even if the popcorn part fails miserably.



Also in that photo is an unhelpful cat (Squeaky Wheel) which I did not buy at fall foliage and a round brown bowl that I DID buy at fall foliage, see below.

Item the second: Bowl of questionable usefulness but fuck it I loved it and it is so round and brown. It was in a booth that was selling mostly, like, ceramic soap dishes and stuff. The soap dishes were pretty, very attractively glazed, and lovely if you like that sort of thing which I do not. But... BUT... among the colorful and pretty soap dishes, there was a small brown bowl full of business cards and fuckitall I saw the bowl from like fifteen feet away and I wanted it. I really wanted it. Like for real and instantly. Very round. Much brown. But since the little brown business card bowl wasn't part of the Obviously For-Sale Goods on display, I had to go into the booth and talk to the lady. She was the potter, yes, but more saliently, I had to MAKE EYE CONTACT and DO EXTRA SPEAKING TO A STRANGE HUMAN in order to try to buy this bowl. "Can I buy your business card bowl that is not obviously for sale? I mean, it might be for sale but it's not... OBVIOUSLY FOR SALE which is why I have to ask. Oh damn, I'm failing at humaning again, let me just shut the fuck up now." (It wasn't quite that bad in reality but it FELT that bad. Always does. *sigh*) As I do not like doing either of those things, that's indicative of how awesome this bowl is. To me. Obviously to me. Anyway, small drama and fraughtness aside, it was totally worth it because the potter lady said YES! I could buy her small brown not-obviously-for-sale business card bowl that was beautiful and compelling and a gorgeous amount of round. YAY. So I bought it. Eight dollars. Potter lady, I would have bought it for twice that, it is so VERY NICE AND ROUND AND BROWN. This is a great bowl. To be fair, the ceramic soap dishes on display probably sell better than a rather plain smallish brown bowl that one doesn't really have A PLAN for using besides admiring how it is very round and brown and awesome. (Potter lady gotta eat and you get to eat better if you make what sells.) But fuck, it was seriously a one of these things is not like the others experience. Pretty, colorful soap dishes and a very real little brown bowl sitting among them being 100% realer than everything else there without even trying. Kinda sorry I didn't take that picture. Anyway. Best Bowl Ever. SO ROUND. SO BROWN. And now I have it in my house where I can look at it every day. Total, complete win.

Item the third: Wall Art. The photographer is from Altoona and I'm supporting the arts or possibly the crafts, so yay. I loved, loved, loved the yellow. Like, it's just beautiful yellow. Train tracks going into the distance is a damn trite photograph but I loved the yellows, so yeah. Whatever. It's so cheerful.

The door is also spectacularly delightful. It's for my bathroom. I am not sure these are ART but they are definitely fun for me to look at multiple times. De gustibus non est disputandum. I am not an artist but I liked these two enough to give the artist $45.00 so that I could have them in my house in sheet-of-paper sized prints.

Yellow wall art:


Door wall art:


(These are not great pictures of the pictures because they're still in plastic to keep the cat hair and dust off them until I can get them framed.)

And that was fall foliage for me.

Comments

[which_chick]

No problem! I can't promise consistent or upbeat posting all the time, but I do generally write things and take pictures and so forth. Mostly words, pictures usually behind a cut, that style of thing. The words get produced even if nobody reads them, but it's nice if people read them, too. :)

[velvetchamber]

I agree with that, journalling feels like it is best when done for oneself. And life is full of ups and downs, so consistency in output and tone would be unusual. It is the same for me, I'm dealing with a rather debilitating illness, so sometimes I don't have the physical capacity to either read or write, and sometimes I do. Hence, variable output and consumption. I suppose I do tend to be on the upbeat side though. Mother says I've had a glass-half-full view of the world way since I was just a tiny thing.