Fiesta, Food-on-a-stick, and More

Welcome to a belated blog. It’s time once again to be caught up on an entire month of activity both sensational and breathtaking.

We’ll start off with Fiesta, the week-long excuse for all of San Antonio to throw party after beer-battered-taco-on-a-stick-filled party, followed naturally by an unending succession of parades. I know you’re thinking, “Wow, that’s right up your alley, Tara!” And while I do enjoy parades and food presented on a stick… Fiesta was a little overboard (perhaps).
Let’s examine just a few of the activities I attended:

NIOSA: holy shit. Maybe we shouldn’t start with this one…

Battle of the Flowers: this is a parade so large that tradition allows businesses city-wide to close so that the maximum number of attendees is possible. Naturally, I had the day off, and so did many of my friends and we all went downtown midday to see the shin-diggery. Really, who doesn’t love a parade? I don’t know. There were marching bands and horses and huge inflated cultural icons and a bizarre tradition in which women are elected strange titles such as “Duchess of Reoccurring Springtime” or “Mistress of Mystical Seas” or “Princess of Napoleonic Valor”. And as they drive by on their elaborate floats they show everyone their shoes.

King William Parade: another parade…this one smaller and more eclectic.

King William Fair: this probably would’ve been a dandy time, but again it was crowded with people like a waterfall is crowded with water which would only really be bad if it had been hot and humid and if I had to somehow carry ladders and a stereo system and box loads of props through that same crowd, but wait, that’s just what happened! Because at a stage surrounded by carnival games and screaming kids on trampolines, we had to do “Jack and the Beanstalk”. Conditions were not ideal. I usually love doing this show…because it is a lot of fun, just so I’m not accused of being totally negative or ungrateful. So, that was all for the King William Fair.

NIOSA: Alright, imagine you are in a crowd of revelers. It’s a warm night. The venders are happily shouting the value of their various foods-on-sticks. Live music surrounds you from several venues. Then a woman in a tube top with her hair full of glowing…things, vomits something pink right in front of you and you try to get away but the damn crowd of fricking revelers is so tightly packed that you literally cannot even turn around to push your way to freedom. Really, Night In Old San Antonio would be a lot of fun….if there weren’t so many people swarming over each other in an effort to trade tickets for drinks and yet more meat-sticks. I found myself at this behemoth not once, but twice: once as a mere inquisitive visitor destined to spend many minutes trying to get to my friends across a dance floor that had suddenly become the insatiably popular home of the funky chicken, the second time as the volunteer salesperson of fake floral halos. The second time was much better for many reasons: fewer people pressed against me, I found twenty dollars, I judged a two-step contest by dancing with the contestants, I got to see several people arrested (some tried to run away…what fun!).

Alright, so what else happened this month? I’ll try to be more concise for time:

One of my housemates had visitors several times, and each time we went out to eat on the riverwalk, took them to parties, once we went out for orgasmic desserts on the rotating top of the Tower…good times.

There were a couple birthday extravaganzas to celebrate in various ways with ice cream sundaes, trips to Austin, swimming in enormous freezing pools, eating Ethiopian food. Life is good whenever you can exhaust yourself playing with friends, then eat as much as possible of terrific ethnic food, and then fall asleep for the whole drive home.

I enjoyed another busy, artsy First Friday. On Cinco de Mayo there was a big concert in Hemisfair Park called Mix Fest. It was a huge ordeal with yet more crowds of screaming people. It also happened to be right up next to the Magik Theatre so I, along with a bunch of coworkers, just hung out on a balcony and watched the whole thing from about 30 feet from the stage. I got there late and only saw three of the bands: the Veronicas, the Offspring (apparently still kicking), and the All-American Rejects.

Another sweet musical event was seeing a band a few of my friends are in called Soul Grammar play a gig at a local bar. They were really good and it was fun to see the mingling of my work friends and other friends who I brought.

Food has been a big topic in church recently: hunger issues, food justice, health, vegetarianism…and as hard as it is going to be, my housemates and I are going to try going meat-less for a month. So that’s pretty exciting. I do love meat (even when it’s not on a stick), but it does seem pretty clear that one huge way to help the environment and each other is simple buying local, vegetarian food. We’ll see if it sticks.

Work is now quite busy again. I had seven shows in the last four days, which is good because I really like to stay busy and chaos can be quite fun. And soon I will have my reward for surpassing my three-month point with MVS: a retreat in Colorado! Huzzah! I’m ever so excited to get away and go hiking in the mountains! Then after a week in the Rockies I’m headed back to Goshen to visit. Yee-haw!

swine flu!

wtf swine flu? What are you doing coming in my town and causing havoc? Everywhere I go it's pig-sick this and oink-fever that.

This piggy malaise has caused a lot of undue panic and obscene field trip cancellations. Plus there were rumors of a forthcoming edict to close all public gathering places, like theatres, etc. Holy shit! It's the porker plague!

The boar disease has been blown out of proportion. Let us not forget that more people die annually of the normal flu than have died of ham virus. so wash your hands and stop fear-mongering. It's serious...but it's not a reason to build yourself a bunker. See you when the hog syndrome has finally blown over.