Life is......Good?

It began a couple of months ago when I received an email from Dave , forwarded from his company, about the annual "Life is Good" Festival. I must have been in a good mood that day, because normally, the very uttering of that phrase conjures up a myriad of negative and sarcastic thoughts in my brain. Not to mention the cost of the tickets. It was $124 us dollars to buy into the notion that life is, in deed, good. Again, I must have been in a particularly good mood.

Fast forward to the day of the festival. I wouldn't expect anything less than to have it fall on the day in which Ava had her first soccer game, and Liza her first Lacross game. Luckily, however, the weather couldn't have been more perfect. (yes...you read it here folks, a positive statement)

I awoke early, (about 7am), and rounded up the troops. (I was in my usual, bitchy, and mostly mean mood) I figured we could at the very least, get Ava's soccer game in as it was early. Showers were taken, uniforms donned, fan chairs loaded in the car, and the Beast (aka my car) left the driveway at 8:30am. I had a few extra minutes to grab my hot Dunkin coffee, and egg and cheese wrap. Now, the particular Dunkin chain normally has me pull to the parking lot when I order food, which rubs me completely the wrong way...if I wanted to park, I wouldn't go through the drive thru. I was completely prepared to verbally assault the teenager who dare utter the words "can you pull to the front for your sandwich?". I was going to tell her I wouldn't do it, and then give her no less than 4 reasons why. Unfortunately, she passed my food out the window. Oh well.

We arrived at the field at exactly 10 minutes before 9. I was perplexed to see no one else with tangerine shirts on. (i know, tangerine is an odd uniform color...and very difficult to match to funky tie dyed knee highs). It would be several minutes before someone broke the news that the game was actually at 10:30. (life is good?)

We went home and decided we would just fore go the game and carry onward to the festival. We packed the cooler, the car and the Kids. It took about 5 seconds for the kids to begin fighting over which movie to watch during the 1 hour ride. I settled it with my usual name calling, threatening to leave the family, and then offering a bribe if they would just shut up. (life is good?)

It was about 25 minutes into the ride when a loud thug hit my windshield....and about 10 minutes later, Dav realized that the windshield had cracked. Why not...I mean, I have only had this car for about 4 weeks. (life is good?)

Ok, shake it off. We get off the exit and there is a plenty of direction as to where to go for the festival. Arrows, policemen and the likes directing us to the parking garage. Which, I might add, was no less than a 30 minute walk to the festival. (life is good?)

Upon admission to the park, we find a decent spot to park our blanket, chairs, and cooler. I am beginning to feel like I am back at the beach. It was lunch time, so we ordered up some overpriced burgers and fries, and tacos (which I would come to regret later on)

I quickly derived that I would enjoy people watching over anything else the festival would have to offer. I was a little surprised how many hippies there still are. Shirtless men with dreadlocks, long haired woman with peasant skirts, wearing their babies in all sorts of wraps. The man sitting to the right was wearing a skirt, and the women to the left were lesbians. (life probably IS good for them)

We headed the the "children" section. A nice woman handed Liza a balloon. She said it was one of the arms to a "person balloon figure" that had come apart. I thought nothing about it.....at that time. Dave and Liza were several paces behind me and the Feek (emma). Dave pulled along side me and was chuckling. (quite unusual). He then proceeded to tell me that everyone was laughing at Liza. I was confused, until I turned around to find the "balloon arm" tucked and protruding from the lower half of her tshirt. It look like a giant penis balloon, and she was shaking her hips an flinging it all around! I swiftly ran to her, and being an open and honest mother, told her "take it out, take it out....it looks like a giant pee pee!". Anyone that knows Liza can imagine her horror. She pulled and pulled, however, the bottom of the balloon was stuck...a woman came alongside and uttered..."umm...what is that supposed to be??" I know, I know....I told her, I know it has a phallic appearance but its an arm...and I am going to pop it shortly. At this point, I could not contain my own laughter. (Life is getting better)

The day dragged onward and it was only a matter of time before we had to use the porno john. (that would be Lizas term for porta john...despite my constant correction). It is hard to be picky amongst thousands of people and hundreds of toilets, however, we were going to try. For each "green" handle, signaling a vacant toilet, Liza would peek in, and report on the findings. A quick shake of the head, a dry heave, a "no TP"....until a thumbs up was attained. This took more time than I thought. Plus, if we didn't get out of the area soon, we were both going to get high from the overwhelming odor of the mary jane. (we were, as it seems, at a modern day Woodstock, after all)

Only about 3 hours into the festival, Emma began melting down. So did I. The task of chasing her out of everyone elses things was getting increasingly more difficult, and the place was getting extremely crowded. There was a woman two blankets in front of us with a 2.5yr old who was constantly nursing. This left me feeling very confused. I felt like I was not the only one still nursing, however on the other hand, I dreaded that this could be MY future a year from now (?).


Now, completely contrary to this event, were the young couples everywhere. Hugging, kissing, dancing...some even making out. I was a little bit disgusted, but a little more jealous. I felt like rufie'ing myself. Wait, no, I am here with my HUSBAND and CHILDREN.

As I looked around at the thousands of people, my mind begins its antics. I look at each person, and imagine what they do for a living, what their curtains look like, if they have a brother. Then I begin to obsess about how much money was made by the life is good people. At $50 an adult, I don't even think I could count that high. Then, I begin to wonder how many farts were let go during the day, and I couldn't even imagine how many.... given the line at the taco tent. (I know this is insane of a woman of my age, and life status....its the little boy who lives within me..or the seepage of weed into my brain from the bathroom section)

Seven hours later, I had enough. I put my foot down and demanded we leave. I was tired, the kids were tired and we had a long walk to the car. I packed up, began walking (Emma insisted she be carried). I passed a woman and actually stopped her to ask where she got, and the name of her child carrier. Just hours earlier I was saying they looked like chimpanzees carrying their chimp babies....and Ironically, I will be ordering an ERGO tomorrow. I took the biggest whiff I could as I passed the porno johns and away we went.

The kids were asleep with in minutes of being in the beast. Despite the overwhelming smell of beer breath in my car during the ride home (hun), it was another successful mystery ride. Life IS good.