Archive for April 17th, 2009

My daughter, son and I decided we simply had to attend the Main Street Arts Fair tonight even though we were a little tired after the long day of doctors visits and rain. Fortunately the weather had cleared up nicely. We arrived and parked, for free, in the garage by Bass Hall right off Sundance Square, and were able to reach Main Street with only two blocks’ walking and an elevator ride.

Main Street is decked out in canvas booths with handmade collectibles and finery.

The arts fair is a fine mixture of genres, styles and mediums. The bulk of what is to be seen is offered in small canvas booths lined along Main Street and its tributaries. You might see, on arriving, hand made jewlery, leatherwork, oil or watercolor paintings, photographey, embellished or not, pottery, woodwork, or glass paperweights.

Pepper grinders by Robert Wilhelm of Raw Design in Portland.

We spent some time looking at the works of Robert Wilhelm, whose Raw Design studio in Portland, Oregon, specializes in hand made pepper grinders. Wilhelm told us he got the idea for making the pepper grinders while doing a restaurant redesign 12 years ago and hasn’t looked back since.

We also got quite a kick out of Geoffry R. Johnson’s booth, where he was playing and selling handmade dulcimers. The dulcimer, Johnson showed us, is far easier to play than the guitar. He gave us a demonstration.

We left after an hour an a half’s brisk walk looking into stalls. We had seen a great deal, and avoided, for pecuniary reasons, the many attractive booths from places like Risky’s Barbecue Pit where smells of roasted and fried foods were causing us to feel like we were starving to death.  We walked back and got into the car.

“I think we forgot to do something.” I told my daughter.

“What?”

“What good is our campaign against Walmart and mass produced commercialism if we don’t even buy some art at the Main Street Arts Fair? I fancy one of those paperweights.” They were gorgeous with suspended webs of spun glass inside, only $30.

She agreed — she thought a pepper grinder would be just the thing –and we’ve made plans to go back tomorrow.

I took time this Friday morning to take my daughter, who’s nine, to doctor and dentist checkups.  As we went out the door to drop the other kids at school, I told them to get their raincoats. The older boys looked at me in dismay. I never asked them if they didn’t have raincoats or if they did and didn’t think it would be cool to wear them, but just let them get in the car in their shirtsleeves as the rain began to pour.

After dropping the other kids at school, my daughter and I trundled along through the downpour and puddles to her appointment. The doctor’s office is not unattractive, with roller roaster toys and framed prints on the walls, but we have to wait, as always, a seemingly interminable time and in the company of a bunch of other people who can best be described as resigned, grumpy, or tense and fearful.

This is the kind of place that you march yourself down to and then discipline yourself to keep from stomping out the door in disgust and dismay, muttering angrily.

“When are they going to see us?” my daughter asks.

“It usually takes an hour to get a room,” I tell her.

Sometimes I get mad and show up late myself, thinking that by arriving 15 minutes behind my time I might cut 15 off the wait, but it doesn’t work. They just make you wait even longer. Today, I decided to show up early and see if that helps.

It doesn’t. I am still sitting here, we’ve been here an hour, with the rain washing down outside. I imagine telling the doctor my time is too valuable for this — or correspondingly asking why they do this to me every time I show up? Part of me thinks they don’t do this on purpose, and part of me thinks they do, and part of me just doesn’t want to know.

After one hour and ten minutes, we finally get a room. To the doctor’s credit, a med student comes in and spends some time with my daughter talking about her fatophobia, and then the doctor herself quickly examines her and sends us on our way. Total elapsed time in the office? One hour 40 minutes. We head off to have lunch at the Coffee Urn on Trail Lake Blvd, in the pouring rain, and I wonder as I drive why so much of life is tedium. I could enjoy this rain if I wasn’t doesn’t stuff I didn’t want to do. But perhaps going out to lunch will work out better than the doctor’s office.