My husband and I helped out my mom at the Terry Fox Run on Sunday (she was on the organizing committee). We were really thankful it didn't rain and, barring a few glitches, it went well. They raised over $10,000, so that's certainly nothing to sneeze at.

But one of the weirdest things happened. The run was scheduled for 10:00 and for some reason the registration started at 8:00. But, of course, not many people came that early, why would you? So at 8:30 there were plenty of volunteers, myself included, milling around to witness this weird thing:

A man came through the gate in complete football garb, pads, helmet, everything. He was wearing a BC Lions jersey and carrying a big gym bag. The first words out of his mouth were "I'm an American." Not, "I'm here for the run." or "I'm here because I think there's a football game at this soccer field." or anything like that. That statement was followed quickly by "I play for the CFL. I train with the Lions. They let me do the run every year." Well, whoopee, anyone in the province, nay, the world, can do the run. But then he adds that they let him do it on the track every year, which isn't true, as the route is around the park surrounding the stadium. But, barring that, to get into the stadium to start the run, everyone has fill out a free, simple registration form so the committee can get a count of how many participated. He refused and in fact seemed greatly offended. He tried to tell my mom he was a sponsor, to which she replied that the Terry Fox Run has no sponsors. He then said he had a sponsor, by which I suppose he could've meant that he'd collected pledges, but that still didn't mean he didn't need to register. He repeated the CFL/every year speech at least once more and when my mom wouldn't budge, he said "Well, I tried!! Thank you, ma'am." and stomped off. 

Everyone I've told this story to thinks he's some sad, crazy man who got hold of some football gear and just wanted attention.

We saw Vanity Fair last night. My husband said it should've been called Vanity Project, as in Reese Witherspoon's. It did kind of seem like it was largely an excuse for her to look lovely in period dresses (which I enjoyed, but it's not a good basis for a movie). It fell victim to the usual problem with turning literature into movies - trying to cram a 600-or-so page novel into a movie. It was really, really disjointed, leaving a lot of things unresolved or confusing. Often it looked like she barely had time to get to know a man before he was confessing his love for her or, in one case, marrying her in a scene we didn't even see. The main silly thing was that it was supposed to take place over about 20 years and Reese didn't age a day. Her son was supposed to be 20 at the end and she looked about 25. Also, from what I've heard, the book doesn't have her having a child (or doesn't make a big deal of it) but because Reese got pregnant during filming, they had to write it in, which took even more time away from the book's actual plot.

I'm still scarred by the film they made of Jane Eyre in the 90's. I can't even remember all the stuff they cut out, but it was barely recognizable. And Gwyneth Paltrow's Emma ticked me off because Emma wasn't supposed to be all blonde and beautiful, she's described as "handsome." Harriet, the beautiful friend she tries to marry off, is unmarriageable because she's poor and from an unknown family, but apparently that doesn't sell to today's crowd where beauty is all that matters, so they had to make her into a frump instead. Maybe I need to stop seeing movies based on books, they're almost always disappointing.

In addition to those days of walking all over fairgrounds, we also spent a day at the Mall of America. Woo hoo! I finally was able to find some pants at Lane Bryant so that I'll have something to wear this winter. (Between the only 2 big-girl stores I can shop at here, I can usually only find one style of pants and they're not the greatest.) And I got some Christmas ornaments for my collection, a Green Eggs and Ham t-shirt, some Bath and Body Works stuff (mmm...) and my husband shopped at the Lego store.

We also went to the Science Museum in St. Paul, which was cool. (Except an exhibit sneezed on me!) This was the third time I've been to Minnesota and I still haven't crossed everything off my to-do/to-see list. I'd say that's the mark of a fun place.

We had a fab time! I don't want to be back at work. :)

The Renaissance Festival was really cool. We saw a joust and then wandered through all of the artisans' shops. My husband's brother ate one of the festival's specialties - an enormous turkey drumstick. It was just fun to absorb the atmosphere of all the costumed folks.

The State Fair was amazing - about 100 times the size of BC's PNE. We ate a ton of awful food. The insane food we ate included: deep-fried candy bars, a corndog (or Pronto Pup, the official State Fair name), a big cone full of little, warm chocolate chip cookies, accompanied by milk from the Dairy Association's all-you-can-drink milk booth, deep-fried gator (my husband), gator sausage (his brother), deep-fried cheese curds, and an enormous funnel cake with bavarian cream and chocolate. We got utterly, totally soaked on the river ride, saw frisbee-catching dogs, and collected a bag full of useless but fun freebies from the booths. I'd feel guilty about the food, but we walked around the fairgrounds for about 10 hours, so I'd say I burned it off.

More trip highlights to come...