strawberry clusterfuck

my penchant for clusterfuck events brought me to the oxnard strawberry festival this past saturday. what isn't there to like about crowded spaces, long ass lines, and disorderliness? to top that all off, you get oodles and oodles of strawberries to do as you please....mmmm, delicious. i think i will stick them in my pie hole, thank you.

we started off our day with a brisk stroll through the arts and crafts portion of the festival which housed endless knick knacks that will one day make it to a garage sale near you. check this crap out, the "savings socks." really?! they're literally socks decorated with puffy paint willed into creation by a first grade artist...the funny thing was that it actually had a lot of business! again, i'm convinced that the average american will buy anything.

music box bags. why? you can't even open the bag to store things in! double why?!

marshmellow blowguns made out of plastic tubing. crapola.

circling around all these knick knacks getting squished by people wearing fanny packs drove me to drink...yes please :) i had to try the strawberry wine so i did. um...four words: boone's farm wine cooler. the alcohol content was non existent but it was refreshing nevertheless.

then it was time to get our grease on which meant consuming all manners of fried evils. the food lines are usually pretty daunting at clusterfuck events like these, but the drive to eat badly prevails so you just wait. i especially admire the folks that just plop their booties down right in the middle of traffic to start eating. excuse me sir, but i might step on your hand cuz you're SITTING RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF FOOT TRAFFIC.

garlic fries. OOOOF COURSE. a festival never seems quite complete without a tray of greasy garlic fries. i love them thin and crispy and piled high with garlic bits, enough garlic to leave a heavy presence of stank in your mouth. this tray was particularly delicious....mmmm....

fried zucchini, so heavily breaded that a cop adorned with this batter can withstand 20 bullet shots. man it was yuck.

fried artichoke hearts has got to be my new favorite greasy eats. i loved the tartness of the canned artichoke hearts with its greasy shell.

then it was time to buy a crazy amount of fresh strawberries to pass out to our families and of course for me to consume until i lay down on my kitchen floor convulsing from a strawberry overdose, complete with foaming red bile and spit. oh how i love strawberries and lots of it!

as we headed out of the clusterfuck ready to hop on the freeway to go home, a sign at one of the farms offered folks a novel opportunity to pick our own strawberries. whoo hoo! we made a sharp right and found ourselves in the middle of strawberry fields forever.

i recognized the snooty privilege i had harvesting strawberries for fun when other folks did it as their full time job (and believe you me, it was somewhat difficult). that's why i cringed at the utter waste i saw as i stomped about wondering why people left perfectly fine strawberries to be trampled on or to rot. ugh.

because if left alone, those poor premature strawberries would eventually ripen into beautiful red gems, gems in which a whole weekend of festivities were created in order to celebrate its existence. ahhh strawberries...how i love thee.

California Strawberry Festival

http://www.strawberry-fest.org/