Sunday, October 2, 2005: The World is My Oyster

Ok, so, big day today.  Carrie and I are headed out to Oyster Fest in Shelton.  I've been looking forward to it for awhile now, as I'm quite the oyster fan.  In retrospect, I do believe I've met my match.  And then some.  Our first stop was Batdorf & Bronson, a popular local coffee shop.  That I hadn't visited yet.  We ran into a friend of Carrie's, whose name I don't recall.  And got some coffee.  I've been longing for the US equivalent of the Croatian "bijela kava" ever since I got back from there.  B&B came closest so far, with a cappucino.  But not really.  Anyway, the point was to find Carrie's friend Scott Miller who was waiting at B&B, and coming with us.  And we did, so we were off.
Oyster Fest is in Shelton.  And it's the big event there.  The sky was a little gray and drippy.  But that didn't seem to deter anyone from coming.  Carrie defined the event as "eating till you burst."  I did my best to start it off in a competitive spirit by entering the Shelton NRA pellet gun shootoff.  The combination of air pistols and pathetic inexperience let to me underscoring most Shelton preschoolers.  I guess I'm a casualty of NYC in that respect.  Hell, I only missed the target once.
Then we moved on to the oyster-shucking competition.  The real highlight of the whole festival.  And Scott's focus of attention.  I was surprised to note that upwards of 80% of the champion shuckers had hispanic names.  Most seemed to be of Mexican origin.  And, boy, were they ever good!  Carrie said that they travel all around the world, competing.  I never would have figured.  Score one for globalization, I guess.  Gave me a really good feeling about the whole event, to see people cheering on the winners, no matter where they came from.
Carrie and Scott were transfixed, as you can see.  It was a very suspenseful event.
So then Carrie and I wandered about the rest of festival, tasting wine, food, &c.  Carrie was careful to try everything offered.  Including the corn on the cob presented by the Lutheran Faith Ministries and so on.  Which I found humorous only because their very friendly staff was composed entirely of very drunk teenage girls.  The kids are alright, indeed!  Then and now.
My favorite booth was the Northwest Filipino Association.  Or something like that.  In any case, they were really excited to have their picture taken.  And they did their damndest to sell their lumpia.  With an astonishing degree of success.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that makeup booths are still popular with the kids.  I could never deal with that myself, owing to an irrational phobia of stuff on my face.  But these two kids have a great look going on.
As does Bill, who Carrie and I met at the beer booth.  Carrie was doing my drinking for me, as I was driving home.  And she struck up a conversation with a group of steelworkers and their wives.  Bill was the foreman, on the job for years.  Here, he compares his current mustache to the handlebar he had as a youngster.  Alright!  I like 'em both, really.  Wish I had sufficient facial hair to plausibly grow one myself...
In the meantime, Carrie ate more oysters than I would've thought a girl her size could plausibly swallow.  No complaints there.  And I followed around the various characters.  Including this Carmen Miranda impersonator on stilts.
Of course, not everyone likes oysters.  This youngster and her sister prefer corndogs.  And while I disagree, they've got a point.