ThornhillFest 2008 Day 1

It was the 6th day of July. The year 2008. The sun was shining, the temperature was a bit on the caliente (which means "hot" for all you gringos out there) side...all pointing to the perfect start of ThornhillFest 2008! Before arriving to the fest, I made sure to burn a couple hundred calories playing Ultimate Frisbee in hopes that it would help combat all the high caloric, authentic, yet oh so delicious consumption of Mexican cuisine. Thankfully, my roommate Dot decided to attend day one. I think she missed out completely on the festivities last year and could only live them out through reading this blog. With Dot closely following my Chevy Lumina up Barrington Rd, we arrived at the Fest a little after 5:30pm. Our first encounters were of Andrew, Jonathon, Mark, Karen, and Jason near the pool. We discussed this years' schedule of events and decided that Monday night, Indian night, would probably be one of the best. Soon we were joined by Jen Grabsky, Marina, Heather Ahn, Jennine, Trevor, and SoHee. The pool side party kept getting bigger. Jason was nicknamed "cabana boy" after offering to bring drinks to all the pool side ladies. With Andrew on the mic, an announcement about the food was made and the crowd started to congregate amongst the burritos, tacos, and sopes. This spread could put "Old Country Trough" or "Old Country Feedbag" out of business fo' sho'! All I gotta say is if you have an appetite, you betta' bring it! Several of us unashamedly, returned to the grazing area and had a second helping of out of proportion, calorie intake. Looking down at my cell phone, I realized that it was almost time for the mariachi band to start performing so I rushed out to my car to get my favorite Walmart, red, chair. As I walked through the gate, I ran into some of the mariachis and said "hola" to one of them. I think they were happy that I tried to speak some Spanish:) Los Palmeros were requested to make a comeback appearance at ThornhillFest because of how we loved hearing them the previous year. The song "mariachi loco" did get a little loco with the dancing at one point. There were some interesting "Elvis" like pelvic moves by our favorite soloist. Stephanie Minervino and I did not take another group picture with the band like we did last year. At the end of their performance, Cori Bouska made an announcement about Rich Chang's birthday and as a reward, she got to dance with one of them. We all sang him a happy birthday tune with the help of Los Palmeros and Leeanne presented Rich with a lovely chocolate cake. A huge round of applause is due to Christina Minervino for booking the band and the food and her excellent negotiation skillz. Lydia Revoredo made a first appearance at ThornhillFest and probably should receive an award for being the youngest attendee at the precious age of 8 weeks old! She is a cute little peanut:) The mosquitoes were out in full force looking for victims. They certainly drained a lot out of me! And now you know why I don't usually participate in blood drives. I give enough away to the mosquitoes each summer! Karen and I tried to escape the mosquitoes and headed towards the pool area. We were then joined by Mariam, Jason, and Margie. Mariam was bummed about not being able to be at the Fest on Monday due to prior birthday celebrating engagements. The evening drew to a close in a traditional fashion with me, Andrew, Tom, Patrick, and Eric, hanging out until midnight. Eric impressed us with his version of Tom Akert. And actually, Andrew and Eric are probably still hanging out as I'm writing this blog because they are delivering all the leftover food to police departments in two counties. Concept...perhaps we can bribe them to let quiet hours end not at 10pm, but get a 12am extension?