Fun with Kitty and Cherie

My sister, who was living in Baltimore at the time, invited me down for the weekend to attend a huge Arts and Crafts Fair that was being held near where she lived. She had heard great things about it, and knowing that I really liked arts and crafts, thought I might enjoy it as well. Of course, she was right, and I happily made plans to go to her house for the weekend.

I left work at 2 p.m. that Friday, and drove from Pittsburgh to Maryland. The weather was perfect, and the drive was just like I like it – that is to say totally uneventful.  After dinner, my sister and I tried clothes on Kitty and Cherie, our J. C. Penney website virtual models and alter egos, who we had created to look just like us. Trying clothes on these avatars didn’t really give you an accurate idea of how an outfit would look on your real body, but it did provide hours of fun - kind of like a grown up version of playing with paper dolls.

Saturday morning we set out in happy anticipation to explore the great and mighty Arts and Crafts Fair. We arrived at the fairgrounds where the Fair was being held and....there was nothing there. When I say nothing, I mean nothing. No arts, no crafts, no people, no vendors, no cars. No signs of life whatsoever. Perplexed, my sister checked the ad for the Fair she had cut out of the newspaper to see if she was mistaken about the location, or the date. But no, according to the large, flashy ad, we were in the right place at the right time, but, clearly, the organizers had thrown an Arts and Crafts Fair and nobody came. Except us.

So, there we were, all dressed up and nowhere to go. You know, some people would have let this little glitch ruin their day, but not us! We didn’t tarry long. My sister barely skipped a beat before pointing out that there was a Borders Book Store right across the street from the Fairground. She didn’t have to ask me twice. The absolute joy we find in a bookstore is something we all share in my family. After whiling away a happy hour or two in the bookstore, we were ready to move on.

My sister asked if I might want to go to the mall in York, PA not far away. I’m always up for a trip to a mall, and so off we went. We stopped and had lunch, and had a perfectly fine time shopping at the mall.

All in all, it was a great weekend– a nice, relaxing fun visit with my sister. I always remember the Weekend of the Missing Arts and Crafts Fair (its picture was later featured on a milk carton) very fondly.

That’s the way life is sometimes. You set out with a plan, but sometimes things just don’t work out the way you thought they would. But if you are flexible and open-minded and in the company of good people you can have a pretty fine time of it after all.