Clean Water, Hot Fire, Lost Cat

And why use Wackenhut, a conservative Florida-based security firm with strong CIA ties and a history of spying on and harassing environmental organizations, strike-breaking, thuggery in Central America, fines for corporate espionage, and a galling record of violence and neglect in its privatized prisons (including employees convicted of federal civil-rights conspiracy and obstruction charges). Damn it, I want someone of unimpeachable character guarding my shit, thank you!

At any rate, I wasn't at this last historic waiver-waiving meeting. I was at the county fair, having wheatgrass juice.

You heard me: there amid the cotton candy, battered Aussie potatoes and other grease delivery systems was a new-to-the-fair stand offering organic carrot, orange and wheatgrass juices, not to mention a tremendous made-on-the-spot chocolate banana. You can't miss the place: it's right by the attraction where for $35 they drop your screaming ass several stories into a net. I suspect the chocolate banana is better eaten after doing this than before.

I prefer not to get my screaming ass dropped at all, but I did ride the Wilde Maus, which is pretty tame as roller coasters go, though more than wild enough to remind me that I'd gotten whiplash a few weeks earlier. And the grand Ferris wheel: from its upper reaches, you could see Catalina in one direction and the wondrous sprawl that is OC in all other directions.

There, close at hand, is the fair, the most arresting sight being the thousands upon thousands and thousands of colorful stuffed animals in huge plastic bags. People will sweat and pay to win just one, where from up here, they look like a spilled box of Trix. Hey, there's the lights from Edison Field! There's the Sanitation District! There's Fashion Island! Where's my darned cat?