Day in the Life of an Idiot

 
Image: Armenian food: chicken kabob wrap and frozen mint lemonade.

I'm having a late start to my writing today anyway since I had an early morning doctor's appointment (just a regular check-in). So, I thought I might as well take a few minutes and write to y'all about the Armenian festival at St. Sahag Church that Shawn and I went to on Saturday afternoon. 

By chance, Shawn and I were reminiscing about this on the way to the clinic. (Miraculously, Shawn and I had appointments at approximately the same time.) It was a lot LIKE the open house at the Watershed District in that it had a very small town, friendly vibe, with one critical difference--a difference that made us enjoy the cultural festival a little bit less. 

To set the stage first, however. St. Sahag is a very unimposing orthodox church a half of block in from Marshall Avenue on Hewitt.  This means nothing to my non-Twin Cities readers, but so you can picture this church having one end of its block abutting a decently busy throughway that connects St. Paul to Minneapolis (Marshall becomes Lake Street on the other side of the river.) The cross street just gives Twin Cities people a sense of the nearby neighborhood, which is working class--with the general mix of houses found throughout St. Paul, hidden grand Victorians and post-WWII ranches and every style in-between all sharing the same block. 

When Shawn and I first pulled up, we weren't sure if things were underway, even though we arrived a full half hour after festivities were scheduled to begin. The outside, as I said, was somewhat unassuming. So, no big signs pointing us to food, though we could see a few tents set up in the back of a permanent playground where a group of men seemed to be grilling. We decided to tour the exterior, if nothing else. On the opposite side of the church from the grillers was a big open door to a church basement, from which wafted the most mouth-watering flavors!  

In we went!

Once inside, we were greeted by two people, a man and a woman, who asked us what kind of tickets we wanted. This was another ticket = food situation, only here you paid in advance of what you thought you might spend. They had menus (with prices) posted everywhere, but it was still kind of an overwhelming decision. Since I had it in cash, I decided to just go for $20 to see what that might get us. I was handed a punch card with twenty dots on it. 

We were able to get a decent amount of food for twenty dollars. We bought the chicken kabob wrap and lemonade pictured above, as well as a couple of baked goods options from the upstairs, where the grandmas all had their cookies and cakes and such like on display. 

But here's where I think the major difference was. 

I think if Shawn and I were food tourists, we would have preferred the Armenian festival over the Watershed open house. If we'd had an unlimited budget, I'm sure we could have spent several hours (and an easy hundred bucks, if not more,) trying All The Things and having an amazing time doing it. The Armenians seemed aware of this. All of the entertainment was scheduled in the dining hall/church basement, on a little stage. So, ideally, one could find a spot at one of the tables to sit, watch the dancing or listen to the music and the other programming, while getting up every so often to refresh the lemonade or to try out some of the other foods on offer. 

As it was, we had a limited budget. So, when we filled up our punch card, we went home.  We went home happy? But it wasn't like the Watershed place where we could continue to explore all the FREE activities for as long as we wanted without feeling like we were occupying a table that should go to a paying customer, as it were. The Armenians had a bazaar, but, for us, that could only be window shopping at best, which is fine and FUN? But, again, we kind of hurried through that so that people who were going to spend money had the opportunity to do so.

And the festival was a fundraiser. Like, I do NOT begrudge them that.

Shawn and I were just trying to parse what it was about the comparably dorkier Watershed Open House that we liked so much more. I mean, obviously, we're dorks and government agency wonks, but, beyond that, this is what we could determine. One thing I learned from a year or so as a movie reviewer for the local queer newspaper is that things are automatically more enjoyable when they are FREE. I had to watch my tendency to say "it was fun!" about movies like Matthew Broderick's Godzilla (universally panned by everyone in the movie reviewing industry, EXCEPT my reivew in focusPOINT.* Oops. That's my contribution to cinematic criticism, everyone! Whee. )

At any rate, we still had a great time and I was happy to know that my guess as to what Armenian food might be like was pretty much on the money.



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*doesn't link to my actual review, though depending on how many papers have been digitized, perhaps one could find it. (Ah, in my ancient CV, I discovered this citation: Lyda Morehouse.  “The Lizard King: ‘Godzilla,’”  focusPOINT 5 49: 206 (May 20 – May 1998): 13.)  It was even published on PAGE THIRTEEN. Yeah.... bad luck for me. I don't know how many more reviews I did for them after that, but it wasn't a whole lot.