Nothing seeded amiss when I left the parking area and made my way to the cafe for a soda. Sure, there were a lot of people at the Isthmus, even for a weekend, but summer's here and with it comes more visitors.
However, as I started to take in the passers by, I noticed more than a few, ...erm..., shall we say,
uniquely dressed individuals. "To each her own" I say to myself. But then, in the middle of the cafe, I was greeted with a sight I was not entirely prepared for.
Elves.
NO, not Elv
is. We saw him yesterday in town. (He's looking good BTW.) Okay, so maybe not pure Elves. More like some vaguely disturbing hybridization of a
late middle aged Trekkie-hippie-disco-computer geek-drag queen. Maybe. Or something. Oh, and his girlfriend. Bedecked in their finest tye-dye cat suit (her), glitter platform shoes (both), thermal long underwea (him), and arm warmers, they were quite a sight.
But it was the ears that really got me. They both had these gigantic, pointy elf ears. Seriously. Prosthetics? Surgery? I know not. But the
Keebler guys would be envious. (By the way, does the size of an elf's ears correlate to the size of anything else?)
It took a concerted effort on my part not to gawk, in wonderment, at the strange, sort of sad sight. Especially when she started brushing his waist-length hair. In the restaurant. (eeeuuwgh)
There was a whole cast of other notable characters, but I'll spare you the details. Especially details of the copious amounts of body piercing and ill-fitting custom bathing attire.
But it made me wonder, where is the line between being unique, self-possessed, quirky even, and just plain weird? And at what point (is there a point?) does weird become just ridiculous? Maybe even offensive? Because the freakiness I saw today just didn't seem to fall into that "free-spirited, march to the beat of your own drummer" kind of freakiness. Which, it should be noted, I am all for. Lord knows how boring the world would be if everyone were as boring and socially conforming as me!
The folks I saw today seemed like their oddness, their free-spiritedness, wasn't really that free at all. It seemed more contrived and forced than anything. Like they were adhering to some garishly overdone dress code in which the words "wild" "forcibly unmatched" "glitter" and "all together too sexually suggestive" were emphasized in bold. Bold CAPS in fact!
For the most part, I just took in the show. Because obviously that's what it was. They were putting on a display to show all the snobbish, Burberry clad, sailing people in their khakis and Izod that they couldn't care less what anyone thought: "See stuck up yacht lady! I don't even
want to be as rich, attractive, or mannered as you. So there!" Now, being rich, attractive and mannered certainly do not make the man (or woman) and are as much of a show as anything else too. But the Elves, and their disco-Trekkie-Japanese anime-YMCA-material girl-space odyssey kin folk, clearly had an agenda: shock & awe.
They also had a fair amount of pot, judging from the smell of things. I mean, who swathes themselves in patchouli incense and breath mints just for the fun of it? Few things tell a tale like the smells people encase themselves in: pot heads favor incense, frat boys favor Dakar Noir cologne, old ladies like rose petal talc, etc... anyone who has ever attended college, visited Berkeley, flirted in a bar, or pulsed to the throbbing, mind numbing beat of a "club" know what I'm talking about. So pretty much all of you. Admit it, you have.
Whew, how was that for a brief tangent? Anyway, back to Keebler & Co. I was mostly just bemused by the silliness of it all. But then I noticed a family. A mother and her three kids around 4, 6, and 10, walked by. The 4 year old noticed nothing. The 6 year old-- a girl-- thought the rainbow tights a guy was wearing were pretty cool. But the 10 year old boy was old enough, and observant enough, to know that something was up. The mother tried to hustle them past the capital of Planet Odd, to the suburban outskirts of the simply misguided, but it was clear that the ten year old had noticed the array of ample and prominently displayed bosoms, the skin tight hot pants (revealing a package he wouldn't quite understand for another three or four more years), and the dude with nipple rings connected by a thin gold chain.
That's when I decided that yes, indeed, there is a point at which weird becomes,
at the very least, inappropriate.
It was a Sunday afternoon in a resort town that caters to all types of visitors, including families, for heaven's sake. You don't have to channel
The Church Lady, but in the name of basic respect, lets leave the dominatrix and her elves at home.
Though I suspect that the Boy scouts-- all 827 who arrived on the ferry this afternoon-- will be having happy dreams at camp tonight.
EB gets ready to help plant the herb garden
This picture, and the next, are the same bed (tomatoes & lettuce) just 6 weeks later. The tomatoes are 
