little miss vicarious and her very big day

does anyone else remember the mister and little miss books? little white books with characters like little miss know-it-all, mister sleepy, mister busy, etc. what would a little miss vicarious look like? because i need the character for myself, to properly document the size of my smile, knowing that i finally got to not just hear about, but accompany my blogmate on outing #2 with new guy (ng?).

the outing in question was none other than the sorrento cheese pesto pasta vino festival in heart of italy (not little italy, because chicago has to have three or four separate italian neighborhoods in the city proper) on 24th and oakley. i was excited because 1) i love neighborhood festivals, 2) i love heart of italy and have gone there for lunch on every family vacation since age ten. sometimes i think my dad actually drove through chicago even when it was clearly out of the way, just for lunch at the now-defunct villa marconi. the neighborhood is a teeny bit shady, but that never mattered at villa marconi since all of the cops ate there, handguns and kevlar hanging casually on the backs of their chairs. long way to go for a $5 plate of tripe, though. and 3) i got to meet ng.

ng is a nice guy (uh-oh, also ng... nng?), who won early points by buying beers for the group. i would comment more on the level of his suitability for my blogmate, but what matters to me is where he fits into my life as friend-of-blogmate. he laughed at my jokes, whatever they were, was willing to tolerate a silly street festival, and seemed to enjoy people-watching. since my blogmate's boy-barometer includes "would this guy go to an indoor water-park with me?" as an up-front deal-breaker, these all seem like good signs.

i should also add that the people-watching at this festival was fantastic. ng told me on arrival that i had to go watch the world's pizza dough tossing champion, which was a good call; think stereotypically-italian-slicked-back-hair and black man-baby-tee break-dancing with dough, all with a very serious facial expression that clearly showed his boredom with performing this feat on the hour every hour for four solid days of festival, all accompanied by bad italian techno-pop. the one-and-only frankie avalon sang his many many hits. and many many large women wearing low-cut black shirts with badly tapered tight jeans and an average of 4 gold chains on their artificially tanned necks wandered around bellowing out for their partners in curiously east-coast accents for a midwestern town: "joooooeee? joe, there's a seat over heeeere! joooooeee?"

i call it a good day when i can spy on my blogmate's latest gossip-in-progress while munching on a stick of fried gnocchi.