today i went to the burien strawberry and arts festival with my art car and a small pile of incense. i made $69.
i’m really surprised at how many people looked very closely at various aspects of my car, but didn’t ask me about it at all, because i’m fairly sure that, for the most part, the people in burien have absolutely no clue what it means. there was also a “christian” booth on the other side of the festival site, and people with shirts that said “Jesus Loves You” were very carefully avoiding even looking at my car, as though just looking at it might mess up their “christianity” somehow. there were a few western folks – like, maybe five, total – who asked me what it said, and there were a few indian people who knew what it said without having to ask, including one guy from nepal who read off the names like he was reading the newspaper (which made me feel very happy and very sad at the same time), and said that since he came from nepal he hadn’t been chanting as much as he used to. it turned out that he was a vendor up the row from me, and his business is called “Ganesha Imports”, which struck me as particularly amusing.
then, the guy in the booth next to me got ripped off while i was watching. it was rather distressing, actually: there were a couple of kids – seriously, they couldn’t have been older than 14 or so – hanging around my car, and when the guy’s back was turned, one of them swooped in, grabbed all his money, and was gone before he (or i) could do anything. the guy said he lost around $450 (he was selling gold and silver jewelry), plus his ID and wallet. fortunately he didn’t keep his car keys in the bag as well, but i’m gonna keep my eyes open tomorrow and report that kid if i see him again, which wouldn’t be too great a stretch… especially since the guy he ripped off is not going to be there tomorrow…
moe is in portland. apparently her mother had a mild stroke or something, because she was in the hospital a couple of days ago. moe hasn’t said anything specific about what happened, other than to assure me that her mother is okay, but she’s planning on coming home tomorrow, so i should know more then.
Well, the sticking point would probably be convincing them that Ganesh as a deity rather than a demon. After that, you can probably give the statistics and ask them if they’ve accepted Ganesh into their lives. But for a lot of those “Christians”, it’s really hard for them to accept that there might be other gods, and that other people might worship other gods, and that they’re not all being manipulated by Satan.
well, ganesh is the second most widely worshipped deity in the world, and that’s largely because he is worshipped by so many christians, muslims, buddhists and animists, as well as all the hindus in the world… now the problem is convincing the burien “christians” of that… 8)
Ooog. God things for Moe’s mother, and I hope that you can id the thief and get him arrested. Stuff like that’s likely to happen again, and it would be better to catch him now before more people get stolen from.
Last, though, any Christian who thinks that looking at your beautiful Ganesha-inspired art car will somehow corrupt their Christianity never had any faith in the first place. They should stop posing and pretending and get someone who they feel comfortable worshipping. Maybe Ganesha would be a good choice.
I hope everything’s good with Moe’s Mom. All good vibes going their way…