This colorful festival in Norfolk’s Art District—just two miles from home—was totally fun. I was dressed all wrong. I’d biked with the kids in the chariot to a park to meet Isaac’s preschool girlfriend that morning and I was still dressed for biking.
To fit in, I should have worn boots, a mix of loose patterns, my round nerd glasses, and a hair accessory or several tatoos. Although I did blend in with the other parents-with-young-kids-who-hit-the-early-hours-of-a-hip-festival crowd. We all had strollers. I also blended in with some of the paintings. NEON camouflage!
People kept talking about their work release programs. I was like, “Oh…maybe it was a mistake to bring kids to this…” until, hours later, I figured out that Work Release is the hippest new restaurant and was at the heart of the whole festival. Now we know.
Anyway, the festival was a bunch of huge murals painted all over the sides of buildings. Some were finished, some were in progress. Some incorporated glowing neon lights. As it got dark, black and white movies popped up, projected onto any large black space: The Wizard of Oz, I Love Lucy.