saturday, may 28
9am-11pm. Get a cultural start to the weekend at this year’s Lebanese Festival! This three day festival includes Lebanese food (kebbeh, tabbouleh, hummus, grape leaves, kafta), musicians, and cultural performances, including dabke (literally “stamping of the feet” in Arabic), an extremely popular folk dance performed at weddings and other celebrations. Complete festival schedule and list of vendors/performers at www.lebanesefestival.net.
10am-7pm. The Santee Street Fair gives you another reason to venture east with over 300 vendors, plus rides, music, and wine & beer garden. http://santeestreetfair.com.
If you were one of the many that missed out on this morning’s Veritas 009 release at The Lost Abbey, why not console yourself at Vintage Bottle Weekend at O’Brien’s Pub? Event includes limited vertical flights, including a 7 year vertical of Fuller’s Vintage Ale (2004-2010), a 4 year vertical of Unibroue’s anniversary ales, and vintage bottles such as 2008 North Coast Old Stock Ale, 2008 Rodenbach Vintage, and 2009 Lost Abbey Cuvee de Tomme.
sunday, may 29
10am-5pm. Celebrate the 31st Ethnic Food Fair at Balboa Park’s House of Pacific Relations International Cottages. Event features food for sale from over 32 nations, as well as ethnic music and dance, costume, and cultural presentations. Click here for a complete list of entertainment, participating groups, and food for sale, and someone please save me some alfajores. And, okay, some varenyky and galabki while you’re at it.
If you happen to find yourself in North County instead (or just fear the crowds at Balboa Park), head over to the Strawberry Festival in Vista and celebrate all things strawberry from 9am-4pm with music, costume and pie-eating contests, vendors, food, dance, art, fashion shows and more. Once you’ve had your fill of strawberries, swing by Green Flash Brewery’s Vista location and say goodbye to the old brewery at their Relocation/Customer Appreciation Party from noon to 4pm. Enjoy complimentary food, prizes and beer as the company looks forward to the opening of their new Mira Mesa location next week.
monday, may 30
This Monday is Memorial Day, a day we pause to remember all those who have gone before, particularly those who have given their lives in armed service to the United States. Several memorial events are scheduled throughout San Diego County; you may notice that the flag is lowered to half mast, but only from dawn until noon. “The half-staff position remembers the more than one million men and women who gave their lives in service of their country. At noon their memory is raised by the living, who resolve not to let their sacrifice be in vain, but to rise up in their stead and continue the fight for liberty and justice for all.” At 3pm local time, a national moment of silence is observed throughout the country.
Why not celebrate Memorial Day this year by challenging yourself to at least one day of volunteerism in support of service personnel, including the more than 40,000 wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan? The United States Department of Veterans Affairs offers several programs to donate or volunteer, including supporting President Barack Obama’s United We Serve initiative, or check out these other great ways to help:
- Operation Gratitude seeks to lift morale and put smiles on faces by sending care packages addressed to individual Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines deployed in harm’s way.
- Freedom is Not Free is dedicated to assisting wounded service members and their families, and the families of the fallen.
- Operation Stand Down brings homeless veterans together in a single location and provides them access to community resources to begin addressing their individual problems and rebuilding their lives. Veterans Village San Diego is currently recruiting volunteers for Operation Stand Down San Diego on July 15, 2011 to support the more than 2,000 homeless military veterans in San Diego County.
“If other eyes grow dull and other hinds slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain in us. Let us, then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains, and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledge to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon the Nation’s gratitude—the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.”
– John Alexander Logan, May 5th 1868
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a fine kettle of ish 