Gratuitous Weekend Round-Up

As I say, I was incommunicado yesterday, which is too bad because plenty went on this weekend. A short summary:

**Friday afternoon St. Marie of the Blessed Educational Method held its annual fall social at one of the local parks. Among other activities, there were moonbounces. (Of course there were moonbounces. In these opening years of the 21st Century, is there left a single kids' party that doesn't involve moonbounces?)

Anyhoo, I drew the short straw to monitor one of the bounces for a while. To me, monitoring means making sure that the kids at least take their shoes off before they go in, and that body-checking is kept to a reasonable minimum in order to limit the number of broken noses and split lips. Other than that, I pretty much just give the kiddies a free rein. Evidently, however, my laissez-faire attitude is not generally shared amongst the local parental units. As the childs laughed and sang and bounced about, I had several parents fussing at me. What's the maximum allowable number of children at any one time? I shrugged and said, "I suppose when it collapses, that means there's too many." Should those big kids be in there with all the smaller ones? The "big kids" to whom they were referring were a pair of sweet-tempered nine year old twins whom I happen to know as being quite consciencious. Any other older kids I probably would have barred. How long are you letting them bounce each time? "Oh, I'm not timing them. Your child wants in, let him get in. He wants out, let him get out."

Hopefully, I won't be called on to monitor the moonbounce again any time soon. I believe this is a hope now fervently shared by several other parents.

***Friday night we attended a reception for patrons of an art fair held in our little neck of teh NoVa woods, the Missus being prezdent of some ladies' group or other active in the fair. I believe that the idea was to give a boost to starving artists. If the works on display at the gallery where the reception was held were any indication, there's a damned good reason why these artists are starving. They consisted of a series of ginormous landscapes done in bright, vibrant acrylics. Plastered across these pristine vistas were black and white clip-art style renditions of Man and all his Works (the air, for instance, was full of jets, the waters full of powerboats and supertankers), the whole display calculated to posivitely scream "'Where every prospect pleases/and only Man is vile.' Get it? GET IT!!!!?" I couldn't imagine anybody actually paying for one of these shrills, much less displaying it.

***Saturday was an important soccer day because it was the eldest Llama-ette's debut as goalie for the Creepy Green Lepreuchauns this season. I'd been fretting about this in a casual way ever since she announced that she wanted to give it a try. The gels at her age are really beginning to play the game seriously (it is a real joy to watch them learning how to work together) and there is much more to being goalie than just standing around looking coo-el in the gloves and jersey, and I wasn't sure she understood exactly what she was letting herself in for. So I'd spent the week giving her a lot of boring Dad Advice about teamwork, commitment, mental toughness and best effort. We'd also done some practicing in the back yard. (I had the seven year old take some shots on her. Ah, sibling-j-rivalry! The eldest was positively indignant that her little sister could make such wicked corner shots. Her sister, in turn, was grinning like a maniac.) And the coach, a great guy who I believe agreed to let her try just to humor her, spent some extra drill time with her as well.

Anyhoo, came the start of the second half of the game (our goalies play by halves)....and everything went just fine. We were already up by a couple goals and the coach put in our best defensive players by way of helping the gel out. The other team threatened a few times, but most of the game was played at their end of the field. What shots they did make, the gel handled calmly and workman-like enough. All in all, I think it was a good, confidence-boosting introduction. We won 4-0, btw. We're 3-1 for the season so far.

(The Missus handled the other two gels' games, so I didn't see them play this week. The five year old, however, apparently is turning into a holy terror on the field, which isn't the least surprising.)

***Saturday evening we attended a "harvest dinner" for church. This is an annual event. Six or seven different families agree to host a dinner, typically for between about 15 and 20 people. It's all about building community, but it's also about hitting up the parishioners for donations, for which purpose somebody from the clergy or the vestry or the stewardship committee shows up and makes a PBS-like pledge pitch. (Fortunately, the pitch typically comes long after the flow of adult beverages has commenced, so it's not as bad as all that.)

I got a few comments and queries about my decision to resign from the vestry and head for Rome. Because I didn't make a big stink about it - firing a nasty letter off to the bishop or nailing my vestry pin to the sanctuary door, for example - everyone has been quite polite. A few people have even been heartfelt enough in their show of support that I half believe them. On the other hand, the general consensus still seems to be that I have gone quite mad. And indeed, I got an anonymous message from one of the members of a group of older ladies at church Sunday morning that they hope I will "come to my senses" soon.

No fear.

***Sunday afternoon the Missus had to go work the art fair I mentioned above. As she took the younger LLama-ettes with her, I got the idea that the eldest and I would cook a big dinner together for them. We settled on a favorite shrimp and prosciutto pasta dish, known in the household as PSP or "Pops' Super Pasta" because the recipe comes out of a cookbook Dad put together a few years ago. Nothing makes a dish tastier than preparing it yourself, and I let the gel really get her hands dirty - tailing the shrimp, cuisine-arting the garlic, basil and shallots, zesting the lemon-rind, testing the angel's-hair. I also introduced her to the concept of the "cook's tax", that is, the cook's perquisite of being able to sample any of the ingredients at any time (well, almost any - she's a bit young to be getting a glass of sherry). We had to stop ourselves from gobbling up all the prosciutto before the sauce was even cooked.

All in all, a very good weekend.