Picnics Day

I’m running between events.  I just did my shift at the All School Picnic running the putt-putt booth.  It is either the second or third year that has been my assigned job which with the hundred or so different volunteer opportunities I am not sure how I always get Putt-Putt.  Perhaps it is because I seem to have no trouble keeping small innocent children lined up quietly while one kid gets three tries to hit the wiffle ball into the cup.

It sounds like an easy job, and it is until you really look at a despondent five year old’s face who has missed all three times and they think their world has ended.  Well, that is where the bucket of five million tootsie rolls comes in.  Everybody is a winner.  Three shots, no ball in the cup wins you one, three shots and you finally get the ball in on the third shot gets you two and if you get a hole in one you get three.  These are not the published rules of the game, just my interpretation of what a carnival is all about.  That and I had five million Tootsie rolls, what are we saving them for?

I would have liked to stay and visit with the young school parents but I had to run home to get ready for my neighbor Mary’s moving party.  Mary is our neighborhood dog sitter and all the dog parents are in mourning over her moving.  She will eventually move to a house not too far away, but not three doors down as she has been.

I have not broken the news to Shay Shay who sees going to Mary’s as her own personal All School Picnic.  On any given weekend Mary might have five or six neighborhood pooches staying with her.  They all seem to love it.  I know that Shay does because when we go out for our regular walk she pulls me to Mary’s house and stands at her door looking in her side light window for her friends.  I think Mary must have her own version of the giant bucket of doggie tootsie rolls because she has never met a dog that did not love her.

So off to the next picnic — A little saner with no carnival games or bouncy castles.  I think we should have hired a clown to make balloon animals because all the guests are going to be sad that Mary is moving, much more sad than a five year old who missed three shots in putt putt and didn’t get a tootsie roll.