Stuff That Matters: Chapter ONE of THREE:

The Terrible, Tragic, Disastrous, Ice-cream Social

Summer was in full swing, and I deemed it was the perfect time to plan a joyous ice cream social. I had imagined all of my best friends coming together to enjoy the sweetness of ice cream in the park as well as the jovial fellowship that would follow. First, I sent out e-vites to 100 of my friends, coworkers and church members, to notify them that I would be hosting a get-together that would be accompanied by a few of the most tasty flavors of ice-cream. I was pleased when 75 of my friends RSVPed saying that they would be attending my party. The night before I went to the grocery store and picked out 10 large tubs of ice cream. I also knew I would need to provide eating utensils for the occasion, so I bought a package of 100 paper bowls and 100 plastics spoons, which was certainly enough for everyone, and a couple extra just incase there were other people at the park that wanted to join us.
When the day of the party arrived, I noticed that the sky was slightly overcast and there was a forecast of thunder showers. I observed the sky and was delighted when the rain cleared away and the sun emerged 15 minutes before my party was scheduled to begin. Sure enough, many of my friends showed up, eager to eat ice cream and have fun. I dished up the first comers at least two scoops each and was delighted to see how much they enjoyed the treat I had provided. At one point, I caught a glimpse of my friend Sue grabbing 3 spoons to put in her bowl.
“I can eat my ice cream faster this way!!!” she said as she stuffed two spoonfuls of ice-cream in her mouth at once.
Then I saw Sally, a lady I have always known to be extra thrifty, stuffing a whole handful of spoons in her purse. “You just never know when you will need an extra spoon! I am sure these will come in handy!”
Then I was caught off guard by the sound of laughter behind me. A little baby was getting quite a thrill out of putting a bowl on her head, letting it fall off, and then repeating the trick with another bowl. “Isn’t Bobby just the cutest baby?! What a precious little bowl trick! Do it again Bobby- I want to try to take a picture of it!!!”
And then Penny, my extra cheeky friend, began sticking spoons in her hair, “Don’t these make lovely hair decorations?! How awesome of me to think of this!”
“Oh I guess they do… I would have never thought of that.”, I said, but had began to notice that only half of the people that had said they would come had arrived.
By this time, the children on the playground had become a little rowdy and began throwing sand at each other. Debby, who has always been a very innovative mother, grabbed a handful of bowls and spoons and gave them to the children in the sandbox. They made great sand toys for the kids, and occupied them for quite some time. But after a while, the children again grew restless.
“Hey kids!! Come over here and sit at the picnic table! I have a craft for you to do!!” Called Diane, the crafty lady. I was amazed as I watched her direct the children in how to create a butterfly out of a bowl, three spoons, and some markers for decorating. The children loved the craft and afterwards they imaginatively held their butterflies above their heads and pranced in the grass to make their butterflies fly through the air.
Then I saw in the distance, a large group of people approaching the park. It was the Smithies! I had started to think that they would not make it, even though they had said they would come.
“We’re so sorry we’re late”, said Don Smithie. “We couldn’t leave the house until the rain stopped because our car broke down yesterday, and we didn’t want to walk in the rain.”
“No problem at all! There is still more than enough ice-cream left”, I said as I scooped up a nice big ball of chocolate ice cream. But, to my dismay, as I reached for the stack of bowls, I realized that they were all gone. And then I also noticed the empty box in which the plastic spoons were once in.
“Oh no!!” I gasped. Billy Smithie began to cry. He had been looking forward to ice cream ever since he was bribed into finishing his spinach soup at lunchtime.
Then some more of my friends also showed up, “Hi! We got caught it traffic, but better late than never, right?!”
“ummmm… yeah” I nervously stuttered.
The bowl and spoon dilemma became even more of a problem than I could have ever imagined. Some of the kids tried to eat ice cream out of their hands, but then their fingers got too cold, and they started to scream. Kids had ice cream dripping down their arms and on their shirts and they were trying to lick it off before more melted. The entire party became a huge dripping, sticky, bawling ice cream mess.
The tragedy was making quite a scene, as children cried, dropped their ice cream on the ground and parents tried to clean up. Still, some guests who had already eaten acted like they didn’t notice by looking the other way or by acting like they were too busy monitoring the children on the playground. But no one could have missed what was going on. Shelly said quite brazenly, “well, if you guys had just arrived on time, none of this would have happened, right?!” No one bothered to answer her question.

Debby, the mother who had made sand toys out of the bowls and spoons tried to act sympathetic, "Oh, it's just too bad, that there is not enough bowls and spoons for you all. It's a good thing I only need to worry about my own children, because they are already taken care of. It would probably be best if I went home now."
I was already in enough distress over the apparent failure of my party when one of my guests, whose name I wont mention, approached me and said, “You know, I just have to say, if you were really a good ice cream social host, you would not be allowing this to happen. I mean really, how could a good host, let perfectly good people like the Smithies, have ice cream all over their arms and legs and… just look at Billy! He’s got ice cream in his hair and dripping down his face! No wonder he is crying!” A couple of other guests nodded in agreement and then began to shake their heads at the hopeless and pathetic situation.
It will be a long time before I plan another ice-cream social. First, I will have to recover from the embarrassment of my first social’s failure. My relationship with the Smithies has gone sour due to their disappointment over the situation. Little Billy shivered all the way home as all his clothes were soaked in ice-cream, and then had to take a long bath before he was no longer terribly sticky.
I’m just not sure what I did wrong, or how I could have made sure that my party didn’t end up in a disaster.

*Not too many children were harmed during the making of this story. The ones who were harmed, were compensated with a lot of ice-cream.

Cake Walk

Basically the ONLY volunteering I do for Rocket's school the entire year is for the fall festival. I decorate the door (as seen below), and I donate a few cakes for the cake walk. Before today, I got much joy out of creating the most delightful cakes I possibly could. Last year I created a pirate ducky cake and a spider cake (with eight eyes), but I didn't post a picture of them because I didn't blog so much back then. This year I made four fondant covered cakes. I discovered how fun and easy fondant is to work with through Holly, who has a link to the recipe on her blog. It is like playing with playdough- great fun. I liked imagining children drooling over my cakes and then after being chosen as the winning number, anxiously selecting the cake I made, out of all the cakes, and then glowing as they carry it home. But after actually attending the fall festival cake walk, I had a change of heart, and I don't know if I will participate in the cake donation next year... well, if I do, I will just make ugly cakes- not pretty ones. Maybe I will make a "pile of poop" cake. Or maybe I will intentionally drop the cake on the ground before submitting it. Basically 25 children surrender THREE tickets (which cost 33.33333 cents each) to participate in the cake walk. Then ONE child's number is called, at which time, they get to gloat in front of the other 24 children as they go pick out the cake of their choice. The other 24 children get a practically petrified peice of tootsie roll on their way out of the room. That's it. I felt like kicking the cake out of the one child's hands and redistributing the cake to other more pathetic children... like the cake robin hood... or the cake Obama... or something. Anyhow, I decided that spending hours creating clever and beautiful cakes is not the most worthy cause. Unfortunately, this might mean I have to volunteer at the school in some other way, like helping the children read or something miserable like that.

A Pirate Made Out of Trash...

This isn't what I am supposed to be blogging about right now. The important blog is still in processing, and I worked on it for most of the day today, but then the sun went down early (like at 5 oclock... what's up with that?!) and foiled my efforts to complete my super exciting, super important blog, which you will, unfortunatly, have to wait until tomorrow for...

BUT until then, I would like to show off a little something I did for Rocket's school's Fall Festival. The fall festival is like a HUGE deal at the school, and all the parents are expected to volunteer somehow each year. Since I didn't want to have to help run a carnival booth (I would probably yell at the kids), I volunteer to do the artistic stuff. Last year, when I signed up to take care of the door decorating, I thought it would be pretty easy. The theme of our room was"frisbee toss" so I drew a kid throwing a frisbee, and I thought it looked alright. But when I showed up, I realized that other parents were way more creative and had put lights and pompoms and whatnot all over the other doors. I also realized that it was a contest... and I didn't even make 1st, 2nd or 3rd place, and I was soooooo embarresed. I wasn't going to let that happen this year, so I squeezed my brain out for the most creativest idea it had- trash. The theme this year was "Treasure Island", and I sure hope that no other parents out there come up with something more innovative, out-of-the-boxish, and awesome, than a pirate made out of trash- plus it has a really PC message about recycling and I think public school like that kind of thing.

Items I made my pirate out of: water bottles, milk jugs, shampoo bottles, electrical cords, tin cans, PVC, soda pop cans and liters, nuts and bolts, straws, cleaning product containers, lotion pumps, light bulbs, a door knob. The letters are all cut out of food packaging or magazines and such. The shark is made out of a taco bell plastic platter thingy, and the speech bubble is made out of a milk jug and he is saying "AAaaaarrrrr".

If you can't tell, I am actually really proud of this project- maybe even more proud than any peice of art I've create for a show. The festival is tomorrow... I'm looking for a first place ribbon.

Really Mean

When I am really excited about posting a blog, I tend to let it stew around in my head for a while, procrastinating actually writing it until I can think of all the perfect words. Sometimes those blogs never even get posted.
So while I procrastinate the important blog and continue to let it sit in my head, here is a conversation I had with Roxanne yesterday at the kitchen table. I was crafting together a pirate to go on Rocket's classroom door for the fall festival this weekend and Roxanne was cutting up a milk jug and turning it into a butterfly.

Roxanne: Mom, what if I ruined your pirate?

Mom: Well, that would be pretty mean.

Roxanne: Mom, what is "mean"?

Mom: It's something that's not very nice that could make someone sad.

Roxanne: So, if I took somebody and pushed them into an oven and pushed their arms and legs into the oven too, and then closed the door, and then turned the oven on, would that be mean?

Mom: Yes, that sounds very very mean.

Roxanne: So, if I took someone and put them in the middle of the street and told them not to go anywhere, and then I got in the car and then ran them over, would that be mean?

Mom: Yes, that would be very mean too. You'd probably go to jail.

Roxanne: So, if I took someone and put them in an airplane that was flying and then pushed them out of the airplane and they landed in a jungle and they were lost, would that be mean?
(I think this scenario may have been inspired by "Man vs. Wild" TV show)

Mom: Yes, Roxanne, that is mean too.

Roxanne: If I took these scissors and I cut off all your fingers, would that be mean? Wait- I cut off your nose too- would that be mean?

Mom: What do you think?

Roxanne: I don't know the answer.

Mom: I think you do.

Roxanne: I think it would be really really nice and sweet and cute.

I think this conversation is slightly disturbing, but nontheless, her creativity is sortof impressive, right?

I voted... I actually voted last week, but I saved my sticker to wear on Tuesday. Did you remember to vote? If you didn't, than don't bother doing it now just because I told you to. If you need ME to tell you to vote, then I probably don't want YOU making decisions for America. Likewise, if you need P Diddy, or Paris Hilton, or MTV to tell you to go vote, then I probably don't want YOU "rocking the vote"- leave that to the smart ones, please.

However, if you were planning on voting, and haven't done so yet, please remember those living in America right now, that don't have the right to vote and can't even make their voice heard. And those are the ones whose life are on the line with this election. No, it's not their bank account on the line, it's not their taxes on the line, it's not their education- it's their life. I don't know what policy or issue is more important than that.

And you may be saying that the president doesn't or won't make a difference in this issue, or that the Roe v Wade will never be overturned. People once thought the same about slavery, which was legal for much longer than abortion has been, and look where we are today. Additionally, even if the entire practice isn't abolished, the policies of one of the candidates is certain to greatly increase the number of abortions performed each year- and I don't want to be responsible for the lives of those children that could have been saved with a different vote.

I Voted

Bad Art for Bad People Show #2

On Saturday, Matt and I left the kids in the Springs with my parents, and traveled back to Denver to attend my second art show with the "Bad Art for Bad People" group. The great thing about these "bad art" parties, is that you never know what, and who to expect. Below you can see one of my paintings displayed at the show: Luke and Sarah showed up- one reason I love having them live in Denver instead of the Springs now. Here, Sarah poses in front of my painting of "Samone"... the resemblance is oddly staggering. One feature of the show was the opportunity to make your very own sock puppet (ahhh... NOW you wish you had been there, huh?!). Below, you see Luke and I working hard on creating our puppets. Then our puppets become aquainted with eachother- Luke's on the left, mine on the right. Later, they became disagreeable and fought.
Here, Luke is making fun of my painting of Samone... this was not long before the puppets had their altercation... More or less literally, the highlight of the night was the firedancers who took to the streets of downtown denver with their fire and dance moves. They were extremely difficult to get a good picture of. Although you can't see the details, I am hoping that the sum of the following pictures will present to you the essence of the perfomance.

And then Charity and Joe (the newly engageds) fell in love. That's what happens when you're surrounded by good bad art, fire dancers, and sock puppets. It happened to Matt and I too, but I was unavailable to take a picture of it. And now, here is a small sampling of the really good really bad art that was displayed at the venue:
An angry tomatoe:

Skeletal Fairy Specimens:

Not sure:

A torso:

And that's about all I have to say.

Halloween Costumes

When I was a child, I wasn't allowed to celebrate halloween. I think it was against our religion. I wasn't allowed to dress up, or trick-or-treat, or anything. So while all the other kids were out getting candy and having fun, our parents sheltered us from Halloween by forcing Luke and I to stay home and watch all the halloween specials on TV- my favorite was the Garfield halloween special because it was really really freaky!

Now that we are grown up and too old to participate in Halloween traditions, my parents go all out- spooky decorations, spooky music, fog machines. It's their favorite holiday now. Take a look at my dad on Friday:

We went to my parents house on Friday to celebrate with them. My dad got quite a kick out of playing dead and then jumping up and freaking out the trick-or-treaters- and my mom couldn't have been more proud of him. Here he is scaring my kids:

Besides my dad, as the dead pirate, there was some pretty impressive costumes at the party. I particularly like this duo, Batman and Batwoman:

And here are their parents, Wonderwoman and Superman:

Matt's parents dressed as matching scarecrows:

Jolleen always has the best costumes. She was a Jolleen Who. And we voted ourselves that best couple for a color picture:

Teddy was a redneck who likes cheap beer. By the time I took this picture, he had removed his mullet. But he proudly wore his PBR shirt all night: