Mardi Gras

This weekend was the Dickinson Catholic Schools' annual Mardi Gras fundraiser event. It was held at the high school where Susan works, which is only four houses away from where we live. The girls had a friend over all day playing, so we took her with us and walked over late in the afternoon.

The gymnasium was set up like a midway at a state fair with numerous booths for games where kids could play for little trinkets and toys as prizes. First we scoped out the entire setup, planning which games to play and how many tickets we'd need. Then we bought the girls tickets and got to playing. They fished plastic fish out of tanks of water, found a number on the bottom of the fish, and won a prize whose number (and level of quality) corresponded with the number on the fish. The "pick a duck" game was similar, except the level of hand/eye coordination required was significantly lower: one simply reached in and picked up a duck from the tank of water. Everyone was a winner (depending on your opinion of the quality of the prizes won).

The girls won no cakes in the cake walk, and Abigail won no toys in a wheel of fortune game (she had to place tickets on various numbers and then hope that the arrow landed on that number on the wheel when it was spun). There was a similar game, though, featuring candy as prizes that won some of the girls some sweets. There was also a "throw three ping pong balls into a glass jar" game that would have earned them fancy drama masks had they landed all three balls in the jug. Suzanna got one ball in and came away with a piece of candy.

Good timing: we used up the last of our tickets just as Susan was to begin her two-hour shift working in the kitchen, so she reported for duty, and the girls and I got into line for supper. The line was long, snaking from the school's foyer, down a hallway, and back again in the other direction to the cafeteria. It moved pretty quickly, though, and brought us to a buffet line where we helped ourselves to American crudites, deviled eggs (an ironic choice for a Catholic event), cookie/Cool Whip salad, coleslaw, creamy green bean casserole, rice, sliced ham, and fried chicken. We were seated by hosts and hostesses at long tables where they served us water, half-pint cartons of milk, and coffee; baskets of bread sticks; bowls of homemade chicken noodle soup; and platters of baked goods: cakes, brownies, and bars.

We were seated all on the same side of a table, so Abigail was four seats away from me and out of reach for my assistance. However, the people next to her took care of her, serving her water and soup and passing to her whatever she needed. All four girls were perfectly behaved, too, so there was minimal stress for me. In fact, the only negative was that I was seated amidst a passel of surly senior citizens who themselves were less well mannered than the four children who accompanied me. These folks refused to visit and literally snatched at the food around me rather than asking for out-of-reach items to be passed. They also hoarded the items set beside them, eating up two and three bars apiece, leaving slim pickings for the girls and me--and not offering to pass what few sweets remained, either, without prompting from me. (In return, I refused to notify them that they each had embarassingly large chunks of food stuck to their faces near their mouths. Take that!)

While Susan remained to finish her shift, the girls and I returned home well fed . . . and without beads. (And we're okay with that.)