Dragging the Daughters to DSU

Susan, the inspiring and industrious parochial school librarian (those complimentary adjectives belong to Susan, by the way, not to "parochial school"), volunteered to run a book fair this month at her school during which students, parents, and community members could purchase books for themselves, for the school library, or for a particular classroom (for teachers who submit a "wish list"). She contacted Scholastic Book Fairs, who supplied her with the inventory. Volunteers from the community helped her set it up and have been helping with sales the past week.

So far, Catch the Titan "Title" Wave (titan = her school's mascot) has been a great success with hundreds of dollars of sales and numerous books added to the library's holdings. (Heck, considering that this is the first such event at the school ever--or at least in the past several years--selling only one book would have been a success.) It has required Susan to report early to work throughout the fair, though, in order to be available for students arriving to school. She scheduled it to coincide with parent/teacher conferences to take advantage of the presence of parents, who could then be persuaded to buy books for their kids. She also chose to staff the sales table during this weekend's volleyball tournament, nabbing many customers from out of town, too.

This all meant that the girls and I were on our own last evening and all day today. After school yesterday, I brought the girls back to campus for a community service "dinner auction" being sponsored by the Campus Activities Board. The Student Center ballroom was set up with tables for dining, and around the perimeter were serving tables, each staffed by members of a different campus organization. Each student organization had made a particular meal to serve a certain number of people (ranging from five to 15). Attendees first toured the tables to see which menus seemed most appealing. Then an auctioneer went around the room and sold the meals to the highest bidders. Many went for $60 or $70 per plate, with the winning bidders buying three or four plates at a time! By the end of the bidding, the remaining plates were selling for $5 to $10 each, and every available meal was sold.

I sat at a table with a half-dozen of my coworkers, and all our children sat together at an adjacent table. I was out-bid on a number of the menus, and I over-bought when I did get the winning bid. We all shared our plates at our table anyway, so we all got to sample some of everything in the smorgasbord that covered our table after we all had bought way more food than we could possibly eat. The idea was to make sure that every meal was bought so that the organizations' work wouldn't be for naught and so that the maximum amount of money could be collected (all donations went to local charities). Here's what we ate (and what we took home a lot of):

• corned beef, cabbage, Irish stew, soda bread, lettuce salad, and choice of baked potato or a fried potato patty like a latke, with brownies for dessert [I bought five plates from this organization]
• stuffed mini-pumpkins (with a hamburger and rice mixture), pumpkin bisque, pumpkin cheescake, and spiced apple cider
• Jamaican jerk chicken, rice and beans, fruit and lettuce salad, tropical fruit juice, and a chocolate and coconut tart
• grilled sirloin steak, baked beans, and chocolate cheesecake bars
• taco bar: nacho chips covered with--or taco shells stuffed with--lettuce, hamburger, tomato, shredded cheese, tomato, black olives, etc., with brownies for dessert
• buffalo stroganoff, green beans with ham, and biscuits with mixed fruit topping [I bought two plates from this organization]

Dining Services had also made available hot dogs and hamburgers and potato chips for anybody who was outbid and left meal-less. At the end of the night, there were still many dogs and burgers left over (and headed for the garbage anyway), so we took home several of those, too. Our fridge is now overstuffed with delicious food that Susan will get to sample for supper tonight.

This afternoon Dickinson State University's football team is playing South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Prior to the game, there was a free chili feed and pep rally held at King Pavilion on campus, so the girls and I (once again Susan-less) walked back to campus before noon and enjoyed delicious chili with chopped onions and shredded cheddar cheese, crackers, corn bread, and lemonade. A student wearing the Buster Blue Hawk costume (blue hawk = DSU's mascot, and Buster is an oversized version who joins the cheerleaders at games) was at the chili feed, so the girls and I posed with him for a photo, which will be mailed to us free of charge. Soon after we finished eating, the marching band made its way across campus to the pavilion. The cheerleaders joined them and did choreographed routines to several songs as a pep rally before people headed over to Whitney Stadium for the game.

The girls opted out of attending the game afterwards (Suzanna: "I don't get football. I don't understand the rules"), so instead we walked home, made a brownie-vanilla ice cream sundae, and walked it to Susan as a treat in the middle of her long day of book-selling. Tonight, she will get to sample some of what the girls and I enjoyed from our weekend walks to DSU.