This weekend was very tiring, so I won’t bore you with the details of how I edged. If you want to be bored with details on edging, talk to your neighbor Joe. I’m sure he has some good ideas.
The highlight for the weekend was going to a carnival. We took the girls to a local church shindig filled with fried, fatty foods, crappy sno-cones and people with no names running rides that may or may not have contained the correct number of bolts for safety assurances.
But no matter, for they would pack up and move away as soon as possible, never to be heard from again.
We purchased tickets for the rides and went around trying to choose something to ride:
Me: What about the slide?
Matilda: No. Too high.
Me: What about the roller coaster?
Matilda: No. Too fast.
Me: What about the spinner?
Matilda: No. Too spinny.
Me: What about the Ferris Wheel?
Matilda: No. It moves backwards. And it swings down too low.
Me: What about the swings?
Matilda: Angle of swing is greater than 20 degrees.
Me: What about the fun house?
Matilda: I don’t know what’s in there and it’s too loud.
Me: So, let me get this straight. You don’t like things that spin, go up or down, slide, go too high or low, or that go too fast or too slow. What do you like to do?
Matilda: I like the duck game. You know the one where you pick up a duck and it has a number on it and then they give you a prize.
Me: That’s a game, not a ride. Why did we buy all these tickets?
Matilda: I didn’t tell you to buy the tickets. You did it on your own.
Me: Because I thought you’d enjoy the rides.
Matilda: Well, that was dumb, wasn’t it?
Eventually we found two rides that she would ride. The Merry-Go-Round and some Dumbo knock off. As fate would have it Gertrude was also big enough to ride these rides. After Matilda gave each ride a systems check and cited the no-name carnies with various safety flaws, worn out mechanisms and general bad body odor we were ready to ride.
Matilda mounted her horse as if it were a show horse and she was in some sort of show. Gertrude tried to climb under the horse and ride it by grasping its, um . . . nether regions. After we went over the various forms of riding horses, she was sitting in the saddle holding onto the pole.
The first time around she was interested. The second time around she seemed mildly amused. By the time the ride was over, she was yelling “Wooo!”
We then rode the Dumbo thing. Or, more precisely, Matilda took Gertrude on it and left the parents on the ground. That was a very strange feeling. Setting our two children in the hollowed out back of a poorly rendered, day-glo, fiberglass dragon attached to an antiquated ride technology that was run by a woman who had fewer teeth than I had toes. But, hey, it was in a church parking lot! How bad could it be?
After the ride was over, Gertrude announced, “I having fun!” She repeated this phrase several times as we went between the merry-go-round and the Dumbo knock off at least seventy two times. To blow our final tickets I convinced Matilda to go in the fun house. It wasn’t as bad as she thought. Though I could tell by the look on her face she was thinking, “What a pile of crap.” Which it was.
It’s strange how different these two kids are. Matilda is cautious and considers each step she takes, lest a crack form and she fall to the middle of the earth. Gertrude, however, rarely thinks about anything and goes into it with an amazing gusto. Unless it’s too “yowd”. If it’s too “yowd” we can’t go near it. Like lawnmowers, coffee grinders, vacuum cleaners and three of my shirts. I suppose they balance one another out. One teaches the other caution while the other teaches spontaneity. I just think it’s strange how two sisters can approach the same things with totally different attitudes.
The evening ended on a perfect note. As the baby was falling asleep and Matilda and I were watching a special on a chili cook off (yeah, so what?), fireworks started going off in the distance. We went flying down the hallway and outside to watch. Mom and baby joined us and as the evening passed into night, we watched a beautiful fireworks display off in the distance over our neighbor’s roof.
We went inside to see who won the chili cook off and put the baby in bed.
As she was laying down, Gertrude yelled out, “That was too yowd!”
Discuss The Carny
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