Rocket Pepsi & bowling watermelon

[fbhjr]

Before setting out for the birthday party we were performing at today, my wife and I stopped at the super market.
When my wife picked up a six pack of diet Pepsi, one of the other six packs on the shelf decided to make a break for it. It fell off the shelf and landed on the floor. The cap of one of the bottles broke off and the force of the carbonation shot the bottle out of the holding ring of the six pack, down the aisle and into the food of the front end manager standing by the register at the end of the aisle.
Honestly, I have seen fire works not fly as well as that bubble powered bottle.
Despite my suggestion my wife does not seem to want to take the title of “Rocket Power Pepsi Girl”.
Personally I think it would be a great super power. Bottles of Pepsi shooting out towards villains like in the mecha anime. And, you’d get $0.05 back for every shot!
Well I guess she can keep that as a back up if working for a well known college gets boring.

Anyway, it was a beautiful day and we set off towards CT.


Google Maps said it would take about 3 hours to get there. We left 5 hours early because traffic in CT is usually that bad. But, traffic in CT has a sense of humor, so this weekend it is off visiting relatives and we got there 2 hours early.

Birthday parties can be tricky because you never know what the performance area will be like. So, I wore my tights under my pants so if there was no place to change I could still manage it quickly.

(Why I’m not willing to walk through CT rest areas wearing bright red tights mirrors a similar discussion about clothing on someone else’s post on my friends list, so I’m not going to go into it here.)

Anyhow, we got there, two hours early.


We tried, and sort of succeeded, to go to the Bartlett Arboretum & Gardens which was only a short distance from there.
When we showed up, there was a sign at the gatehouse saying “pay your admission at the visitor center”.
So, we parked, walked up there and went in.
Two people were there setting up paintings of plants. They looked at us, looked away, and left the room.
There was a disembodied voice floating around the place that seemed to be a third person who was talking on the telephone.
We waited for the phone call to end. But, when it did, no one appeared.
So, we went back to the car and drove off.
It looks like a nice place.

Instead I went to a book store (bet you aren’t surprised at that one, are you?) and I bought a book about the Metropolitan Art Museum. Hopefully it is an interesting book...

Then, we drove out to the site of the birthday party. It is a very nice house on the side of a hill. At the bottom they have a nice lawn, a stream and a lake.


It really was a very nice place to perform.
But, the hill was very steep. So, when one of our performers was carrying the watermelon we use in our show down the hill, it broke out of the bag and went bowling down the hill.
I’d say rolling down the hill, but other people were trying to walk down it at the time. I don’t think it actually knocked anyone over, but it was a close thing.
Since she dropped it, she had to fish it out of the bushes where it came to rest.


My wife took this in stride and just seemed happy to be out in the sun.


The customer was surprised about how many people we brought to the job. But, we pointed out there were going to be 12 to 15 kids there and we didn’t want to be outnumbered more than 2 to 1.


We did some fights, some sword lessons and fired limes out of the trebuchet. The kids seemed to like it.
We finished with a big sword fight between me and the one who is not Bill.

This was because the fight we plan to perform isn’t really ready yet. So, we had the kids tell us what to do move by move so we didn’t have to actually have any choreography ready.
That’s right. We made not having choreography ready a game the kids liked. That’s the kind of people we are.

After the show we did not stay for the offered cook out, but headed home. We were driving through the Connecticut river valley just as the sun set.


I’m a big fan of that valley, this time of year and sunset as a time. It was a very nice drive home.

Strangely, I was happy some of our more regular members didn’t make it to this job. It meant my wife did go on it. And, since it took up 10 hours of the day, I was very happy to spend it with her instead of driving around CT alone.