Quite the Characters

Well, it all started with Alice...and the white rabbit.

but there were whispers about another character possibly showing up...a Mad Hatter.

I went as the dormouse, with a straight pen sword. Turtle, trying to be true to his blog name, went as the mock turtle. We didn't try to stuff him into the skin-tight, lime green body suit, because we had a little sympathy for the sensibilities of our fellow guests. He did occasionally wear the calf head though.

The Mad Hatter was accompanied by the white queen, who was hard to recognize as a cafeteria manager.  The red queen kept screaming "Off with his head!" and ordering the knave of hearts to attend her.

A pack of very obedient cards served our dessert--first--just to mix things up a little.

Then we ate gourmet burgers with all the trimmings. I stole a little cheese from off the trimmings table, just to keep from nibbling on the candy.

while the March Hare yelled--principally about the lateness of his meal. Being the dormouse, I just kept falling asleep on the table.

Tweedle Dee and the Cheshire Cat superintended this crazy experiment in Hilarity.

Unfortunately the flash on my camera isn't working so I relied on the "professionals" once again...Julie B and Roshelle W.

The Ride

Oddly enough, how one arrives at the banquet has assumed disproportionate importance. A simple car is not enough to impress. Around here one tries for an old classic. It's equivalent to a limousine.

 But a really old pick-up is just as good, something your great-grandfather drove to Texas on Route 66.









Of course if you don't have something old you can go with shiny, new, expensive wheels...

or, speaking of expensive, drive your date to the banquet in the cab of a really large piece of farm
machinery that's worth a house...and of course you must be willing to put in the time to scrub and polish it a little. At any rate, it will be ready for the season.
Every year they seem to get bigger...and for farmers' sons, big is no problem. Cotton strippers or combines, these large, green carriages get everyone's attention.

but I think my favorite ride was the one chosen by Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee.
It's somehow perfect for the Topsy-Turvey world inside... and I think I'll show you pictures of the other characters in my next blog post. I don't have time to let them all load tonight.







(I didn't take these pictures. They were taken by Julie B.)

Alice

Now that school is officially out for the summer, I think I might have time to tell you about the all-school STUCO banquet, which is our "prom" type activity. Everyone is invited, including the teachers and staff. Even though I'm not the student council sponsor, I helped with the decorations on the center table, because, in a small school like ours, people appreciate volunteers.This year the theme was Alice in Wonderland, so the teachers decided to dress up. It was...um...well... interesting.

 There was  also a considerable amount of whimsy.

Decorations were random--piled stacks of china, a casserole dish with water and a turtle inside, odd flower vases with unmatched flowers. The cake-plate centerpiece contained two slices of very burned toast and a couple of hard-fried, rubbery eggs. Why? I don't know, but you have to admit, it is unusual. The English teacher actually wanted to put a mouse on the tray so an unsuspecting guest who lifted the cover would get a surprise. I refused, thinking someone would be likely to turn over a table and I didn't want my china to be broken.

An eclectic arrangement of said china ran down the middle of the faculty table, where strange unmatched chairs drove orderly, symmetrical minds to distraction--namely mine. Rosalind, one of the seventh-grade students, shared my dread of lopsidedness, and we managed to shift things around, bringing balance to the madness.

There were murals, lights, clocks, and other out-of-place attractions, such as a paper mache tree, which began on the ground and rose through the white draped roof.

The walls were covered with black plastic, posters of quotes from the book and  a long, spring mural.

Props for pictures sat conveniently near a photo spot.















The student council members and their sponsors put in a lot of time on table decorations, arranging stacks of teacups and card castles with hot glue finesse.  They found several boxes of random glasses that had been left over from former banquets. Since this theme didn't call for anything matching, they were able to use them all, painting them inside and out and putting them into service as place cards.

One end of the gym was set up with carnival type games and a table full of stacked Oreos stood bravely in the middle.This decoration was near the signing wall--a graffiti area for doodles.

The gym was transformed.
Perfectly imperfect.
All ready for the guests.
I'll save that for my next post.
It's curiouser.

Proverb Dyslexia

My sister "Polly" has a classical case of proverb dyslexia. She's constantly mixing her proverbs.
I guess you could also call her metaphorically challenged.
Whatever the diagnosis, it brings a lot of chuckles from the rest of us.

Sometimes she doesn't have a "thin cent" or a "red dime" and at other times she thinks rolling stones shouldn't dwell in glass houses. (At least they wouldn't have mossy walls to mend.)
Anyway, I finally convinced her to start writing some of these little jewels down so I could share them with the internet world. Here are some recent ones.

• "Stark" and "Polly" watching the end of a Western:
  

  Polly:  Well, she fixed HIS goose!
  (appropriate period of time for Stark to chuckle and Polly to realize that something is wrong.)
  Stark: I think that's easier than cooking his wagon anyway.
  
  
  
  
  
• Polly: I was driving through Sonic this afternoon, and had planned to go at the cheap time. However, I left work too late, and missed it. I was lamenting to "Mariel" (on the phone):
  Oh phooey! I thought that I was going to get here for Happy Time! It felt sort of wrong, but I thought, "Oh well, something's wrong there, but she knows what I mean."
  Mariel: "It's party hour!"
  
  
• Mariel  Today she was pretending to fight me,  put up her fists and said "Put 'em up, Duke!"
  

  Carina:  John Wayne would be proud.
  
  
• Polly:  Trying to describe some type of music that I wouldn't necessarily dislike:
  

  It wouldn't necessarily be something that I'd turn my nose down on.
  Aurgh.
  
  
• Polly:  Last night, on the way to graduation, Stark and I were chatting. We were discussing a situation (I can't remember which one), and different options. We did some "if this, then that" sort of scenarios, and I suddenly thought of one option that could make things go horribly wrong. I blurted, "Of course, if they did THAT, it would throw a screw into the whole mess!" Now, I DO have a sort of explanation to that. Of course, I was aiming for "throw a wrench into the works," because I've been trying to avoid expressions with the verb "to screw" in them. (because I'm not sure if they are vulgar or not.) So "screw it up" came to mind and I tried to fix it quickly. I ended up merging the wrench expression with "screw it up," and "mess up the whole thing."
  

  
  
• Carina: Well, throwing a screw into a bunch of gears would be equally detrimental.
  

  I had one of my own today. We were talking about food for something, and I said, "That would really throw a hamper on the whole thing."
  
  Hum. It would appear that this transliteration of aphorisms may have a genetic cause. At least it looks like the rotten apples don't fall far from their barrels.