Block Party

Block party food

Ripley with Rolf's girlfriend's dog Pincone.
These dogs have nothing to do with the block party, I just thought the photo was super cute and wanted an excuse to post it.  Freya loves Pinecone and thinks he looks like Scooby Do.  He is very gentle and long suffering, which I like.

Today is our block party. 

We have been having a block party, for many years, maybe ten.

The block party has consisted of a potluck and on a few years a garage sale, and a visit from a fire truck, for the kids.  We have had a face painter and a clown come too. 

I have no idea who organizes the entertainment, because I try to avoid all organizing duties, since I do so many things like that for work, and I am essentially antisocial.

This year we received a invitation to the block party that says it starts at 4:00pm and ends at 10:00pm, which is about five hours more than I am comfortable with. 

It also includes a scavenger hunt, pinata and something else that makes me nervous, that I can't recall right now.

I hate pinatas. 

They are way too dog eat dog for me, not to mention I don't like my children eating candy.

Freya is always too wimpy to take a turn hitting the damn thing and always afraid to run into the fray and get the loot, so I am left to beg candy for her from other parents. 

I hate it.

She always elects to get shy at the pinata time, after she has waited in line for her turn.  She chickens out every damn time (we go to a lot of children's birthday parties, due to my work in a preschool). 

I totally understand,  having been a shy and nervous child myself, but she isn't generally shy and nervous, only when it comes to bashing in a paper mache donkey.

Then there is the inevitable candy fight with Mark. 

My strategy is to let them eat all the candy up in one sitting and be done with it, but Mark tries reasoning and doling it out, which leads to fighting and crying and begging, that drags on for days and makes me insane.

So anyway, today we will have a stupid pinata and most likely tears.  Then some kind of stupid scavenger hunt, that I think I was supposed to contribute "white elephant" stuff, for prizes, but didn't, because I don't have anything I feel like giving and I would have purchased something, but the message was so vague, it was unclear what kind of prizes they wanted, and it was also unclear who was doing the organizing. 

I will be lame and offer who ever seems to be doing all the purchasing and organizing $20 and hope it is good enough. 

I will then resent it for the entire year, until the next one rolls around.

Mark is in Florida at a Star Wars convention for work. 

He is not here to help me move our table outside, which means I will have to sit on the curb, or perhaps with the elderly couple across the street.   

Rolf is hiding out at his girlfriend's house, to avoid the festivities. 

Maxwell is still at my mother's house, so it will just be me and Freya, the bad family that didn't contribute to the pinata, perhaps that is better than our current title- the people with dandelions, or the people who painted their house orange. 

I did make some nice food, though.  some roasted beets with horse radish and sour cream, eggplant salad, marinated wax beans, deviled eggs.  Does that sound to weird and boho?  I may go up and make some baked beans, and potato salad, just to be safe. 

It is super hot today, so I don't see myself making a cake, although the pinata guilt may drive me to turn on the oven.  Who knows?