It's a Norwegian thing

Maxwell had another parade to drum in last night. 
This performance was for a Norwegian festival (who knew?). 
The sons of Norway invited the band from Maxwell's school to preform, I am assuming there is some connection some where, but I haven't been able to connect any dots so far.
So it was Maxwell and his performing arts school and a bunch of Norwegians, and horses, an incongruous group if ever there was one.  

We all met up at this fine establishment, a giant hall in industrial NE, that has a bar, a big dance floor and a Norse Room, a sort of church basement affair in in the basement of the building, with a kitchen dining hall.

Being the sort that enjoys church basements (but not church) and little old ladies and potluck suppers, I was delighted to be there, but I can't say as much for the 60 Jr. high band members that we crammed into the space, for SUPPER! provided by ancient Norwegian ladies in native costume.

No these naughty, rowdy children we not one bit happy about a two hour wait until the parade and they were just awful.  Loud, lewd, stinky and vulgar.
 
I sat back for a while and watched as the little old ladies attempted to pull the dinner together, then finally I stepped in and offered to serve the dinner for them, and they gleefully handed over the steam table full of waterlogged hotdogs, and scampered out to join in the folk dancing fun upstairs. 

The first thing I did was disband the feeble line that had formed, and made everyone sit down.   

I have a fairly loud voice when necessary and can summon my inner librarian to  look disapproving and make people bend to my will.  There was another mother there with similar skills and temperament and in no time flat we were walking around with large trays of hotdogs, all bunned up and ready to be placed in front of the masses. Dinner went off without a hitch, with me only having to stare down one out of line 8th grader.  Maxwell was pretending he didn't know me, as I used my drill instructor voice to tell Mr. Disrespectful to SIT DOWN and PUT YOUR SHIRT ON NOW!

So we all went outside to practice and line up, which is when thing all went to hell in a Hawaiian punch colored handbasket. 

The teacher, in all of her extreme disorganization and poor planning allowed a pack of the bad boys back inside to get water.
 
When they were inside they either intentionally, or accidentally opened the spigot of a giant Igloo cooler filled with punch and let it run freely, until the other mean mother noticed them missing and went in to investigate. 

When she arrived on the scene the giant bad boys were throwing things and pushing one another around in the wheeled chairs, while the 93 (yes, NINTEY THREE) year old hall matron, pleaded with them to settle down. 

The other mean mom, ushered the boys outside, sopped up the mess and came and found me. 

There was to be cake and some kind of Norwegian pudding after the parade, and it was our mission to get the room cleaned up (did I mention the  mashed Cheetos?), and come up with a cake service plan before the kids  & the Norwegian cake ladies returned.

I went into my full tilt cleaning mode and in no time flat we not only had the carpet cleanish, but we also set up two addition tables, set them with napkins and flatware, and cut the giant cakes, plated them, loaded them onto trays for serving and lined all the instrument cases up by type, so that the children could put their instruments away, and then proceed to the cake area (part of the problem earlier, in addition to the general rowdy behavior, was a cacophonous honking and clanking and plunking on the piano.  I was serving cake like a crazy person, had I been in a restaurant I would have been killing it, until that damned old woman showed back up insistent on serving the pudding thing and asking for the line.  A line is never a good idea when it comes to food service, and is a particularly bad idea when serving food to children.  So off she went with her line, and at that point I gave up, and asked for a scoop of the hot gelatinous pudding. I can't recall the name, but it comes with melted BUTTER poured over it, so think twice if you have a heart condition, if you are ever offered any.  It wasn't half bad, once you got past the notion of eating hot cream with butter poured on top.

I took some to go for Rolf, it was right up his alley.