St. Patrick's Day

Hey y'all - 

We put together the St Patrick's Day party for your school last week. 

First, we made a cute magnetic fishing game. Actually, to be honest, Laney made the game. She's really into using tape these days, so she actually taped all those letters to those cards you see below. In fact, I bought her one of those tape dispensers you wear on your wrist that shoots out inch-long pieces of tape and she went to town. 

I did the old standby: the dress-up photo booth. Laney was only too happy to be my stand-in as I was getting the lights set up, and she put together this great Olivia Newton John-meets-Mary Poppins-by-way-of-Tinkerbell get-up for the occasion:

Serious detour here, BUT:

Every time Laney puts on a headband like that, it reminds me of my favorite TV show when I was four: Solid Gold. Solid Gold was this weird mish-mash of live musical performances, ventriloquist acts, and - best of all - dance routines to top ten pop hits as performed by the Solid Gold dancers, who always wore headbands like the one Laney's wearing above.

In its review of the show, the New York Times described it as, "the pop music show that is its own parody...[enacting] mini-dramas...of covetousness, lust and aerobic toning--routines that typically have a minimal connection with the songs that back them up." Yes! Exactly! Sold for eight seasons!
Looking back at it as a grown-up (and a television professional), I have no idea how it was ever green-lit, except that people did a lot of cocaine in the early 80s. 

A few months ago, your dad ordered a set of kettle bell weights so he could do some exercises at home. Laney was so inspired that she choreographed her own version of an exercise routine, which basically consists of getting down on the floor and striking dramatic poses while only partially touching one of her dad's weights. It reminds me in particular of this one Solid Gold dancer who specialized in writhing around on the ground while whipping her hair around:

I remember my mother pointing to the TV screen when I was little and saying, "I don't think that woman's been up off the floor in five years."

So, anyway, headbands. Yeah.

But back to St Patrick's Day...

Hagen never made it to the photo booth. While we were setting up for the party and schlepping 125 baked potatoes over to the school for the Baked Potato Bar, Hagen fell down in the parking lot and got a serious case of road rash on his face. He was angry for most of the rest of the evening, except when he popped up from behind this bench to ask, "Is cake?"

Because of his injury and general lack of interest in being in public, your dad got to take him home from the party early. Score another one for Thor.

Love,

Mom