Take Me To The Mardi Gras (Paul Simon)

Hooray I finally get to use this title for my post! It is Mardi Gras day here at camp and the weather is plain lousy. I did laundry this morning and then reported for work at 1 pm. We are decorating and getting ready for a grand celebration and then came the rains. Our games department held candy bar bingo in the indoor recreation room and it was packed. I handed out beads to everyone and it was a jovial group. By the way - the cost of playing is one candy bar per card - and a full size bar, not those tiny, snack ones. The winner gets to choose two candy bars and everyone else at their table gets to pick one bar. Of course everyone is happy.

We had a quick dinner and reported back to work at 5:30. I put on my crown and robe along with many strands of beads and three or four huge gems on my fingers. Underneath I had on my purple raincoat and lightweight khaki pants with sneaks and socks. I strolled around the grounds and visited the restaurant. I invited everyone to join me on the royal carriage ride around my estate. People were kind of incredulous and asked if we would go in the rain. Of course we would and we did. Lots of people got into the swing of things and the photos show some of my admirerers.

To our astonishment there was a crowd waiting to go on the first ride at 6:30. Most wore rain slickers or had umbrellas. We gave everyone handfulls of beads to throw to the onlookers and each of the kids got a horn to blow. In addition Jeff and I had bags of tootsie rolls to toss.

What fun we had riding around with the music blaring. Jeff and I stood in the front row and our driver and escort wore jester costumes. All the passengers blew horns, tossed beads and screamed with delight. As we drove campers came to the road and waved. We pelted them with beads and candy and I gave a regal wave. We were soaked, but it was really fun. I said to Jeff, "Our friends will never believe this!"

Two industrious boys were scouts and rode through the woods and took shortcuts to arrive everywhere the wagon was and got more beads thrown at them. Many riders reboarded and we took the wagon out three times. In the end we were wet through and through and the wagon was full of trash. We all pitched in and cleaned up and we finally bicycled home and took hot showers. After a heating pad on my neck and a mug of hot chocolate I am feeling much better.