Tales From The Circ Side

in #life6 years ago

A Hot Dog Accessorized Story


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It is over! Summer Reading Programs are kaput, finished, all done, YAY! Perhaps I should back track a touch and explain my elation. Every summer at multiple libraries across the USA, libraries provide summer reading programs for the young and old alike. Our network was particularly ambitious this year, offering a plethora of special events for everyone from toddler size to advanced placement in life experience citizens.

Some of the programs I wrote about on this very blog. Touch-A-Truck was the most recent program that I showcased with my words, a heavy equipment jungle gym that was a blast for all ages. Today's overview has to do with a thing we do every year, the final program, which almost always consists of a community BBQ and a presenter.

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The presenter part of the shin dig was none other than Cecil The Magician. Cecil has been entertaining the folk of North Idaho with his most excellent magic tricks and delightful sense of humor for quite some time. Not that I got to observe any of his show, nay, I was on food service detail.

In fact, that was something that I and my co-workers were musing about as we unpacked the day's community food offering. If someone had said that food service was going to be a frequent part of my library career, I would have so giggled at their blatant audacity. The laughter would have doubled if they had also said that event coordinator was going to be a prominent library work feature. Boy, am I am a naive dolt!

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We arrived at Stub Meyer Park in Rathdrum, Idaho bright and early yesterday morning. This year, trying to learn from previous awesomeness, it was decided that three of our communities would hold a co-operative last event. Sometimes people do get smarter. Usually it has to do with treading through chaos. And hot dogs. Alone.

I rolled up to the park with a car full of interns. By interns I mean my own spawn and my manager's kids. The oldest is sixteen, the youngest is seven. We sang a lot of pop songs in transit. My mood was tempered by some coffee and Ariana Grande. Heh heh.

We quickly put all the interns to work getting ready to paint faces and draw tattoos on unsuspecting victims, er, attendees. As half of our volunteers are teenage girls, there was no shortage of tributes for the art section of the day. Another volunteer got to disperse giant bubbles, and my son, the lone boy, helped set up all the tables for the food, condiments, and books that we were going to give away.

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Our Youth Services librarians, Miss M, Miss C, Miss B, and I were on food preparation and distribution. We were going to serve the public hot dogs, packaged chips, and chocolate chip cookies. In no time we had the big steamer pan fired up and budget hot dogs a warming. My job was cookie to plate placement engineer. However, it rapidly became clear that I was going to have to multitask, and I quickly began putting bags of chips onto the waiting plates as well.

A couple of hundred of souls into service my flintlocks started vibrating. I stripped off my food service gloves and plucked my phone out of my back jeans pocket. On the screen a message had come in from my boss:

"Make sure you take pictures"


Egads! We still had over a hundred people to serve our plates of hot dog delight too! I shouted the words "Board Report Fodder" over my shoulder and hurried towards Cecil. My son had the clicker counter, so I knew there were 315 people in attendance, and I wanted to get some good snaps of all the attendees.

It was as I was circling the fray like a good chronicler of events that it happened. My foot exploded into a stinging sensation that was rather discomforting. As there was many hundreds of folks all around me I had to swallow more exuberant yowling. A more profane sonnet has probably yet to be composed and not uttered.

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I had been stung by a bald face hornet. Any other bee species causes no reactions in yours truly, but a bald face hornet makes me swell just a touch and feel nauseated for three whole days. Great.

Not one to be deterred by a little pain, I went about my picture taking business and returned to my food distribution post. A short while later we had served everyone and began to clean up. It was then that I was reminded that there is balance in nature.

I was folding up a folding table when I discovered that the legs needed to be lowered. Being a smart human being I depressed both pegs and used my er, chest attributes to push the legs down to the lowest height. As I did so my bicep got caught in the right side leg. The resulting bruise and blood blister is pretty spectacular. It also took my mind of my bee sting. As I was now stinging in two opposite ends of my form, I felt pretty impressed with myself. My coworkers gave me a cookie.

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Yum?

Soon we were all packed up and heading back to our respective libraries. Yet another season of summer reading has elapsed and we all are ready for a break. The next couple weeks are quiet time for Youth Service librarians. A time for planning and vacations and building up our energy reserves for back to school programming. Yay.....


And as used to be always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's non-humming nor venomous iPhone.


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When I was younger I used to go to reading programs in the library and I would have so much fun . And this totally reminded me of that time . :)

Oh, I'm so happy my ramblings brought back good memories for you😊 So sorry it took me a bit to get back to you, I've been backpacking in the wilds for the last two days!

To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.

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Another hornet attack? Hmm. Starting to sound fishy. I think maybe the moose hired some new bounty hunters since the turkeys failed so miserably. Only a theory.

I'm happy your event went well and I really enjoyed the part about trying to feed hundreds of people because it reminds me how much I don't miss doing that all. At least I didn't also have to take pictures at the same time. Have a great day Kat.

Your theory stings a bit. I'm going to get paranoid every time I'm around any creature now. I hope the moose don't turn my cats...

I just returned from an overnight backpacking trip that was pretty excellent, although I do have some humorous happenings to write about. It seems to me that you kind of miss serving tons of people. Whenever I think of public food service my mind flashes on Chops😉😆

Hope you're having a magnificent night!

A great closing event, many people attended and apparently they prepared very well, with expensive faces, magic presentations and food... I liked your pictures!

Thank you so much! It was a lot of fun aside from the minor wounds received lol!

Wounds that I hope have healed well. =)

Like we said before, a chaw will help the one, not sure about the other one, but I have my doubts :) LOL

You mean I shouldn't have slapped partially chewed tobacco on my bicep?

😆😆😆

Now THAT is what I call an event! Co-operative events usually make the load lighter? I said usually.

Sounds like it was a success minus the bee and the leg mishap. Oi!

Lol! It was a great time, and I was sure greatful for the extra hands even if the load was increased. Thanks so much for stopping by😊

Many hands make those loads lighter! The pleasure is mine!

Wow summer reading programes , really amszing news . This closing event is the best .
Thanks for sharing this moment @generikat

Thanks for your positive comment😊

it's really a great quote

Your article is very good, my game is very fun. https://goo.gl/Dd9394

Uh-oh! Why did that one particular variety of buzziness have to find your foot? I hope the pain and nausea subsided prior to your next adventure!

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