Pie and Rain: The Waiting Game

The school's Christmas Craft Bazaar was set to start at 8:00 this morning.  From the first moment I heard of this ungodly early hour for the opening, I couldn't believe that anyone would want to dash out of bed on a Saturday morning in order to gallop off to buy Christmas crafts.  I tentatively brought this up with several of our Parent Club members.  They firmly assured me that our cafeteria doors would open to multitudes of people who would be there early to get the best pick of things.  All right then. 

As I didn't know who else might be showing up that early to get our 4th grade booth open and ready to sell pies, I was there at 8:00 on the dot.  The multitudes of people were not.  Neither were the pies.  As time passed, people did begin to trickle in -- and even though attendance was sparse (at least at the beginning), the mood was convivial and Christmasy. 





Nine o'clock came and went and Sue and I were still waiting for our pies.  We were getting them from a fruit stand just down the road from the school, and, although the man assured us they were on their way, we had nothing in our booth to sell as the minutes ticked along.

The good news (from the perspective of the other booth owners), is that Sue and I took turns wandering among the booths, buying things.  I ended up buying two wreaths, a belt, five necklaces, a scarf, cookies, a perfume stick (don't ask), and one not-yet-delivered pie.  By ten o'clock, after I'd spent almost $200, the pies finally arrived.  Not a moment too soon -- another half hour would have had me in the poorhouse.  After cutting them, setting out the plates and forks, and explaining to the parent helpers how to write the receipts, Sue and I were able to leave with at least a modest sense of success: the pie booth had both pie and the workers to sell it. 

I won't know until Monday if the multitudes ever did show up.  If they did, they would have arrived fresh and well rested.  As for myself, I came home and took a nap.

Tonight it's supposed to dump rain.  So far today, it's been just light drizzle off and on.  This afternoon I went out and cleared dead weeds out of the ditch that runs down the drive, picked the few quinces that are on our tree, threw the porch pumpkins on the compost heap, and generally tidied up.  I now respectfully wait for that first fat raindrop to smack down on Frogpond.

The pies finally came -- surely the rain cannot be far behind?