Summer in Autumn: The Sequel

If you can get away with celebrating Fourth of July in late October, then surely you can pull off a water balloon fight in early November. Right? Apparently so, because that's just what we did a few days ago.

Saturday before last was Zach's school’s harvest festival, their biggest fundraiser of the year. As a member of the booster club, I’d volunteered to man a booth for the event. And when they said "man," they meant "man." With few dads willing to help, I was placed in charge of what the club's president felt was a man-ly selection, the Water Balloon Slingshot Toss. Despite my visions of nothing but unruly high school-aged boys with destruction on their minds as my patrons, I agreed.

As slingshot commandant, my duties included helping fill enough balloons to help keep the booth running for three hours. It's a good thing I wasn't expected to do it alone, since the goal was well over 1,000 liquid-filled grenades. Fearful they'd degrade and start exploding prematurely, I intended to hold off filling mine until the morning of the event. But by Friday night, a severe weather alert was forecasting heavy rain and wind right around opening time.

Concerned, I contacted the coordinator to make sure we were still on, since I was to be stationed in the open environs of the football field. She assured me we were. I wasn't terribly excited, so I held my breath and waited until morning, at which point the storm was moving in, before calling again. Given the same answer, I dutifully prepared to inflate my balloons, only to find that the small, brittle things they'd purchased were junk. Every time I tried to inflate one, it exploded immediately, splattering me with its intended contents.

Frantic and short on time, I called Kelly, who was running errands, and asked her to pick up better balloons. She did and then rushed them home, leaving me with just enough time to fill 150, with Zach's help, in record time. With minutes to spare, I showered, dressed, and rushed to the school.

And of course, when I arrived, I was told the booth was canceled.

It’s not like I was surprised. Feeling both frustrated and relieved, I wheeled the cooler containing the liquid globes back to the truck and as best as I could, fought off Zach and his friends, who managed to grab and toss a few at trees and other unsuspecting targets.

For days afterward, it either rained or we were occupied, and the balloons sat, ignored. Then finally, on Friday, the weather was warmish, Zoë’s and Zach’s friends were home, and it dawned on me that the balloons weren’t going to last much longer. So we went for it.

If you think 125 water balloons stand any chance against half a dozen kids fighting to toss them, guess again. I’d say they held out…oh, about five minutes, max—and that’s only because I insisted the kids take turns and grab one balloon at a time. Otherwise, they’d have been gone in seconds.

Once the artillery was expended, I pulled a Tom Sawyer and held a contest to see who could pick up the most balloon fragments. They negotiated for a group prize, and I obliged—and gave them more balloons. It worked like a charm, and the driveway was spotless.

So, the kids had a blast, I found productive use for the balloons, and no mess was left behind. Cancelled booth or not, everyone was happy—including me. And the timing was perfect, since the weather has turned significantly cooler since Friday. It’s almost like payback for the stress and sore fingers I endured on Saturday. And best of all? I didn’t have to deal with a single high school-aged boy. That’s a victory in itself—and it didn’t cost a penny to play.

Note: Photos courtesy of Zach, who was a good sport and let the younger kids have fun, and his new camera.

Rain, rain, go away—and take the phlegm with you

Dating back to my childhood, when, as Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin can attest, dinosaurs still roamed the earth, two things have traditionally happened each year before—or for some reason, more typically on—my birthday: It has rained, and I have been sick, usually with my first cold of the season.

Moving to Redding hasn't done much to help the precipitation predicament, since three of the 36 inches of rain we receive in an average year typically fall during October. But frankly, it's never seemed to matter where I've resided. Regardless of their location, the clouds have seemed determined each year to gift me with their liquid bounty. Even when Kelly and I lived in Southern California, we could be smack-dab in the middle of a mid-fall heat wave, and poof, it would rain completely out of the blue on my birthday. It’s been uncanny, really. As a result, I’ve just come to expect that I will get wet when venturing outside on any day when I'm turning a year older.

This birthday may be an exception. I selfishly hesitate to say so for fear of jinxing things, although the fact is, we desperately need the rainfall. Already in the midst of a severe, two-year drought, this season we're standing at a piddly 0.72 inches to date, while in an average year, we'd already have logged twice as much. Does it make me a bad person if I'm hoping, should the desire hit me, to extinguish the candles on my cake outdoors without nature's sprinklers dousing them for me? I hope not. I just want to be able to go outside and play on my big day. And with a forecast calling for a high of 89 and a zero percent chance of precipitation, it looks like I’ll get my wish.

By contrast, the recurring rhinovirus routine is looking far less promising. Since bringing home this week what is already our second family cold since school began just two months ago, Zoë has gone from bad to worse, waking up yesterday morning—perhaps in an empathetic effort to bond with her ailing cousin Aidan 669 miles away—with croup. Along the way, she's managed to share the love with Zienna, whose nose has been gushing green goo for a few days now, and, by the looks of things, Zach, who woke this morning clogged and sniffling.

And, though I'm hoping like heck that it's just allergies, I, too, began yesterday to recognize those all-too-familiar harbingers of the birthday bug—stuffy head, sore throat, and burning nostrils. I am presently popping Echinacea and knocking—no, pounding—on everything that even appears to have come from a tree in an effort to avoid my annual affliction. Heck, I'm just glad I got a flu shot several weeks ago, since the birthday I spent four years ago fighting influenza and a resulting partially-collapsed lung was, in a word, hell.

So, apparently able to forget about my umbrella, I'd also like to spend the first day of my forty-sixth year without a box of tissue at my side. Is that too much to ask? I guess I’ll know tomorrow.