Well, Mother Nature had other ideas. Instead of just a cold winter day, we had a substantial blizzard that dropped close to two feet of snow on our neighborhood over the course of the day of the party. At party time, it was just an inch or so, but--with the weatherman promising substantially more snow--most of the invitees stayed home anyway. We didn't have the luxury of needing to travel a great distance in order to beg off--plus Charlie was one of the guests of honor. So MS trudged over to the neighbor's, Charlie in tow, carrying the stunning Barbie Princess cake, and sort of enjoyed an intimate little party. One of the four boys Charlie invited made it to the party (I later learned from his mother that during the hour they stayed at the party, close to six inches of snow fell, and it took them almost an hour to drive the three or so miles from our place to theirs). Three of the girl's cousins made it, so four of the six kids had a fine time--the boys dressed as cowboys, the girls as princesses--playing very girly party games, eating themselves silly, and generally having a fine time; the other two made due. I vaguely recall Miss Saccharine lamenting that she hadn't thought to suggest some "cowboy" games so the boys would have had a better time. I also recall that the neighbor girl gave Charlie a cold, which then spread like wildfire through the rest of the family. As that tended to be the way our relationship with these neighbors went--either family made overtures at befriending the other, the daughter spent a concerted hour or so of time playing with one of my kids, and then the entire wheelhead family shared whatever cold the neighbor girl had--we weren't altogether sad when they moved out of the neighborhood the next summer. And we've been remarkably much healthier, too.
Fast forward two-plus years. Charlie didn't have a party last year, and for some reason we didn't do anything about organizing one for him over the winter when he actually had his birthday. Well, Miss Saccharine kept promising and promising he could have a real cowboy party (no princesses!) as soon as the weather got better. That dragged on and on for several months. Then Delta had her birthday and wanted to have a "heart party" (last year was butterflies), so MS decided to hold the heart party and cowboy party on consecutive weeks and just take care of ordering all the supplied from Oriental Trading Company at once. Between procrastinating the order placement and Bravo coming down with Lyme Disease, it almost looked like neither would come off. MS swore on a stack of OTC catalogs and party idea books that Charlie would have a party this week, and press on she did.
Again, mother nature appeared to have other ideas for us, at least last night as we were laying out our plan of attack for getting the house pulled together for the four invited boys. We turned on The Weather Channel and saw that today's forecast was for 93 degree heat, high humidity, and afternoon and evening thunderstorms (the same storm system that pummeled the midwest for three straight days this week). Suddenly everything that was set in stone was suddenly in play again: if we postponed to Saturday, Pops could attend (he's flying out from Cali today to spend the weekend with us as Alpha is ordained a Priest), the weather will be great--83 and low humidity. Somehow MS managed to sleep last night, I got off to work okay this morning, and it looked for all intents and purposes as though the plan would be to call all the invited families and see if Saturday would work out. A mid-morning phone call further reinforced that impression for me, so I planned to stay at work...until MS called me at 12:30 and demanded to know why I wasn't on the road coming home so I could mow the back yard before 2:00 and help her pull Charlie's party together--IT'S STARTING AT 5:00!!!
So, I schlepped myself home, picked up darts and masking tape on the way, rearranged my large backyard play structure project on the back patio (it's in mid-construction right now awaiting a level spot in the back yard), mowed the lawn, went to the grocery store, picked up Alpha (he's a junior counselor at a summer camp this week and next), and got home just as the first guests began arriving. Well, the party was a hit. Alpha, Bravo, and I, as well as Bravo's friend from across the street and his mother (I'll have to do another post about her special bond with Charlie and Delta) all set off for the park up the street and hid ourselves, decked out (largely) in bandit regalia, and waited for the posse of partygoers to come find all of us. Each of the boys had received a wanted poster with one bandit's picture, and it was their job to go find and arrest that bandit. They found Alpha and Bravo pretty quickly (Alpha was hiding inside a large pine tree that was pretty much barren on the side that faced the part of the park that the posse came from, and could be spotted in his black-on-white cowhide print vest from about 50 yards, seeing as how the barren side faces west; Bravo was about 20 feet away between two rocks that afford no visual screening from two directions...east and west (he was plainly visible from the other side of Alpha's tree). Miss Saccharine dropped obvious hints about where the neighbors were hiding, so they were quickly apprehended as well. All the while, I was hiding behind a tree at the end of the parking lot. It took a while and several more obvious hints from Miss Saccharine ("I think Big Bad Dad is visiting his friend, John!" she called from across the park [my hiding place was near the port-a-john--upwind, fortunately]), but they eventually found me.
Of particularly humorous note, a man pulled up with his two young daughters about mid-way through this part of the party and spotted me lurking in the trees with a bandana over my lower face and obviously trying intently to spot someone else in the park. At that point, all the posse and bandits were blocked from view, either because they were in hiding, or on the other side of some large trees in the park. Having gotten out of the car and noticed my suspicious behavior, he spent several minutes herding his girls repeatedly back into the car and not directly answering their, "Why can't we go play in the park?" questions. I'm guessing he figured some kind of gang warfare was about to erupt in this quiet suburban park, and the last thing he wanted was for his girls to be caught in the crossfire. It finally dawned on me that this guy kept looking at me (chubby, grey-haired guy with a black hat and bandana behind a pine tree), then scanning the park, then back at me, then trying to figure out where I was looking so he could check out that area, then looking at me again. The light bulb went on, I had to chuckle to myself, and I told him, "This is for my son's birthday party." He laughed, I laughed, and the girls got their playtime with dad in the park. I got caught about two minutes later and had to walk home in handcuffs.
Well, to finally get to the title of this post. Charlie has been in cap gun heaven for two months now. Ever since Miss Saccharine discovered that, "Hey! You can buy cap guns online!", she's been sampling the wares from several vendors. We now have about 20 of the beasties around the house. Miniature chrome detective revolvers that use ring caps, various styles of traditional cowboy revolvers that use either ring caps or cap strips, and rifles (strip). We've also picked up a bunch of dart guns. And one of the attendees brought his dad's Red Ryder BB gun. So, for three hours this evening, the five boys shot darts (for "Fill the Bandit Full of Lead," a variation on Pin the Tail on the Donkey), shot caps (at the hiding out bandits at the park), shot BBs (at an empty A&W bottle while they waited for their hot dogs to cook over an open fire), and shot manymanymanymany more caps (at each other, in the air, at anything that moved for the hour of free play between hot dogs and cake and ice cream. I'm not sure how all the mothers, who got to take home those sugar-filled, suddenly testosterone-ladened, and cap gun-wielding boys, feel about these youths exercising their right to keep and bear (and shoot and shoot and shoot) their faux arms, but I felt a glow of satisfaction knowing that even in the People's Republic of Montgomery County, I could do my little part to help win the hearts and minds of a new generation for the Second Amendment.
Charlie shoots the Daisy Red Ryder BB gun at an A&W bottle. If you can believe it, he managed to shoot three BBs into the bottle through the spout from about 14 feet away!
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