Blue and Gold Boy Scout Ceremony
An occasion in which the whole den comes together in front of an audience stocked with family and friends (or in my case, 5 extra kids who squeezed into the van upon hearing details about the event, mainly to catch sight of their typically "too cool" for everything older cousin staring in a retelling of the history behind Scouts, in vintage suede chaps) The whole crew clad in old uniforms so cute they look as if like they wandered mistakingly off a Wes Anderson flick, all properly skinned knees, folded maps, binoculars, crooked glasses, patch flecked shoulder sashes, and all. Leon, for some reason bearing an uncanny resemblance to a Cuban dictator once he slipped into his 1950's get up, while Rex (in 60's era scout digs) had to be found and scolded for sneaking outside and skateboarding in the parking lot, nearly shredding his. And then Arlo - in classic Arlo style - begging me not to post anything of him without his consent (which I honored, respectfully) only to be later undercut by his father's life long love for a good pranking oppurtunity, who logged into his Instagram account while he was in the bathroom and posted a pic of him and his equally image conscious cousin (who was dragged into the play last minute to play a bride to the founder when the original participant failed to show) showing Arlo, outfitted in full Native American fur & fringe and London (his self proclaimed Tom Boy skater girl sidekick) in a royal purple coat and matching wool hat, with a fittingly cringeworthy caption. A hack job Arlo later laughed off when he realized it did not in fact cost him his whole fine tuned "edgy tween image," but actually gained him 7 new followers. *Sadly still deleted upon discovery. Because, "So embarrassing!"
Another fun footnote being the flurry of praise I received for offering help in the kitchen on my way to find Hayes (who I caught drowning more lemonade from the cups of distracted strangers during the frenzy of fittings I was focused on in the backroom than I care to address) and was directed to the far corner of a church kitchen where I spent 35 mins alongside a retired guy wearing a gingham hot mitten named Ernie lining frozen biscuits on industrial sized metal trays, slathering them with heaps of butter and sprinkled with garlic salt that seemed to dazzle everybody on site enough to garner a round of applause following the props from our den leader on stage who may or may not have realized they were the simple outcome of a Costco sized frozen bag. The biscuits, trying their hardest to upstage the whole feast (which actually wouldn't be hard seeing how scout festivities typically don't cary much draw for the few foodies on hand) and two days later my kids are still asking why I can't make them every single day and I'm left still trying to find the heart to tell them that much butter on a daily basis might possibly kill them. That and our Costco card expired 5 years ago.
Labels: Scenes From a Weekend
