4H Cooking Show/Pinewood Derby

It was a busy sort of Saturday around here yesterday.


Lotus had her first 4H exposition- which was something deceptively called a "cooking show".  Since it overlapped Joaquin's Pinewood derby, the family had to divide and conquer.   My parents were visiting over the weekend, so Lotus, my mom, The Jude, and I went to Lotus' 4H program, while everyone else went to the derby.


Lotus's inappropriately named "cooking show" was a five hour affair, which did not, like the word "show" would lead one to believe, have any sort of spectator section.  
This proved to be problematic, since we had The Jude with us.  The Jude does not do well in confinement.


For five hours.


For the first 45 minutes, it was fine, since all of the groups were busy assembling their table settings, which meant Jude could happily run around and speak without being shushed:

The theme for the show was "crock pot meals", and Lotus' group had chosen a variation on the French classic, cassoulet.  But once the preparation was over, the groups were to spend the rest of the day in workshops or meeting with the judge.  None of this classified, in my mind, as a "show", which I take to mean "to present or perform as a public entertainment or spectacle".


Luckily, there was a flock of geese outside, which the boy happily chased around for a while, having been told that if he caught one, he could keep it.

Luckily, The Jude's powers of stealth were bested by the geese's power of flight.


But eventually, The Jude tired of being thwarted and mocked by the geese, and he wanted to go inside.  Since the prospect of keeping Jude silent for four hours at the notshow didn't sound like any sort of fun, my mom and I decided we'd leave for a while, and come back at the end when the winners were announced.

Lotus' group all earned first place ribbons for their creation, and Lotus just about fainted when she realized she got to keep her blue ribbon forever.

The cooking "show" ended with just enough time for us to get to the Pinewood derby and watch Gabriel's car run in the "friends and family" division.  

We also got to see Joaquin win a trophy for placing second in his den.

Then we came home to have an early birthday party for my mom, but she was rapidly becoming horribly ill, and spent the final 12 hours at my house looking like this:

She's wearing three blankets in the picture.  The house was 75 degrees, and she had been sitting by the fire.  She had horrible chills, and only managed a smile here because her grandchildren were giving her gifts.  And we'd made her drink a cup of tea generously laced with whisky.


'Cause that's how we treat our guests.  We get them sick, then we liquor them up and send them home.