Mouse as Party Animal/Host

I have discovered that the duties of a host at a party can be tiring, if not downright debilitating. The night of the Fourth, Mrs. Mouse & I threw a party for what turned out to be 55 people, 15 more than we anticipated. All were, of course, invited guests, but some forgot to RSVP, leading me to believe we were not as clear in that regard as we might have been. Not a problem, except that the increased numbers caused the party to distribute itself across a wider terrain than would have been the case if all the guests had been able to fit into the two or three "sitting areas" we had prepared for conversational gatherings. As it was, one group wandered off to "the back forty" where we have our vegetable garden, another to the front lawn area where a game of "no-rules croquet" was set up. Two other groups formed in the pre-arranged areas, which were strategically situated around the food table and the make-shift bar (where a connoisseur's arrangement of Diet Dr Pepper and ginger ale were in command). This diaspora of guests noticeably affected the Mouse's ability to float host-wise among them. Legs may indeed have been "made for walking," but old legs can take only so much of it before offering complaint.

The idea for the party came into being about five years ago. Our place is situated about 2 1/2 miles down the road from the locale where the local mad bombers hold the county's Fourth of July fireworks celebration. We can thus enjoy the display without having to join the crowds. But fireworks aren't the same without the oooing and aaahing that accompany each colorful explosion, so they need a crowd. Hence, our party.

It's amazing what a person can learn at a gathering of this sort. Jim Long, an avid kayaker, just in talking about some of his recent "paddles," identified local streams and rapids I never knew existed. It's not that I plan to kayak, but that places like Kelly's Ford, Rapidan Rapids, and even our own Robinson River (rushing almost by our front door) take on a romantic appeal when you hear them described as challenges and not just as scenery. Bob Miller, one of the County Supervisors, who wherever he goes seems to attract politically minded persons, drew the usual crowd, even though he was wearing three baseball hats, one each of red, white, and blue jesterly arranged. Leland Nettles, an internet antiques dealer, swapped Ebay stories with the Mouse and a few of the others who had made their "fortune" selling nondescripts to anonymous buyers in hyperspace.

I would describe the croquet game, but for the life of me I could not decipher the rules they were playing by. The wickets were setup in the standard pattern, but for the five minutes I watched the proceedings, I saw no one even attempt to send a ball through any of them. If I were forced under torture to define the object of the game I would say it was to see how much laughter you could arouse from your competitors without resorting to pratfalls and cream pies. And I assure you, none of the contestants were imbibing anything stronger than the fare offered at the drinks table; I guess they were just naturally happy people, happiness being a plague here in the Blue Ridge.

Several of the guests had also attended the Mouse's talk in Fredericksburg two days before, and one of them insisted that I share the illustration I made during the Q & A session of how the "law of association" works. My dad had tested my "associational" ability when I was about 12 years old, and did it with this question: "Why is a firetruck red?" The answer went like this.

You notice that a firetruck has a footboard on the back where some firemen ride. "Yes, daddy." And that a foot is a ruler, that a ruler is also Queen Mary, and Queen Mary is a ship, ships sail in the sea, the seas have fish in them, fish have fins, the Finns fight the Russians, Russians are red, firetrucks are always rushin' so they're red. . . .

And, of course, because my daddy said it, that made it so.

When the fireworks started we all noticed that they didn't seem to be going as high this year as in past years. Bob Miller suggested that they were going just as high but that the trees in the foreground had grown a bit taller, creating the illusion of "weaker fireworks." That idea was put to rest by the much more "likely" theory that George Bush had shipped so much black powder to Iraq for the murder of women and children that the fireworks makers were short-changed. The Mouse, for one, did not agree with that notion. It implies that Bush had purposefully set out to commit murder. I don't think he did. He's just stupid. It didn't occur to him that munitions randomly distributed across a populated area would be bound to kill at least one or two innocents.

After the fireworks, Jim the kayaker, Mack Rowe (a cartoonist), and I stood around looking at the stars. There was a bit of a haze so the Polar Star moved in and out of view. Jim pointed out that dim objects in the night sky can be seen more clearly if you do not look directly at them, but a few degrees away from their true location. It has something to do with the way the cones of the eye are arranged, he said. I didn't understand, but Jim was right in any case. I tried it, and sure enough, if you look with your peripheral vision at dim stars, they appear more vivid to the eye.

I don't know how that fact relates to a Fourth of July party. I guess it has something to do with why firetrucks are red.