Friday

Completely unrelated random photograph

Recently I left a comment anecdote rather longwinded story on Grace's blog when she showed a picture of an insanely adorable little sausage dog wearing a red coat, appliqued onto a baby tee-shirt. Grace, who is as gracious as her name suggests, replied to my comment to tell me that she loved my little story and that it should be released to the world. So here it is. (Leslie might like it also, or at least Baxter might).

I am part of a carpool that operates between three families, a high school and a primary school. Thus, three mornings a week I have several grade four and two children in my car for a twenty minute journey. (Yes, I hear all sorts of things - good, bad and sad. But I digress).

During the journey the children always play some sort of hilarious game like inventing ludicrous translations for the acronyms of other cars' number plates, or counting car competitions etc. At the moment it's Hard Rubbish collection around our area and they are constantly badgering me to stop so they can pick up that "awesome" computer monitor/broken office chair/old bookcase/miscellaneous junk off the footpath and take it to their doting teacher or home to their longsuffering parents (I decline, usually).

Anyway, the most enduring game, and one that is generally played every single day even if other games are going on simultaneously, is Spot the Lucky Items. This game has evolved organically over the months and involves the spotting of a number of things that we regularly or semi-regularly see on our morning commute, and the gauging of how good the day is going to be according to the percentage of items crossed off the list. These items include, in order of appearance as we travel from east to west, a shiny yellow VW beetle (circa 2005) in the swimming pool carpark, a red Hummer (for heaven's sakes) pulling out of a particular side street, a rusty yellow VW beetle (circa 1976) parked in the railway station carpark, the 8.51am train (double points if it's going over the bridge as we pass underneath), the meeting of a bus on the one-lane bridge (double points if we have to reverse off the bridge), a vintage brown car parked outside its house, and the little girl walking to school accompanied by her mother who always wears head to toe purple (except for the days she's wearing head to toe red, or orange - is she a closet Hari Krishna I ponder to myself?).

By now, those of you who live near my way, and I know there are a couple of you, may be recognising things from this list.

However, by far the most exciting and important thing to spot is the Little Brown Dachschund in the Red Coat, being walked by his adult male owner and an assorted bunch of children, one or more of whom may or may not be on a Razor scooter. (For a while there in winter the Little Brown Dachschund sported a snazzy brown drizabone sheepskin-lined coat, which while understandable given the winter temperatures at 8.43am, was just not the same. Luckily now spring has sprung the red coat has returned). The Little Brown Dachschund is extra special because we only see him occasionally, perhaps only once a fortnight, and the children get so excited now that they've started winding down the windows and calling out. At first his owners were a bit startled and I suspect thought the children were being cheeky, but now they smile and graciously acknowledge the adoring cheers.

Everyone is agreed; it doesn't matter how few other items are spotted on a Dachschund Day, it is most definitely going to A Most Excellent Day.

PS. A Most Excellent Day to a gaggle of eight and ten year olds = double sport, gardening, library, free drawing and the eurythmy teacher's absence due to illness.

PPS. I promise I didn't leave a comment quite this long in someone's commentbox. Honest.