This has really been an awesome day!
It was a fall-weather kind of day too, but that just meant
that we needed sweaters and jackets to stay warm while we played; and hot
chocolate and cider were more popular than cold drinks. We had a lot of classmates and friends taking
advantage of the cooler temperatures for some cuddle time both during the day
and at the teen dance; but I’ll get to that a bit later.
With such a cool start to the day, our teachers took their
time getting us organized and ready to walk over to the park from the
school. The first weird of the day in
our class was having boy-girl buddy pairs and groups – especially since Rowen
and I were the only girls or guys-only group.
Everyone else was in a group of four or more, with equal numbers of boys
and girls; and about half of them were ‘officially’ on a day-long date. That extra time meant that we weren’t even
the first group of kids at the festival.
There were four buses parked across Quarry Road from the park; and we soon
found out that it was the students from the school in Brookbridge that had
beaten us to first rides this year. All
of the schools in the area were doing field trips to the festival, but that
just helped make everything more fun; and Rowen and I liked getting to meet and
talk with some of the other kids while waiting in the small line-ups for rides;
or when we played games.
KidZone waited until after lunch to bring their kids to the
festival, so Rowen and I had a few hours to play on all of the thrill rides;
play games; and have a hotdogs and fries lunch before spending an hour with
Ethan, Ehlana, and Naomi. Mom and Liz
came along with us, since they were both volunteering to help out with the
KidZone group. Going on the kiddie rides
wasn’t as exciting as the big rides, but Rowen and I loved playing with Naomi
and the twins. Ehlana and Naomi had us
take them on the carousel three times, so I’ll guess that was their favorite
ride, while Ethan liked the monster truck, car, and helicopter rides the
best. We all went on the Ferris wheel
once, and Rowen and I did a total of three trips down the super slide to take
each of the kids down twice. When Mom
and Liz met up with some of the other volunteers and their kids, Rowen and I
left them and got back to doing the thrill rides again. Our favorites were the drop tower, Fireball,
and Zero Gravity; though I loved all of the rides, and Rowen only stayed away
from the rides that spun around in too many directions at once.
Rowen and I had nearly three hours left to play before we
met up with Mom, Dad, Aunt Leanne, Uncle Adam, Ethan, and Ehlana; but we ended
up deciding to meet them at home so we could warm up for a while and drop off
the prizes and treats we’d collected by then.
Ethan and Ehlana had been napping when we got home, so we did their
wake-up call too; and heard about the rest of their day while waiting for Dad,
Aunt Leanne, and Uncle Adam.
Dinner was at the park, and by the time we’d finished
eating, Violet had gotten to town; met up with Dillon, Jake, and Stephanie; and
caught up with us at the park. They all
joined us for a few rides, including going on a couple with Ethan and Ehlana;
but then they went off on their own for the rest of the night. We traded them for Rebecca, and I loved getting
to spend some time with her even though she was mostly going on rides and
playing games with us because she didn’t want to be a fifth wheel with Jenny
and Shane, or any of her other friends and their dates.
Rebecca, Rowen, and I played with my family until the teen
dance started, and then we needed to make an appearance there while Ethan and
Ehlana took the grown-ups home after a long, busy day. That – going to the teen dance – was where
the weird really got going for us, but we mostly had fun with that too
tonight. Rowen thinks that the top of my
weird list should be finding out that while Rebecca was hanging with us while
Jenny was on her date with Shane, she quietly advised us that Michael had been
spending the day with Vanessa because Tim wanted to hang out with Nora; and
she’d apparently told him that would only be happening if Michael paired up
with Vanessa.
Next up, but closely related, was my one and only boy-girl
dance. It will probably be a waste of
time to ask her, but I strongly suspect that my dear Aunt Leanne had a hand in
making that happen, since I’m positive that Stephanie and Violet did not come
up with the idea to get me dancing with Jake; Michael dancing with Stephanie;
and then trade dance partners with timing that made sure that Michael and I
were stuck together for about five minutes before we could escape the
set-up. I knew from that contact with
him that his day hadn’t been going very well, and that he was actually happy
about dancing with me; but I also didn’t need to get close to Vanessa to know
that dancing with another girl was not going over well with her.
Now that I think about it, Aunt Leanne’s little matchmaking plan
could have been aimed at Vanessa as much as at me. If that’s true, I’d say it was about fifty
percent effective.
After leaving the dance floor, I was ready to escape from
the dance, and Rowen happily went back to the midway with me to ride the
weirdness out of our systems. I say
‘our’, but I doubt that happened for Rowen.
She hasn’t come right out and admitted it to me, but my best friend
crossed over tonight, and didn’t come back this time. Watching that happen to my best friend has
been as scary as it was when Rebecca and Jenny went through it. The circumstances are different, because
Rowen is dealing with the combination of crossing over; extreme shyness; and
having a thing for a boy who is basically oblivious to her and possibly
officially dating one of our classmates by the end of tonight – if what we
observed at the dance was any indication.
Getting back to the festival for a minute, Rowen and I ended
up skipping the rest of the dance, and split our time between the rides and
games with one long break for hot chocolate and a snack. The dance ended at eleven-thirty, but the
midway was open until midnight to give everyone time for one last blast of fun
before going home for the night. Rowen
and I were ready to leave by a bit after eleven, and left for my place along
with a handful of other kids and teens that were cold and ready to get indoors
and warm again. It started spitting rain
while we were walking, and was sprinkling by the time we reached my house, so
our timing turned out to be just about perfect.
Everyone still at the park likely ended up both cold and wet if they
stayed until closing.
Mom and Dad were still up and working in the office; so
Rowen and I stopped in there to give them the recap for what we were doing
after they went home. That took about
fifteen minutes, and then we came up to my room and got ready for bed. We’ve been cuddling with Mandy since then;
surfing the net on our computers; and having a long telepathic chat. Rowen might not be ready to talk to me about
crossing over, but she definitely wanted to vent a bit about a certain boy who
shall continue to remain nameless in the digital pages of this journal. Mandy had some suggestions for Rowen, but her
ideas definitely wouldn’t work as well on humans as she assures us they do with
cats. I’m fairly sure that I don’t want
to find out how she knows about things like that; since I thought that her
experience with boy cats was close to zero.
Yes, I’m sure she’d tell me if I asked; but I’m not going to
do that. This is definitely something
that a girl does not need to know about her cat!
While I’ve been doing this, Rowen’s been checking the
weather forecast; and it does not look good at all for tomorrow. They’re calling for a lot of rain, and for it
to keep raining from now until late tomorrow evening. It’s supposed to be warm and humid too, but
that won’t help unless there are long breaks with no rain. The country dance tomorrow night; and most of
the shows, displays, and competitions are in pavilions, so all of that will
still be going on even if there isn’t a big turnout because of the
weather. Today was good, though, and
Sunday’s supposed to be another beautiful day, so I hope that everything will
work out – especially for everyone who has worked so hard to put the festival
on for us.
Rain or shine, we’ll be spending a lot of time at the park
tomorrow, so Rowen and I need to get some sleep. It would have been nice to talk with Violet
for a while, but she’s still downstairs with Dillon; and they probably aren’t
talking much right now after having almost no alone time together since the end
of summer. I really don’t want to go
there and risk taking any of today’s weirdness into my dreams tonight, so...
...say ‘goodnight, Cassie’.
“Goodnight, Cassie.”
