The Snow Game of Fox and Geese

 

This is a game of Fox and Geese, played by jungle animals, on holiday somewhere in Canada.  Montreal, maybe.  Or Sudbury.

The Rules:

1.  Tramp out a big wagon wheel shape in the snow.  This can be done with one person holding one end of a rope at the centre of the circle, and another person at the other end of the rope plodding through the deep snow while taking shouted instructions from the rest of the group waiting to play.  Or you can all just get out there and eyeball it until everyone agrees it could work.

2.  Using some random criteria, like who has the meanest looking face, choose a player to be the fox.  For this game, Zebra it is.

3.  The ostrich, monkey, giraffe, lion, hippo and elephant are all geese to start the game.

4.  The geese must run around and across the wagon wheel rim and spokes like mad things,  while the fox chases them.  All players must not take short cuts, but stay on the wheel at all times.  No face plants or snow angel breaks allowed if they can be avoided.

5.  The hub of the wheel is a safe zone where the geese may stop long enough to gasp for air, and then they have to get back to running around in a haphazard fashion.  Except always on the wheel.  Don’t forget that.

6.  If a goose (for example, the elephant) is tagged by the fox (in this case, the zebra), the elephant then becomes the new fox and the zebra is a goose.  Identity crises all around, accompanied by a lot of yelling to inform the other players, who may or may not hear you over the sound of their own laboured breathing.

7.  There are no winners or losers in this game, only enthusiastic participants who don’t mind looking like a bunch of shrieking maniacs cavorting and prancing around in a snow-covered field all afternoon.

The game ends when:

– the wagon wheel is trampled into oblivion

– the fox, unable to catch anyone, becomes frustrated and starts to cry (there is no crying in snow games – tears freeze)

– at least three faces or three sets of toes have turned blue, or some related colour to be determined by the group, because of exposure or frost bite

– the bar opens at the hotel (you’re on holiday, remember?)

– the lion gets hungry.  Time to go.

This bit of nonsense Is in response to

The Second Annual Contest of Whatever

at Evil Squirrels Nest

It’s not too late to submit a game related animal post for this contest;  deadline is Sunday morning.  And it’s never too late to get out in the snow and play a pointless snow game with your family and friends or some jungle animals on holiday.  Stupid snow should be good for something.

Knocked Over By A Feather

This badge may call itself silly but it’s something I am now very proudly displaying on my sidebar.  Because silly rules.  After my best stretch of procrastination ever I finally put together a silly picture collage for Merry at KNOCKED OVER BY A FEATHER so that I could be FEATURED there.  OMG, I have never been featured anywhere, so this is a really big deal.

It was a labor of love, because if you know Merry, you love her too.  If you don’t know her, poor you.  Time to find out what you’ve been missing.

Promises to Keep and Reasons to Weep

Man, sometimes my titles are about a hundred times better than whatever comes next!

Someone told me today that vacations are like a bunch of weekends all strung together.  I’ve been back from my holiday for just under two weeks and already I’m longing for another stretch of strung-together weekends.  But no one wants to hear a person whine about how badly they need another holiday. So I’ll just keep that to myself and enjoy my disconnected weekends like everybody else who has no more travel plans for the summer.

There are a couple of promises I’ve made to myself, meant to improve my attitude and my life.  One is to stop saying the F word on my drive to work.  And also on my drive home from work.  And at all other times of the day or night.  Well, two out of three isn’t so bad.  Anyway, I broke this promise to myself today.  Twice I think. Maybe three times, I don’t know, I can’t keep track of what slips out of my mouth in traffic.  Whatever, tomorrow is another day.

The other promise I’ve made to myself is to avoid like the plague talking about work or anything work related here, simply because I rarely have anything pleasant to say about it.  And nobody wants to listen to whining about that either.  However…. it appears to be a day for promise breaking.

Our optical office has recently acquired one of these giant dog statues from the Canadian Guide Dogs for the Blind charity.  Notice the hole in his head for donations.  This is probably harder to walk off with than a coin box sitting on a counter, plus a lot cuter.

What I have a problem with is the “contest” that’s currently underway to “name our guide dog.” No one asked me for my opinion about this, because they’re all smart enough to know I would think it’s stupid. Which I do.  A big plastic dog doesn’t need a name.  So with no input from me they have made a big poster asking for name suggestions and promising a “prize package” for the winner.  All you have to do is write your dog name, your human name, and your phone number down on a piece of paper and drop it in the draw box.    Would it not make more sense to give out the ballots in exchange for a small donation, rather than for free?  Otherwise doesn’t it all seem just a tad pointless?  And kindergarten -ish?

It appears that no one put any thought into how the winning name is actually going to be chosen, or what the criteria is for submitting a winning entry, or even what the prize package will be.  This lack of planning is what drives me crazy. And then it turns out it’s not a random  draw at all, because now everyone (except me) has been asked to go through the ballots and choose their favourite dog name from the ones submitted, and then the draw will be out of those names only.  How is that fair?  But more importantly, why do I even care?

Well of course even though I think the whole idea is dumb I’m a little miffed that I wasn’t consulted about any of this and thus didn’t get the chance to tell everyone they’re nuts.  And when potential dog namer customers ask me what the prize is I want to tell them I have no F’ing idea.  But I’m not saying that word.

Anyway, tonight, left on my own with the ballots, I decided to go through them and choose one for the bowl of finalists.  Seriously, we have a yellow cereal bowl for the blank ballots.  Professional is a word we don’t appear to understand.  But anyway, that’s beside the point.  The point is I ended up with twelve names that I think deserve consideration.  But they won’t get it, because I like them, and I don’t take this whole thing seriously enough and I’m just making fun of everything.  All true.

Here they are, in random order:

1.  Moneydog

2.  Blindy

3.  Princess Glitter

4.  Seesaw

5.  Barky

6.  Taxicab

7.  Cat

8.  Batdog

9.  Fluffy

10.  Cheezie

11.  Melonhead

12.  Woofy

The ballot I snuck into the pile of finalists was “Seymour” because I think that one might actually have a chance.  But these other dozen?  Priceless.  All deserving of a prize package for originality if nothing else.  Perhaps I’ll suggest that we hang each of these names in turn around the plastic dogs neck at hourly intervals throughout the workday.  See, if anyone would just bother to ask, I do have some really good ideas.

Ten Reasons Why Going Out For Coffee Tonight is Stupid

Coffee and Doughnut (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1.  It’s dark outside.

2.  The roads are slippery.

3.  Coffee contains caffeine.

4.  I got off work at 5:00.  The coffee place is across from work.  It will be like driving back to WORK.  Gawd.

5.  Of the six people supposedly going, only one that I know of actually WANTS to be there.  That would be the inviter.  There appears to be a contest going on amongst the invitees to see who can come up with the best excuse to skip out.

6.  I NEVER win this kind of contest.

7.  There might be something good on tv.

8.  We could all end up with speeding tickets in our mad rush to get the hell back home.

9.  The Starbucks people will probably get seriously grouchy about having to brew a fresh pot of coffee at this bizarre time of day.

10.  W will ask me why I’m doing something I don’t want to do, and I will shrug and roll my eyes and not be able to come up with a sane answer.  I hate it when that happens.

What W actually wanted to know in this case was whether or not this person could make my life any more miserable than she already has if I don’t show up tonight.  Well I guess I’m about to find out, because I’m not going.

If you never hear from me again, it will not be because I drank a bad cup of coffee after 8:00 p.m.  So cross that one off your list of clues.