Rodents and Andorra

It's been a social whirl the last couple of days, what with movies, playdates, brunch today at Spilly's "aunt, uncle and cousin's" house (I met her "aunt" on the first day of Frosh week in the first year of my undergrad, approximately 1079 years ago), a New Year's party and sleepover tomorrow with her good friend Simon and his parents (I taught with his mother for a number of years), etc.

But the true "piece de resistence" was a birthday party yesterday at a restaurant/casino for minors that featured an enormous animatronic rodent that danced around and bellowed out birthday greetings. When we first arrived, we were handed our cup of tokens for the games and sent off to play them. So we played them--roulette wheels, hoops you had to get balls through, helicopters about to crash that needed to be righted, space aliens coming to invade, etc. etc. Then it was time for the party. We were the tenth table. All of the tables represented a different birthday party and were lined up at a perpendicular angle to the stage, where the animatronic rodent and several equally gargantuan buddies gesticulated and boomed. The birthday kids had to go up onstage, parade around the room, and blow out their candles simultaneously on cue. Then the sound system went out. The rodent kept gesticulating, and its jaws kept flapping, but no sound emerged.

"What's wrong with him?" Spilly asked.

"He's having a fit," my hubby said, with pleasure.

To compensate, the restaurant/casino for minors put on the massive TVs around the place, and they began blaring out an interview with Mrs. Santa, who apparently still had a lot to do to get ready for Christmas Eve. This was December 29th, mind you. The four-year-old crowd at Spilly's party was puzzled.

At the end, when pizza and cake had been handed out--but the gifts not opened, because the personnel were cleaning our table off to indicate it was time to go--we headed outside into the quiet afternoon.

"So did you enjoy that?" I asked Spilly.

"Yes," she said. "But I really want to know how many countries there are in Spain."

"What makes you ask that?"

"It was just inside my head for awhile."

I was about to say that Spain was a country itself. But my hubby, being who he is, said, "Well, Spain is a country. But technically, it has a number of nations within it. Take Andorra, for example...."

And the two of them strolled on, while I straggled behind, trying to get the rodent's voice out of my head.