This I can manage.

Late in the evening on a weekday the trucks roll in, slowly down the highway, a caravan of freaks with the best manners you have ever seen, a quiet spectacle in the growing darkness. Everyone is busy with midweek jobs, errands and chores and quietly a field becomes a parking lot and a parking lot becomes a carnival, rides are assembled and rode until tested to be safe. Checklists are checked, recited and signed off on. Permits are obtained and with seventy percent complete, the signs go up.

Through the waning warmth of the week's end, the trailers are set up and lights are strung across the top edge of each roof or on poles, depending on the site. Locals are hired to cover traffic, first aid and dining clean up. Now the real work begins. Pull in the people, the midway is here! Make their dollars count, make 'em spend, make them keep riding long after they've said they should stop. Keep the fun flowing until the sun goes down and the music cues on the mainstage. Pass in your report to the safety coordinator when the rides shut down at ten and then fall into bed, dirty and exhausted, content.

The carnies have arrived.

No, I am not letting them stay in the house (because I only know a few of them, two of the older ones are the ones who gave Lochlan his start once upon a time) but here in the house we have double-bunked PJ and New-Jake in with Dalton and Duncan respectively and our guests have full use of the boathouse for the next three days until pack out Monday morning which gives them a break from the trailers which are smaller than we'd ever admit out loud. The guys are loving this. Sam has a few of them as well. The shower will run endlessly and the kitchen here will be pressed into hard service until they leave. I sent the boys grocery shopping for the crew. If they are anything like we were, fresh bakery items, fruit, veggies and seafood will be what pleases them most for those were the hardest items to find on the road.

Everything else is gravy. Yes, there's gravy too. I think there is, anyway. I have reminded them repeatedly that they can let me know if they need or want for anything, and they were grateful to the point of thanking me repeatedly, calling me Miss Bridget, which is sort of funny and kind of insulting and reminiscent of the scary men Jake employed at the church on the Prairie. These ones did not believe that I used to do this for a living until Lochlan confirmed, and then they were impressed because I am so delicate and sweet we functioned within both with the full-on circus and with the midway too. Lochlan is now teaching several how to throw fire and I've been cooking since dawn, it seems. Ben is highly entertained and I do believe the children are prepared to pack their bags and join the tour when it leaves town. I'll be watching to be sure that doesn't happen.

Yet.

When they're a little older they can decide for themselves. Pot, kettle, black, yes, don't I know it. But it's still a nice reprieve from the war between Satan and Batman so we will live vicariously through these wild boys for the weekend and then send them on their merry way. Great fun! If you go, get a wrist bracelet for unlimited rides. Tickets are like water out there. They flow right through your fingers and suddenly you thirst for more.

Speaking of thirst, I am making tea for twenty five. It's taking a long time, I am doing it in shifts. Never in a billion years would I want to cook daily for a crowd of hungry, unruly boys-oh wait, nevermind. Kind of shot myself in the foot right there, didn't I?

Posting may be sporadic this weekend. Not only are we on the guest list so I plan to spend my entire weekend on the Octopus, but breakfast is in like eight hours so I should probably start cooking.