Far from the shores of England

Yesterday was one of the best days I've had in a very, very long time. It's Fall Fair weekend here in the village, which means it's a time of parades and tractors and cows and oddly shaped vegetables. My father's Masonic Lodge was sponsoring a child identification program, and he had asked all of the sisters to volunteer for a few hours. It wound up being a lot more interesting and fun than I had thought.

When I was a child, child identification programs usually consisted of inky fingerprints on an index card. (Since our father was a police officer, all of the sisters have amazing fingerprinting technique--we were taught how to roll them out from a young age.) Child identification has changed pretty substantially in the 20 years since I was a child. The packages we put together yesterday consisted of digitally scanned fingerprints, digital photos, a short video clip of the child answering questions, a dental impression, and a DNA swab (along with their parents' information). The Masons were all quite impressed with our computer skills. It's good to know that when they aren't keeping the electric car down, they're actually doing good in their communities.

My dad took us (sisters + cousin) out for dinner to thank us for volunteering, and we went to the Wild Wing the next town over. I had never been to a Wild Wing before, and it was fantastic. I'm a fairly unadventurous sort, so I tried the medium wings and the Desperado wings (medium + maple). Youngest sister had something a dill sauce on top, which I was quite happy to skip. The wings were so good--just at the upper edge of what I can stand to eat, heatwise, and sharp and vinegary in taste. There was also ample celery, carrots, and blue cheese dip.

Youngest sister also managed to throw a bone right into my beer glass, because she is a jerk.

We had two pitchers of beer between the five of us (except me, who was driving and had her single glass of beer destroyed by an errant chicken wing), and my dad attempted to pass on the manly skill of how to pour a beer properly. This was less successful the more everyone drank, and we wound up telling stories of SOME of the stupid things that we had done as teenagers while drinking underage. Apparently, according to my dad, we were never quite as subtle about it as we wanted to think we were.

Mum comes home from Scotland today!