The magic of a tiny piece of glass

Last week as I was waiting for my counseling appointment, the client before me came out in a rather flustered state. She apologized for running over her time and I insisted there was no need to apologize at all. She then began to make out her check, and started explaining to me that it wouldn’t happen again for quite a while at least, because she was having surgery on her foot. She continued on a bit more, and looking into her face I could tell she was really struggling. She finished writing her check, apologized for dumping on me and left. I went in and started my session. As we started, the counselor asked me how I felt about the conversation in the lobby. I said it didn’t bother me, and that I knew she just needed to talk. “well… I can’t tell you anything of course so I have no way of knowing what she told you…” I then explained what I was told. She then said “ahh, ic… I would like to ask a favor of you… but I need you to be completely comfortable knowing you can say no without…” I smiled, “Just ask, it’s ok” “oh ok… uh… well do you think perhaps next week you could possibly give her one of those little stones…” “Of course, It’s not a problem” she smiled, I continued, “do you want me to wear the garb and all?” “that’s entirely up to you…”

Flash forward to tonight…

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Weekend overview – Cedarburg Winter Fest

This was a long weekend, but it was definitely worth it. I had a lot of fun, and I think everyone else involved did too. I’m going to list the bests and worsts, and then as time permits hopefully relate other stories in additional posts. If any of my fellow pirates have their own best and worsts, go ahead and post them in the comments, I’d love to hear them. If you have an item that you want me to tell more about feel free to ask, and I’ll do my best to remember the circumstances.

Bests:

• Ian and I getting dragged up on stage by “Grey Beard” (David HB Drake) to join him for sea shanties Saturday
• Sunday the whole crew getting pulled in for almost a full set by Grey Beard
• “Of Pirates and Sea Monsters” (see previous post)
• Getting to work with the whole pirate group again
• Having the sausage racers request to have a picture with me
• Carving and arguing over the “ice island of mustacheo”
• “Walking the plank”
• Playing craps and not caring about losing “money”
• Saturday night hot tub pirate defrosting
• Sausage Racers taking pictures of us
• Having to develop a characters signature for autographs
• “I spy with me little eye…. somethin’ pancaky” and “defective telescope salesman”
• Ships of the desert, whales, and the ferocious t-rex
• Having my accent placed, again, to the same location, by another British couple

Worsts:

• It’s winter fest, not arctic fest… -30 windchills Sunday
• Really upsetting one kid at the pancake breakfast
• Parading at double time
• Broken spigot on my new barrel
• “R” jokes till I was ready to vomit, especially from drunks…
• Did I mention the weather?

Of pirates and sea monsters

During this past weekend I was working at the “Breakfast with the Pirates” event. While wandering from table to table causing trouble, a shy young girl asked me “how come pirates fight sea monsters?!” As she said it, she had a very somber and sad look on her face, I took it to mean that she felt sorry for the poor sea monsters. (thank you water horse, no doubt…)
oh boy…
“ahh the old sea monster question…”, I stalled

quick John think!

“Well lass, ya see… sea monsters, through no fault of their own, have a real taste for ships… no one really knows why, they just like to munch on them, kinda like you like pancakes… they must just taste good… Well pirates, we like our ships too, not fer eatin of course, we preferr pancakes, and we would rather not have our ships eaten by sea monsters. ya know what happens when our ships get eaten by sea monsters? we have to float all the way back to shore, and that takes a very very very long time ya see, and really isn’t that much fun… I got me oar right her so i can paddle back faster ya see… so anyway… we pirates have to hunt after the sea monsters and k… aarr scold them regularly to make sure they all know it’s not right ta be eating all the ships… (i said scold, not kill… please no crying kid… i didn’t hurt the water horse) that goes for the cruise ships too… see if we didn’t hunt down the sea monsters and scold them, then they might eat the cruise ships too… and all those poor people would have to float back to shore too… so that’s why we pirates have ta hunt sea monsters”
At this the mom jumped in smiling and confirmed my story with her daughter, “see hunny, they are all protecting the people on the ships by hunting down the sea monsters. That way mommies and daddies and families on ships are all safe to enjoy vacations” with the external confirmation the daughter smiled and she seemed much happier about the whole situation and later she even smiled and waved when I came back by their table.