The Professor, the Physicist and the Palaeontologist arrive

It was almost a month after the P Party
The Playground had been dismantled, the string of Party lights taken down, the Pogo stick brought inside and the REAL Pony hired for Pony rides had been returned despite wails of protest from Sprite.

One evening I found two elderly gentlemen and a young lady wandering in the garden.
“We were just enjoying Peripatetic Perambulations around your Pleasant Property with Pauses for Pondering Philosophical Problems. We are here in response to your kind invitation to the P Party”

One of the elderly gentlemen pulled a pile of papers from his pocket and began to unfold them and tried to smooth out the creases.
“There’s yours, Patrick!” he said and handed over an invitation addressed to
‘Palaeontologist’.

The rest of his papers fluttered to the ground and the young lady and I bent to pick them up for him. I picked up an invitation addressed to ‘Physicist’.
“I guess this is your invitation,” I said.

“No, that’s my invitation” said the young lady. “I’m Paula the Physicist. This is Pa Peter, my Paternal grandfather, he is a Professor and a Poet of Prominence”

“I do have an invitation to ‘Professor’ and I will be Presenting a Paper and hosting a Poets’ Corner at this Prestigious P Party. It must be in with those papers somewhere” he said. I could see he was becoming rather agitated.

“Here’s your invitation Pa” said Paula
She read the invitation as she handed it over. Obviously it was the first time she had seen it. “Oh dear, we seem to have come on the wrong day! I’m sorry about that!”
“Pa is a bit vague at times – a bit Push on the Pull door of the Gifted Institute if you know what I mean” she said

“Don’t worry”, I said “Come in and meet Sprite”
“I have a Pterodactyl poster for her” said the Palaeontologist.

Collage of Party Memories

Here is the photo collage ball that the Memory Elephant had compiled from the pictorial memories of Sprite’s P Party
It was made with Shape College a free automatic photo collage maker http://www.shapecollage.com/

Pyrotechnics for the P Party

Basket of Phruits for the P Party

The Twitter Birds compiled a basket of fruits from around the world for Sprite.
Can you identify all the fruits?

Phood for the P Party

In the P Party Garden

Here we see the Playground, Pool, Pogo stick and the REAL Pony for Pony rides. The Policemen are Patrolling the Perimeters on Push bikes and Pennyfarthings and the Parachutist, Petra Polona the Polish Pole Vaulter and Aviatrix Amelia Earhart are arriving.
PC PC PC was not going to let Amelia Earthart enter until Sprite said she wanted her to be Present and introduced her as Pamela Pearhart Plane Pilot.

Memories

I was looking at some of my photos and Sprite’s Memory Elephant produced some of the pictorial memories recorded in the role of Photographer Pachyderm at Sprite’s P Party. The giraffe (a friend of Starjump Starfish) helped to unravel the pictures from the PhotoCollage ball and passed them up to the Twitter Birds who attached them to a display banner.

Revitalization and Resilience

I was very glad to be able to show Sprite some websites and articles in the local paper about effort to clean up, preserve and revitalize the environment. And there were activities which encouraged participation of youngsters.

We read about Clean Up Australia Day which will be held on Sunday 7 March 2010 with Schools Clean up Day on Friday 15 March 2010 http://www.cleanup.org.au/au/

We also found interesting events, activities and groups on the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria website http://www.fncv.org.au/ and Montrose Environmental Group http://home.vicnet.net.au/~meg/

But I also realized that we would have to work on building Sprite’s resilience as she was bound to encounter more difficulties and disappointments.
And once again it was Marjie Braun Knudsen (author of BRAVE See https://spritessite.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/the-third-s-i-p-p-for-physical-and-practical-part-3/ ) who supplied help with a blog entry about resilience- Helping Your Kids and Teens Survive which she guest wrote for Omamas blog.
“How to help your child develop resiliency against life’s slings and arrows”
See http://bit.ly/apAp7F

“Imaginational Dabrowski said there would be something I could do to help!” said Sprite.

Black Dog reaction to the news 2

Wistful Black Dog repeated in a louder, more insistent tone to the Memory Elephant “That is the creek where Sprite used to go for picnics. She probably knew those fish and birds”

“Little Bully Black Dog grabbed the paper and ran away with it but I made him drop it and kept on reading. The paper was all wet – I don’t know whether it was his slobber or my tears,” said Sprite.

And Thinks-He’s-an-Alien Black Dog said “They wouldn’t DO that on MY planet!”

Then Leaping Attack Black Dog snatched the paper and started shaking it and snarling and ripped it up and all the pieces blew around and messed up the garden. I’m sorry it’s such a mess” she sobbed. 

Black Dog reaction to the news

“I don’t mind reading the newspaper to the Dabrowski Dogs” Sprite told me “but I really don’t like it when the Black Dogs join in!”

“I was reading an article in the local paper about how a factory was fined for polluting the creek. There was a yellow scum on the water and the fish had died and then the birds that ate the fish died too and the bank looked like something from the book ‘Silent spring’. It was horrible!”

“Emotional Dabrowski started howling and the Black Dogs came to see what the matter was.”

“Guard on Duty Black Dog put his foot on the paper and said not to look at it because it would upset me; but I really felt I needed to keep reading and find out about it,” said Sprite.

Wistful Black Dog whispered to the Memory Elephant “That is the creek where Sprite used to go for picnics. She probably knew those fish and birds”