Happy Pi Day from Mother Goose

We all know about the magnificent obsession Mother Goose has with pie…

How can Mother Goose even begin to describe the joy of knowing that today is Pi Day? Please do not think that Mother Goose is ignoring her spell check when she types “pi” instead of “pie” today. Many of my dear and loyal readers will know that the date today is March 14th or 3/14. Many of my most mathematically inclined readers will also recognize this sign and this number…

We will be enjoying Peach Pie this evening at the Perch Party Part Two. Does that make it a Perch and Peach Pie Party? Can it get anymore real than that? And is it even rational to consider that Mother Goose would rather eat pie and perch than anything else under the sun?

And by the way, Happy Birthday to my dear friend, Albert Einstein!

“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.”

The Perch Party

Mother Goose smiles when a small idea becomes a BIG production!

It is a fact of nature that people, plants and animals start out tiny and then grow into miraculous and wonderful living organisms, and it was a fact of life yesterday that a little plan blossomed into a wonderful and loving Perch Party.

Knowing that David (a U.S. Marine who has fallen on rough times and has no home) likes perch, the wheels in the feathery head of Mother Goose began to turn. What kind of perch is best to serve? How do I prepare it? Where will I purchase it? And can I even do this, having never cooked fishy things before except those easy and adorable fish sticks from Captain Gorton?

Enter Kevin, my comrade from Easter Seals and a lifelong fisherman and outdoorsman. His recommendation was to serve up Lake Perch as fresh as I could possibly muster. Of course, Mother Goose is NOT one to hold a fishing pole, especially in single-digit weather conditions.

However, a quick side note: Brother Goose and his dear wife have done MUCH ice fishing this winter in their really nice camper/ice house. With cousins and friends, they pull their camper out three or four miles onto some GREAT big lakes in nordern Minnesota and set up a little fishing town where they conveniently fish from the comfort of their warm rolling home and watch NASCAR races on the big screen.

But oh my gooseness, I digress…

Mother Goose happily added Kevin to the guest list, knowing that his cooking expertise would be valuable in the preparation of The Perch. And then the wheels turned a little bit more, and Mother Goose remembered her friend, Ms Murriel, who absolutely LOVES to cook for people and lives to see the happy faces of folks who have eaten more than their fill of a good dinner.

Mother Goose invited Ms Murriel who immediately offered to bake a lemon meringue pie. Everybody KNOWS how much Mother Goose loves pie…

All of the puzzle pieces for the Perch Party were in place — fish bought and breaded, spaghetti water boiling, salad tossed, pie chillin’ and we ladies chatting in the kitchen, waiting for the gentlemen to arrive when all of a sudden the phone of Mother Goose rang! I missed the call, but there was a voicemail from David saying that he was having phone problems, trying to reach Kevin, and would be on his way to meet him there.

But we didn’t know where “there” was, and we could not figure out where David was and would Kevin please find this man and please deliver him to the Perch Party SOMEHOW.

And Kevin did. Kevin always rescues somebody — he is one of my most special heroes, and you can go read more about him by clicking here…

Oh the food was delicious! If anyone ever asks, Lake Perch is about a thousand times better than ocean perch which is why Mother Goose capitalized it. And the meatballs and sauce prepared by Husband Goose — mmmmm, he’s got that recipe down just fine. And the bottle of German wine that Kevin provided was the perfect complement to the dinner. And I don’t even need to tell you how Mother Goose swooned at the first mouthful of lemon meringue pie…

But, my dear and loyal readers, what set this Perch Party apart and above and beyond all normal meals was the delightful and thought-provoking conversation and loving fellowship around the table. Sometimes the food can be tasty, the music playing softly in the background, the candles lit and glowing brightly, but the dinner falls flat because there is no love.

We enjoyed an abundance of love at our Perch Party. The Lord lavished His grace on us, and our conversations were sprinkled with the sweetest words of wisdom and kindness. There was much laughing and a little teasing and a heart-felt camaraderie amongst us.

Can a goose get anymore grateful?

Thank you for coming to The Perch Party of Mother Goose…

Brother David, Husband Goose, Ms Murriel and dear Kevin.

Simple Simon

Today Mother Goose begins a new and important series about nursery rhymes. If you are like me, you learned the rhymes as a small child without even realizing or understanding the function of memorization. Maybe you heard them from your mother. Maybe you heard nursery rhymes as a bedtime story. Maybe you watched videos where the Mother Goose stories were dramatized by cheezy actors and actresses… Wherever you learned these delightful bits of posie and prose, I strongly encourage you to revisit them now that you’re all grown up and have a world of experience in your pocket.

We will begin our study with the story of Simple Simon.

Let’s first of all put this into a historical setting. The incredible story of Simple Simon has been floating about since the late 1600’s, a rough time in world history. England, Ireland and Scotland were fighting amongst themselves about who is the most popular and most powerful, and whilst they’re not looking France is headed to the new world to establish some colonies in Texas and along the Mississippi River. And amidst this world of great confusion, Simple Simon comes onto the scene.

He’s at the fair, and he’s hungry. He can’t find the corndog stand or the cotton candy or the funnel cakes so he asks a pie guy for some of his yummy pie. We do not know from this context what kind of pie is available from this particular pie man. We could assume mince meat or chicken pot pie, and probably not a French silk or a lemon cream pie.

So let’s just stop there for a moment…. Simon has no money, not one penny, and yet he has the boldness to ask for a pie. You just have to give the guy credit for trying, right? Perhaps he has had free pie before and expects that all pie is free. Sorry, Simon. What a harsh world he lives in, how troubling that he doesn’t even have a penny? I’ve walked past so many pennies lying on the ground and on the sidewalk. I just leave them there…. Perhaps a modern day Simon would pick them up and save up about three thousand of them to buy a pie today.

Let’s look at the next verse. Simon goes fishing. He gets his fishin’ pole and his tackle and some worms for bait. He loads up his rod and reel and heads for the fishin’ hole — yessirree Bob, today’s his lucky day and he’s gonna catch a whale. Atta boy, Simon — it’s good to have a plan, especially when you’re going fishing. Set some goals and make it happen. Watch your dreams become reality! But, ooops, again Simon makes some logistical errors by dropping his line in Mama’s milking pail. Yikes, Simon, what were you thinking? What are you, simple or something?

And finally the last verse of the rhyme, not often recognized as part of the original Simple Simon story.

Simple Simon went to look
If plums grew on a thistle;
He pricked his fingers very much,
Which made poor Simon whistle.

Poor Simon. He didn’t get the pie. He didn’t get the whale. He’s still hungry, the poor fellow, his tummy is growling and grumbling like a grumpy old bear. So he’ll take anything at this point, even a plum. A bit of fruit for the sake of starvation. But omigosh, he’s looking in the wrong place for plums, isn’t he, gentle reader? Thistles have thorns, not plums. Even Mother Goose can see this one coming. So, of course, Simon gets injured in the course of his thistle adventure. And did he grab a bandaid or at least a kleenex to stop the flow of blood? Nope, he just gives a good old whistle — kind of a “pheeet, pheet, pheeeewww” to ease the pain of the puncture. Or maybe he’s just decided to forego the whole plum harvesting strategy and settle into more of a song and dance routine to attract attention to his hunger issues. Anyway…

The moral of the story is this: it’s a big scary world out there. Don’t be a simpleton like our friend, Simon. Take your debit card with you — it’s welcome at most McDonald’s and Starbuck locations. Or pack yourself a lunch. Or call Mother Goose and she will pack one for you.

(a big thanks to Wikipedia for all of this important information and these wonderful pictures…)