Induction

We are delighted to announce that Mead Street has officially welcomed a new member into the tribe. Irene's induction ceremony -- like most of Simon and Menna's many weddings -- began as an excuse to bake a cake (in this case a Lady Baltimore), but quickly expanded into a complicated impromptu ritual.

The whole enterprise was delayed by a painful but (thankfully) not ER-worthy injury: Bryan wanted us to tell you he burned his foot putting out a life-threatening grease-fire or fighting off angry dragons, but really he was done in by a vicious pot of pasta water that focused all its fury on his third left toe. The consulting nurse declared it a second degree burn, and advised him to soak it in cold water & keep it higher than his heart -- two directives that proved extremely difficult to achieve simultaneously. She also suggested that Ibuprofen was more effective than Tylenol in this case.  She did not weigh in on the effectiveness of tequila as an appropriate anodyne, but it was liberally dispensed to the patient and -- once it was determined that the family's vacation to Harrison Hot Springs later this week would now have to be canceled -- to his wife. And then to a few other people whose hearts ached in sympathy.

Meanwhile -- somewhere between the ransacking of our first aid kit and the opening of the bottle -- Irene passed her Citizenship Test with flying colors. Care to take a crack at it?

MEAD STREET CITIZENSHIP TEST

1. Do you knock, or just walk in?

2. Where do you leave your socks?

3. Who is the Mayor of Mead Street?

4. Which Mead Street adults are ineligible to run for president, and why?

5. What foods does Aly not eat?

6. Which cats live where?

7. Where do the names Bronwen, Menna, and Ioan come from?

8. Which of the following activities are permitted in Linda's yard?

     a) Eating raspberries
     b) Cutting across the lawn
     c) Jumping out of the treehouse into her mushroom patch
     d) Pulling on the cat's tail

9. Match each breakfast cereal with its biggest fan:

     Cereals: Life, Puffins, Special K with Red Berries
     Fans: Mikala, Josie, Simon

10. Name two foods you may help yourself to, as long as it's not right before dinner.

11. Name two foods that must be dispensed by an adult, and where they are cached.

12. What are the Three Rules of Gum?

13. Name the author of this lyric, sung to the tune of the "Iron Man" theme song: "I am a big red poo, running over lots of other poo."

14. Whose remodel took the longest?

15. Please sing The Song we sing before dinner.

16. Run around the house three times barefoot. Your path must include mud, grass, gravel, and pavement.

Irene, as we said, passed with flying colors. She even earned bonus points for knowing Bronwen's real first name, identifying not only the Mayor but also the Sheriff and his Deputies, and reciting the warning poem posted on the wall at Gringott's Bank (a crucial piece of Harry Potter arcana). Her application was further strengthened by her ability to prolong an argument far beyond its natural life, and her documented participation in the tribe's activities as far back as January 2009... or even earlier. So while Irene demonstrated her Mead Street Cred by running around the house three times barefoot in the freezing rain, the rest of us quickly improvised an initiation ceremony, which included:

Purple warpaint (all organic) applied by a certified High Priestess, while a band of maidens crowded around chanting, "Sheeeeeeep.... Sheeeeeeep..... Sheeeeeeep...." (I wish I could explain this, but there are some generational Mead Street secrets to which I am not privy.)




A whack on both shoulders with Ioan's homemade foam-and-duct-tape jousting lance:



And the ritual destruction of a toy that wasn't hers (which has, alas, become something of a Mead Street tradition lately).

Finally, we all descended to the basement (festooned with Christmas lights & orange streamers, and well-stocked with heaping bowls of M&Ms, Chex Party Mix & Oreos) for a raucous, rockin', Spring Break Kick-Off Dance Party. We were joined at this point by Linda, just back from a weekend retreat and still sporting a fairy veil, and Irene's mother, whose first-rate moshing skills more than qualified her as a Mead Street In-Law. We realized we had neglected to stipulate formally that a willingness to dance with your parents in public is also a prerequisite for Mead Street citizenship; fortunately this did not appear to be a problem for either of our new recruits.

Bryan wisely sat out the mosh pit, but we were all inspired by his earlier demonstration of a new dance, which would surely be destined for viral YouTube fad-dom if we hadn't been too busy attempting it ourselves to whip out the video camera. All we can tell you is that "The Bryan" is a free-form, aspirational maneuver whose basic requirements are that you keep moving to the beat, keep smiling if you can, and keep your left foot higher than your heart.