The Circus Is Always In Town…

…at Pat Peterson’s house.

And yours too, if you’re a friend.  In fact, after Pat’s last visit I found a mysterious note and a tiny solar-powered circus on my kitchen windowsill.

Finding ways to surprise and entertain is second nature to Pat.

It has always been that way.

And I suspect it always will.

Don’t let the bun and the bifocals fool you.

 

Pat meets every challenge head-on.

Life is never dull.  She says, “I’m the Crazy Cat Lady your mother warned you about.”

Pat spends hours–sometimes whole weekends–doing what she calls “peddling pussy” at pet adoption fairs, finding good homes for difficult-to-place kitties. If she can’t place them, she takes them in herself.  Which is why her fourteen roommates have afflictions like kitty diabetes, three legs, one eye, not to mention curious names like Bumpus, Baby June, Lucy and Ethel, Bingo, and Rodeo, just to name a few.

Pat is a storyteller extraordinaire. Years ago, before a performance, she came to chat with my daughter Bea, sitting in the front row with a little friend.  When she left to prepare for her show, Pat gave Bea a big box of lollipops. Bea’s friend asked, “Who was that?”  “That was Pat,” said Bea. “She’s…some kind of relative.” Bea didn’t know exactly how, but she knew Pat was family. Even now that my kids are grownup world travelers, Pat still sees them off on every trip with toys, homemade cookies…

…and other necessaries.

 

Whether sharing folk or literary tales, or her specialty, personal tales drawn from her own life, Pat is the best. For years I’ve been trying to get her to record her stories. She finally agreed to tell/record at a house concert that fell a couple days after her birthday and on the actual birthday of her husband Richard, a retired engineer.

When right brain and left brain collided 54 years ago, sparks went flying…

…and they have been ever since.

After retiring, Richard discovered Train Mountain, the equivalent of Disneyland for seasoned brainiacs. There he builds scale model trains and gets to be the fun kind of engineer. Pat and their son Sam have been sighted there riding the rails with him.

At the house concert Pat shared her signature stories, while storyteller and local Good Guy, John Wasko, recorded them.

I knew she’d close with “The Man Whose Mother Was a Pirate” by Margaret Mahy.

So we went with a pirate theme.

We have our Seattle Storytelling Guild audiences trained.

They are not afraid to play dress up.

Festivities opened with a pirate ship pinata.  Someday, when you’re older, I’ll tell you why we filled it with quarters instead of candy.

The doll, created by a friend of Pat’s, is a Pat Peterson action figure wearing the dress from her exquisite and unforgettable personal story called…The Yellow Party Dress.

I think it’s safe to say it was a happy birthday for Pat and Richard, and a Happy Day for everyone else.

 

For our friend, our auntie, our storygodmother, our beloved Queen Mum of the SSG, may there be many more, with sugar on top!

Copyright 2016 NaomiBaltuck

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