After church, we met up with Mike again and went up to the co-op for some really delicious lunch and then back downtown for the Cherry Blossom Festival at the library and over to Parkview Field for the YMCA's Healthy Kid's Day. We locked our bikes near the library on Wayne Street and worked our way through the Cherry Blossom Festival crowd. While Fort Wayne does not have an overly large Japanese/Japanese-American population, they do have a presence here. They also incorporate a Cosplay event into the day, with scores of people coming dressed as their favorite manga characters. There are crafts for kids, vendors selling Japanese food, books, clothing, the local Bonsai club has a display. A formal Tea Ceremony is explained and demonstrated, various martial arts clubs show off their skills, the Taiko drummers perform. It's a very well done afternoon. We've gone previous years. Pete tried out a couple of kid's crafts and thought he was ready to be done.
So we headed over to Parkview Field and the YMCA event. Pete tried his hand at wearing a Velcro suit and throwing himself up against a Velcro wall. The suit was miserably hot and he was unimpressed. The batting cage was a slight improvment. Mike had a blast against the pitching machine though. We picked up information about various groups and programs around town and then were headed back to the library to get our bikes. Mike had a little time before he had to head to work, so we grabbed some bagels and cool drinks and sat out on the plaza in the shade. Mike left for work.
There was a carnival style game going on near where we were sitting so Pete went to check it out. He came back and told me he needed a dollar to play. I parted with a dollar. He stood watching for a while, so when I finished with my iced tea I went over to see what was going on. The object was to try and catch a small goldfish from an underbed storage type box (shallow plastic container) with a flat net. Not as easy as it sounds. Pete managed to get a fish and flop it into a styrofoam bowl. From there a volunteer put it in a fish-carrying plastic bag with strings on the top. I'm not sure he understood yet that he now owned this fish. I said "Well Pete, I think one fish would get pretty lonely, you should go for two." So I fished out another dollar and he scored another fish, which also went from underbed box to styrofoam bowl, to fish-carrying bag. I think it was about now that it fully dawned on him that he was supposed to take these fish home with him.
We had planned to go to 5:00 Mass at ,the Cathedral. It was after 4:00. Not enough time to go home,but still too early to head over to the church. So we sat and watched a martial arts group from Indianapolis finish up their denmonstrations on the outdoor stage while Pete contemplated names for his new pets. The winners? Flipper and Flap. Flipper is orange, Flap is greenish-gray. At least they are easy to tell apart. I offered to carry the bags. We headed over to our bikes to get them unlocked, my purse stashed on the rear carrier and the fish hung off the handlebars of my bike. I got several comments about riding in a dress (I wore a very red dress for Pentecost today), but none about having bags of fish hanging from my bike. Go figure!
We rode the few blocks over to the cathedral and locked our bikes on a rack across the street. It was too hot to leave the fish hanging from the handlebars, so off to church they went. We stopped outside the restrooms before going into the sanctuary. Three adults were already waiting in line to use the restrooms. People commented about the oddness of there being a lineup outside the restrooms. No one made a sound about the lady holding two bags of fish on her fingers. Personal business cared for, we went into church and sat in a pew. This is when I realized that these two bags weren't going to sit on a pew and not slop over and out. Hmmmm.....
My purse has a button to hold the top shut, so I hung the two bags off of it, and they rested on the pew. Dilemma solved. Mass proceeded with no hitches and afterwards we collected the bikes, rehung the fish from the handlebars and pedaled home where we met up once again
with Mike to have supper. He was introduced to Flipper and Flap. I found a Tupperware bowl for them to temporarily move into and they were ensconced in the middle of the dining room table. After dinner, Pete was charged with researching the eating habits of goldfish. He found a website about feeding goldfish.
We blanched a few spinach leaves and several peas. Flipper and Flap
seemed pretty pleased with these goodies. Tomorrow he needs to get some
real goldfish food and we need to figure out what kind of larger more
permanent home these guys can have. 
For now the fish are on a cupboard shelf, next to the oatmeal, out of dog reach, since we aren't really sure what Domino and Shuba will think of them.
( Doesn't everyone keep their pet fish between the peanut butter and the oatmeal?)
