Dyngus Day

It was Dyngus Day today.

For some reason, this turned me Amish.

And incidentally made me resemble Woodkid.

Though that bastard's beard is still a great deal better than mine,

 or anyone's for that matter...

Fucking genes...

... Anyway, what's Dyngus day you ask?

Dyngus day, or Smigus Dyngus day takes place on Easter Monday and its customs and traditions are apparently a teensy bit different to what we (read: mostly Ruben) do in this house: Between 8 and 12 in the morning we try to drench each other with a garden hose, buckets, glasses of water, water balloons, water guns, and so on... you get the idea. It was introduced some years back into the household through my mother, to her infinite regret, who is Polish on her parents side, and who still speaks a smattering of it besides.

Looking over the Wikipedia entry though I get the sense that someone around here severely limited the hours of mayhem (and it is mayhem) that a certain wild temperament might have made optimal use of, and certain of the activities have also been scrapped, which can only be a good thing. I mean; whipping girls with palm leaves, oh dear... and processions and recitals I can also very much do without.

Now normally, I don't get much involved in the *ahem* festivities, being a much more reserved sort. Not to mention the anxiety and the general awkwardness of my interactions with any crowd larger than 2, even if that crowd consists only of my family.

But this year, in the spirit of self-improvement, I, with the use of some helpful Vecchia Romagna, did join in. More than that though, because this year I also decided to implement some damage control and instead went out to beard the creature in its den.

It was fun, but we did apparently scared the pants off of a man and his dog.

No pictures of the battle itself, though here is one of the aftermath.

As I'm the one who's still wearing his short pants (because if you're gonna be soaked, better that it be in short pants even if the day is uncomfortable cold), this picture doesn't leave much doubt as to who the winner was on this particular Dyngus day. Yes yes, you can't really tell, but really; I won. Which is not something I thought I'd be saying this morning when at 5 past 8 I raced nervously out my front door.

Though I don't have a doubt that I'm going to be regretting having done this post by next year...

... and yes, I also realize that this constitutes somewhat of a challenge.

And that is ok.

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And as a bonus, some Woodkid.

Because something's got me in that mood again.