Shopkeeper, a steamy hot chocolate, if you please.
Yummy hot chocolate in your favorite mug hits the spot better than just about anything after a long day of thinking deep thinks.
Winter around these parts has been quite cold and unpredictable. Snow fell from grumbly gray clouds where clouds aren’t usually grumbly. Wind whipped through trees and across fields not used to such dramatic bluster. Thermometers hanging outside demanded little scarves and hats to stay warm under threat of relocation to Florida. It was getting so that everyone who loved winter couldn’t wait for summer. Kind of like when cousins you love come to visit and it seems like they never leave.
This week was one of those weeks.
There was gentle snow, driving rain, teeth chattering temperatures and howling wind, sometimes all in the same afternoon. No one came out to play after school nor did anyone brave the weather to visit each other. Our friends in Moonwater Meadow were having a not-so-fun time when they should have been throwing snowballs and battling abominable snow beasts.
The monsters of the meadow, of which there are many, didn’t even come out.
Side Note: The Horrible Pepperoni Pizza Sea Monster didn’t even surface on the ocean for fear of becoming a frozen toaster pizza. That happened once and it took several ice breakers equipped with space heaters to thaw the poor beast out. It was grateful but not happy. Because of the kindness of strangers it promised to not terrorize the shipping lanes for that summer which is what it really loved to do.
So a special Ollie-Day was declared by Oliver himself.
He had no problem with cold or wind or snow but all his friends did and he missed them. He declared this day Hot Chocolate After School Day. Of course, parents had to approve, arrange drop-offs and pick-ups and provide extra socks that got soggy in the damp. But they liked the idea so much they declared the day Hot Chocolate After Work, Too Day. Ollie simply combined the two into one and that’s how we got Hot Chocolate After School Or Work Day!
Today is a day of friendship and sharing.
Today, after school, ask your parents, gather your socks, gather your friends, brave the weather and share a mug of your favorite hot chocolate and have some fun. Like winter, it only happens once a year but you can make it last a whole season.
Oliver Bug is an adventurer, detective, inventor and gourmet chef residing in Moonwater Meadow. He can often be found in his workshop putting out small unintentional fires.
Tom Serafini is Ollie’s official biographer, illustrator and a sometime stand-up comedian residing in Brooklyn, New York. He has an affinity for banana pudding. His first illustrated picture book, Ollie Bug and the Icky Sticky Thing From Space, will be funded through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign.
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