Picanick

Which is how my father used to say 'picnic'. Pick-a-nick. No, his name wasn't Nick.

When I was a kid, picnics were not particularly gay affairs. They were usually held on crowded beaches, wearing sandy or damp bathing suits, or in thinly-grassed parks with tree-roots poking me as I try to find a comfortable position -- and if I should doze off, then I could count on awakening with a headache from the sun glaring down on me. The sandwiches would be dry and listless from being crammed into the basket; the cake (if there at all) crumbling from the same rough handling. You tramp from the parking lot, eke out some space, frolic, and later tramp back to the parking lot and tumble back into the car, gasping from the canned heat. "Roll down the windows! Roll down the windows!"

And this was a good picnic. On the bad ones, it rained.

What brings this to mind is the 'Picnic Basket' web site I came across this morning. It's got a marvelous collection of various types of picnic baskets, each one redolent with possibility. I look at these baskets, and I envision the perfect picnic -- warm, sultry breezes, thick ground cloths set on lush grasslands, good food emerging from a bottomless hamper of delights, followed by a peaceful slumber on a shaded, soft surface, and, when I awake, a tasty snack -- perhaps a piece of chocolate cake, or some deep dish apple pie. With vanilla ice cream! Oh, and some quiet background music -- some chamber music, or Mozart, perhaps...

A little Grey Poupon, my dear?