Play for Keeps

Dearest Readers,

It's Saturday. I love Saturdays. I think it has to be my favourite day of the week. I'm self-employed so Saturday is a work day for me but I'm choosing to work. M-F I feel like I have to work because everyone else does, too. The work I do on Saturdays feels like fun.

Because I'm doing fun things on Saturdays in between the work tasks. I'm watching You Tube and e-shopping. And I stay in my PJ's until I have to go out, if I do. I'm playing.

That's what Saturday is. It's Play Day.

When I was a kid growing up in Toronto (after we left the Yukon) there was an actual day at the end of the school year called Play Day. I think I looked forward to that day from just about the first school day in September. It was a beacon of light at the end of a long tunnel of lessons.

Play Day took place at a location we called the Reservoir, just near the famous Casa Loma. We'd all traipse up there from our little school in Rosedale and play games all day. There were water-balloon fights and three-legged races, races with an egg held on a teaspoon, and races in burlap sacs. Lots of races!

It was always sunny, the beginning of summer days to come. There were vats of that orange McDonald's drink that's not quite pop but not quite juice either. It was glorious.

So I usually waken on Saturdays with that orange-McDonald's-drink feeling. I would never ingest that stuff today but the memory of it is enough to make a girl go out and find a friend, tie our outside legs together and run in three-legged style across an open field.

Inspiring Message of the Day: Do something FUN today. A kid's game. Something that evokes the feeling of childhood freedom and innocent times. Make it a Play Day!