"Two events loomed on the horizon, requiring attendance, and in one case a considerable amount of work, the school harvest moon festival and Fred’s dean’s annual fall party for staff and graduate students. The school festival was essentially in honor of Halloween, but was masquerading as a more innocuous autumn party: Pasadena doesn’t have any harvest moons to speak of, but some full moons seem larger than others. I think I’ve read somewhere that that’s really true. The other party required me to dress and make up to look gorgeous, and to remain charmingly calm. I thought I’d rather carve a thousand pumpkins.
Pinegrove’s PTA president, Rosella McPhee, had to have several board meetings before all the work for the festival was properly allotted. It was one of two major annual fund raisers and so was deemed worth all the talk and effort. I volunteered to be in charge of the fish-for-a-prize booth. Everyone liked that booth because everyone who tried to fish won a prize. It attracted mainly younger children since there was no challenge, but they were all cute and it was fun to see them grasp the miniature poles and strive to hook something behind a screen decorated with pictures of waves, shells, and starfish. Few people who volunteered for anything escaped Rosella’s enthusiastic graspings of forearms, but most of us enjoyed being part of a group attempting to do good for the school and our kids, and if we were less anxious to do good for Rosella McPhee, we gave it little thought."

From "The Watch"
by Sari Mittelbach