1494 Eye Dotting

I had the pleasure recently to volunteer at the St. Martin's DragonBoat Festival down at the Port. It was cool. DragonBoat teams from all over, pulling for their clubs, racing through the waters of the south Puget Sound.
There were dances and music from various cultures too. Like Chinese Lion dances. The Lion dancers sort of looked like dragons. Giant heads and colorful sequined fur bodies made up of humans underneath, the human legs representing the legs of the creature. Like one of those dancing donkeys you once saw in vaudeville, but a lot more classy.
Certainly a lot more sequins.
The way to tell the difference between Lion Dancers and Dragon Dancers is there are only two lion dancers per lion body. Dragon dancers have up to twelve. Far more men to fill up a dragon.
I felt a little inadequate. My only contribution to the festivities was dragon breath.
I did help at the first aid booth. The Doctor who asked me to spell him reminded me about the new CPR—just compressions, no mouth to mouthwhich was good, what with the whole dragon breath thing. When he came back, he asked if anything had happened and I said no heart attacks, just a guy who was lost.
Fortunately, I also knew GPS.
The best part of the event was at the beginning, when they did the special and traditional "Dotting of the Eyes" ceremony, where local dignitaries took paintbrushes and dabbed pupils in the middle of the eyes of the carved wooden dragonheads before they were placed on the boats.
I suggested to the officials that next year they should also cross arms and pass each other ceremonial cups of tea.
That way they could do the dotting of the eyes and the crossing of the teas...
Olympia's Mayor told me to go mind my Ps and Qs.
America, ya gotta love it.