Orange

I volunteered at the "Kiss Me I'm Irish" fun run event near the Jobbing.com Arena on Saturday.  I was stationed at the T-shirt tables.  We would issue the registered runners their t-shirts.  It got really wild and crazy for a while.  The t-shirts were of course - green.  But even as the participants and their cheering squads arrived they were already dresssed head to toe in green "costumes".  I never saw so much green apparel before in my life!  Green shorts, green shirts, green leggings, green shoes, green shoelaces, green foofy skirts, green hats, green hair ties, green neckties, green scarfs, green socks, green decals on the face, well just about anything you could imagine was there and in a shade of green.  Even the dogs that came were all decked out in green.  Whatever.  Now you might ask why the title of my post is orange.

Here is why.

When the event was over I stayed to help clean up.  We packed up all the t-shirts.  We packed up all the registration materials.  We took down the banners and signs.  We took down the tables and chairs.  We took down shade canopys.  You name it we took it down.  Then we started loading it all into a trailer.  Then came the drinks and food/snacks provided for the runners.  Lots of extra cliff bars, cheese and peanut butter sandwich snacks, nuts, chips, crackers, licorice, animal cookies, pop, gatorade, water, even doggie snacks.  That all went fairly smoothly.  But then came the fruit that they had cut up.  There was lots left over.  Apples, bananas, and - you guessed it - oranges.  None of us could stand the thought of them trashing all that stuff.  So the lady in charge asked if I could use the oranges.  I promised her I would juice them all and not waste them.  So she sent me home with a 40 pound box of cut up oranges.  I promise it was huge. 

Anyway, after I finally got home I sat down to rest my feet and legs for a few short minutes.  Then I got up and spent the next hour and a half juicing those oranges.  I got some really good use out of my ebay buy - a Juice-o-mat.  Great juicing gizmo.  I ended up with 2 trash bags full of orange rinds plus my large stainless steel popcorn bowl was full of orange rinds too. 

Any guesses on how much juice I ended up getting out of those oranges?  First you'll have to look at a few pictures.

Now I can tell you.  I ended up with just under 3 gallons of orange juice.  And that was after I gave a gallon ziploc baggie filled with the orange wedges to the missionaries!  Doug wasted no time and has already polished off the first pint of orange juice.  The rest is frozen. 

P.S.  Added bonus.  When I left the event to come home the guy in charge asked if I wanted a Gatorade.  I said sure.  He sent me home with a dozen of the larger bottles of Gatorade.  Guess what color I got?  ORANGE!  Yippee!