Monday, October 30, 2006

Talent Show, Swim Meet and Homecoming

Somehow we survived the weekend and now I'm looking forward to being able to catch my breath (maybe). The Singer (Driver) competed in the school Talent Show last Tuesday night. She sang "The Wizard and I" from the musical "Wicked." She won 3rd place. 1st and 2nd places went to dancers. She was so happy, because she won money. As she's paying for much of her Homecoming experience, a few extra dollars was nice.
Friday was planned out to the minute. The girls have a small job at the church straightening the books and picking up trash. They normally do this on Friday afternoon. So Friday, the Singer was driving to school and then picking Hubby up from work and meeting the Imp and I at the church to clean and then get home for a quick bite to eat, load up the car and head to the Homecoming game and then off to Ft Myers for the swim meet. The Singer gets out of school at 3:10 and was suppose to pick up Hubby around 3:30. At 3:35 I get a call. "Mom, I messed up." Of course, I was thinking accident...hopefully a fender bender as she's calling me. My heartbeat is suspended as I wait for her to finish. "I left the lights on all day and the car won't start." I was so relieved that it wasn't worse, but somehow the stupid little inconveniences are worse. Somehow we manage to rise to the occasion when something catastrophic happens, but when it's an annoyance, we, well, get annoyed. That was me on Friday. I couldn't believe it! Our perfectly timed afternoon was shot. Ugh. After the coaches jumped started the car (they wanted her out of the parking lot as they were setting up for the game!) we spent the rest of the afternoon rushing around trying to make up for lost time. Somehow we managed to get it all done, and get the Singer to the game so she could sing the National Anthem. We left at half-time for the trip down to Ft. Myers. The trip was hard because it was very windy. We got to the hotel about 11:15pm. We went to check in and the young man at the front desk said, "You already checked in." No, we hadn't. Fortunately, after checking the room, he determined it was a clerical error and no one was actually in our room. We were settled and ready for sleep by midnight.

The entire swim season has been unsettling because it seems the coach doesn't really know what she's doing. Either that or she just can't/doesn't communicate what she knows to the team. The Singer gets to the meet and finds out they're swimming the 200 m free relay, not the 400. Now, I don't know if our coach broke any rules, but the Singer has never been on the 200 m relay. She certainly was not on that team for Districts, so she didn't qualify for the 200 m relay. But that was what the 4 girls were going to swim. As they didn't come close to making it to the finals, I wasn't too concerned and the coach said all was within the rules. (She wasn't convincing to me). So we drove 2 1/2 hours, stayed overnight in a hotel, watched 4 hours of swimming, all so we could watch the Swimmer for the 3o seconds she was in the pool (2:00 for her team)so we could then drive home for 2 1/2 hours. Once home the Singer began the process of preparing for Homecoming. I did her hair and make-up and off to her friends for pictures. I obviously didn't take this seriously enough. I only brought one camera, and didn't insist on the 28 different poses for the Singer to be in. Hubby talked to the Singer's "date" (a friend not boyfriend) and made sure he knew he was responsible for keeping the Singer safe. And we went home to wait to go pick her up from the friend's after-dance get together. When the Singer got home, I asked how it went. She told me dinner with her group of 10 friends was great and lots of fun. Then said that she didn't understand the whole hoopla around Homecoming dance and that she didn't really enjoy going somewhere to "watch so many people trying to have sex with their clothes on." She would have preferred to hang with her friends for the rest of the night. She loved getting dressed up, and she loves dancing. She didn't like the atmosphere of high school Homecoming.
I'm tired today, but from doing things for my family. It feels good. My heart goes out to Cindy and her family that have been going from crisis to crisis. My thoughts and prayers are with them all today.

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