ingredients for a (nearly) perfect weekend

it started rather inauspiciously with history's unpeppiest pep rally. it wasn't for lack of trying, but the logistics of walking 2800+ students from the high school to the middle school for a pep assembly designed to be outside seriously put a crimp in any spirit that might be raised. then came the news that my good friend andy was going to be taking a month break, to rest up and heal from his surgery from the summer. while he'll be missed, i'm glad he's taking it easy.

then things started to look up. after school, i went to friday's again for appetizers and great conversation. of course, this put me a bit behind, as i was supposed to pick up steve and sam for our journey to the landing place at 6:00 and i didn't get home in time to make that work. but we finally made it on the road just before 7:00. steve worked on his piece for city beat the whole way up, so it was pretty quiet in the car. we eventually made it to 64 king, only to discover no one was home. but we finally made our way in and i waited for mike to call. my first trip to LP - definitely the same spirit as VC. good to visit with some of the gang there. plus, it was only a short drive to mike's from there. before i left, i made sure sam and steve had my number, in case they ran into problems with the ride to cincy.

my visit with mike was good - good to catch up, watch sylvie hop around the room. we were both pretty wiped, he moreso than i for obvious reasons. andrea's first chemo treatment went as well as could be expected (you can read her account here). always good to visit mike, though kept wishing there was more i could do or say. but really, what is there? i crashed in their upstairs and woke up and headed up to mount vernon to visit with steve and angela before we met brent for lunch and then headed to the drama meeting (brent and i anyway - steve has little desire to be involved). 'twas an excellent visit and quite profitable - steve had burned me an mp3 disc of old christian music (petra, altar boys and the uber-frightening wow gold) as well as the massive dvd collection of top 40 songs from 1975-2001 - i don't know where they came from, but it's like an instant music collection, though i'm certainly not interested in the majority of them). fun.

the drama celebration looks like it's going to be quite a great time. now if we can just get people to show up. unfortunately, i was the cause of brent losing the chance to have one of his infamous top ten lists on a t-shirt. still not sure how it happened, but we were discussing the shirts and dan was suggesting we design them so we could sell them to the cast from this year's play, which i thought was a lame idea, so to steer him away, i suggested maybe we could just put a list of all the productions from the past 20 years on the back. and *poof* there goes brent's contribution. i felt bad, but it was too late. steve and i might make some "renegade" shirts for the three of us, just to help ease the blow.

then after the meeting we headed down to the thurman cafe for dinner. on the way, my phone rang - it was sam and steve. they had made it as far as london and decided to call it quits. i told them i would call when we were done. the cafe was great, as usual, though they still didn't have any xxl shirts, which makes me sad. still need two more to have a whole week's worth. so i said my goodbyes to brent, steve and angela and then headed across 70 to london to pick up the weary travelers. not only were they tired, but they had also gorged themselves on pizza and ale, so they were a bit rough. but we made it home without too much trouble. and i watched BSG and then headed to bed, for i knew what awaited me on sunday...

woke up this morning early - sent off an overdue email to the gang from kent, then jumped in the shower and got ready for church. susie was going to meet me there, so i made sure i was there in plenty of time. good thing, because she got a bit lost and arrived early. i recognized her from the picture on the westerville naz website - not sure if she knew what i looked like or not. so we talked before service - i filled her in on some of the history of st. e's and tried to explain why, if service started at 10:00, there were only half a dozen people there at 9:59. welcome to vc time. chris and deb were going to join us, but as service started, they were nowhere to be seen. then i ended up doing announcements last minute. but eventually we settled down and kevin began his message (with a clip from fight club - woohoo!) and chris and deb wandered in a bit late (turns out chris tried some new way to norwood and it didn't go so well). afterwards, the four of us headed to jalepenos for lunch. was a great time - good food, good conversation, a great first meeting. no details, sorry. but she'll be back this coming weekend, and i'm hoping we'll get to hang out again.

then i was supposed to be at the auditorium to work by 4:00, so i grabbed a quick nap and grabbed my mountain of grading and headed to mason. when i got there, everything was dark, so i called jack. turned out they changed their schedule and came in early and left at 3:00. and they forgot to call me. was ok - i used the extra time to get some grading done (though would have been nice to be paid, too). plus andy was there getting things together, so it was good to see him before he took his break.

then gina and i visited the blue gibbon, a chinese place down on tennessee. good food. gina's excited because it's clean and they do lunch specials on saturday - two things she's been looking for since she left mount vernon and the beloved hunan garden. i thought the food was good, but nothing spectacular - i like lemon grass a bit better food wise. but definitely a good place and one i'll be happy to return to. my fortune: "Lovers come and go, but friends are always there." take that as you will.

to top it all off, both the bengals and the ravens lost and the steelers demolished the chiefs. was great to finally see them play like they should. but of course, wkrc decided to switch in the fourth quarter to the jets/miami game, which seriously hacked me off. i hope it was a network decision, because otherwise it just appears petty and small (of course, we are talking about a bengals affiliate here). angered me enough that i wrote an email to wkrc to complain. i finally get a game to watch, and i miss the ending.

but overall, a great weekend, with the good far outweighing the bad. and how perfect that it comes on one of my "perfect wedding" weekends. alas, this is the last one until 2017, which means i'm going to have to make alternate plans. *sigh* ah well.

time to hit the mountain of grading. here's hoping i whittle it down - need to have them back to the students by tuesday so they can see their errors before they turn in their next essay on friday. it's like the frakking hydra - kill off one pile and another pile rears its ugly head.
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Tunes: russell allen/jorn landre - come alive†