Weekend Notes

It was a pretty quiet weekend for us.

Friday was the annual St. P’s eighth grade Mother’s Mass. All the eighth graders and their moms got dressed up, had a special Mass first thing in the day followed by a brunch at school. Then they were excused for the day to go do stuff together. The girls all went to Top Golf and then a bakery to get treats.[1] Although I handle a lot of the mom duties in our house, S did take this one and I believe both she and M had a really good day. M got her hair and nails done the night before, which along with her new dress and shoes made her happy. All this was prelude to the really big day, her eighth grade graduation at the end of the month.

After school Friday L and I rushed over to a neutral school for her kickball playoff game to see who won their division. We gave up nine runs in the top of the first and then our lead-off kicker got tagged out at third when she tried to be sneaky. But we went on to score 11 in that inning, had a couple great defensive innings to create some space, and ended up winning 41–17. They play for the City championship later today.

They did not play quite as well as they played the previous game, when they beat the same team by 28. But they still played really well. L’s performance at the plate was not as impressive, either. Only one home run along with a couple doubles and a long, loud, three-run single. But I was really happy with how she noticed where the good fielders were and tried to kick away from them, sacrificing power for making sure she got on base. That’s easy to do when you’ve played a team three times. I’m telling her to just kick it as hard as she can today.

Saturday, on a clear and cold morning, we hustled downtown to the IUPUI track stadium for the preliminary heats of the City track championships. It was in the mid–40s when we got there, which was great for running but not so fun for watching the runners. The kids did not seem impressed when we told them people like Carl Lewis, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and Florence Griffin Joyner had run on this track. Kids!

C got her wish and was switched from the 800 to the 200. She had not run the 200 at a meet but they run a ton of them in practice she we hoped she was ready. In the 400 she got placed in the fast heat and finished fourth, which was good enough for fifth overall and a place in the finals. Then in the 200, she smoked her heat to win it by two seconds. That was again good for fifth overall. But while she’s five seconds behind the fastest time in the 400, the top six girls in the 200 are all within a second of each other. She got a little ragged in the last 20 meters but if she can hold that together, she can be right in it.

The finals are Wednesday night. She will also run a relay race then so it will be a full night for her.

One of the highlights of the track meet was the one final that was run that morning, the 1600 for 3rd and 4th graders. One of L’s good friends was competing and ran a great race. Until she got confused about the finish line and came to a stop about 50 yards early. Luckily her coach was near her and started yelling at her to get moving again. One girl passed her but she somehow got back up to speed quick enough to catch her and finish third. We were across the track and all screaming and laughing at the same time. When she came over after she had a big, goofy grin on her face. We made sure all the other kids knew where the finish line was after that.

But the really big news of the weekend is that I got a cold. “How is that big news?” I can hear you asking. Well, it’s been over two years since I’ve had a cold. I have no idea what I have or have not been doing that launched this extraordinary streak. There have been many times over the last two winters when I felt a scratch in my throat or a touch of the sniffles and thought, “Here we go,” only for them to pass the next day. But this time it reached up and grabbed me pretty good. I’ll admit I was a big baby about it, barely moving off the couch on Sunday. Fortunately there was a lot of good sports on TV so I could focus on those. In my defense, though, S looked at me a couple times and said, “Wow, you look terrible.” Glad my look matched how I felt.

As I said, a pretty boring weekend.