We are in it.
Grad season has arrived. That and some other activities kept us very busy over the past few days. Let’s go day-by-day.
Friday
We lucked out and just missed the bad storms that rolled through our area Friday evening. We had our fingers crossed a little extra harder than normal because we had two fridges full of catered food for our Saturday activities. We did get heavy rain and high winds. But the power stayed on, thankfully.
The worst storms in Indiana passed about an hour south of us, including a tornado that was on the ground for about an hour. It was the first time in a while I’ve spent several hours watching severe storm coverage on TV, something that always gets the Kansan in me fired up. Foreshadowing!
We actually had two rounds of storms so I was able to pump the water off our pool between them. We have so much pollen in the air right now that the water after round one looked more like pea soup than rain water. Disgusting.
I was about to head to bed a little after 11:00 when I noticed the sky to the east lighting up. I checked the radar but there was nothing on it. The lightning kept getting more intense and, five minutes later, there was a massive red blob on the radar. Thankfully it was moving away from us. The storms were supposed to be over but there was so much energy left in the environment that this one blew up out of nowhere. Spring in the Midwest.
Saturday
Big day. First off, it was C’s 19th birthday. In classic middle child fashion, it fell on a day when we had to focus on something else. She celebrated by getting up pretty early (for her) to hustle down to the Southside of Indy for the grad party of one of her best friends.
The something else was hosting a bridal shower for our old neighbors, whose oldest daughter is getting married in August. Their youngest daughter leaves for six weeks in England next week and mom and dad will both left the country for a week on Monday, so this was the one weekend that worked. C was a good sport about it, plus they brought her a special cake.
M had “moved” into her new Cincinnati apartment for the summer on Thursday. I put “moved” in quotes because she just took a few things as the girl she’s subleasing from left all her furniture. She drove home Saturday morning as she is a bridesmaid in the wedding and was going to help run the game portion of the shower.
We had about 50 people over and spent all morning and early afternoon prepping for them. While the storms passing took the heat and humidity with them – it was downright nasty Thursday and Friday afternoons – they did leave strong winds in their wake. We had a big canopy over the tables and had to ratchet it down with six buckets full of water to keep it from blowing away. The entire day was a challenge to secure items so they wouldn’t get tossed, flipped, or otherwise ejected from their proper spot.
The shower itself went well, at least from our perspective. It was also a nice practice run for us since we are hosting a graduation party for C and two friends on Memorial Day. We now know we need to make a sign for the driveway so people don’t try to park in our yard or block our narrow street and instead use the parking lot at the YMCA next door. Like the invitation clearly stated but which no one seemed to read.
Sunday
To start the day, I went over to the Y with L to rebound for her first true shooting session in over three months. She’s been shooting a little, mostly form shooting, but was just cleared to shoot jump shots last week. Her form was crap and she got winded quickly, but I liked that when she made shots, they were ripping through the net. This was a nice milestone almost exactly 90 days after her surgery.
Our big event of this day came in the evening: C’s baccalaureate mass. Parking was a mess, as always. The CHS gym was crowded, muggy, and uncomfortable. Also as always. And the mass was too long. Again, as always.
One of the speakers noted that this class arrived on campus during the second year of Covid. At their orientation mass, they sat on the football field, socially distanced from each other, with masks on. Sunday we were crowded into a gym together again.
After Mass we took the girls to Portillo’s – C’s choice for her belated birthday dinner – then came home for delayed birthday cake.
I was about to go to bed when I saw a blurb about a tornado near where one of my college buddies lives in Texas. I fired up the YouTube weather geek network and found instead of the Texas storm – he was fine – they were focused on a massive, angry storm that was barreling towards the part of Kansas where I was born and my grandparents lived. So I spent the next hour watching storm trackers and storm chasers as a big tornado roared across fields and, eventually, a small, unincorporated town.
Monday
Graduation day!
L and I kicked it off by going to an early PT session. She was officially cleared to begin some light jogging, working up to actual running next week. Still a couple more milestones to pass but getting back on the court is a little closer every day.
Graduation was, for the first time I believe, held at a new suburban events center. M’s two years ago was outdoors on the CHS baseball field, on a sunny, warm day. Weather didn’t matter Monday since we were indoors. But it was a perfectly pleasant evening. And the venue was nice, with ample parking and plenty of room inside for families.
The ceremony was pretty much like every graduation ceremony. A little long but still checking in just under two hours. So glad we sent our girls to a school where classes are under 300 kids.[1] The big suburban districts around us often have classes of 1000 kids or more. Even chopping them into two graduation nights makes for a long evening of listening to names.
Afterwards we had C’s grandparents over for cake. She opened her first grade time capsule that was sealed up 11 years ago. The highlight was finding her Daisy Scout vest in it. A picture of her and her friends in their vests from first grade had just hit my Time Hop yesterday.
M had to jump in her car and make a late drive back to Cincy as she starts her summer internship this morning.
On top of all that, over the weekend I watched a decent amount of Indy 500 qualifying – which had some real drama this year[2] – a little of the PGA, plenty of the NBA playoffs and the Royals-Cardinals series. Also in there I managed to let the pool chemistry get bad and I’m fighting to get the water clear again in time for L to have friends over Friday and so it looks decent for our grad party next week. I hate the first couple weeks of each pool season. It seems like something always goes wrong and I’m in a battle with something in the water.