i need a vacation after my weekend.
we roared up to sterling IL on friday, picked up kevin’s parents, and drove to the Sauk Valley Community College, where kevin received his ALUMNUS OF THE YEAR award. it was presented during the graduation ceremony, which i was afraid would last for hours.
kevin received his award first thing; some guy read a lengthy list of the degrees from the colleges kevin attended, the work stuff, the work awards, the extra-curricular things, the activities, more awards, a very long list. i was very proud of him. kevin didn’t get to say anything at all, but looked quite dashing up there in his suit.
after kevin there was a lot more on the program and i was wearing a dress and a strong breeze from the air conditioner was blowing against my legs so i continued to hope that we wouldn’t be there all night.
luckily it moved right along. a couple of graduating students spoke, but they must have had a strict time limit because they didn’t drone on at all. they talked about all the great and wonderful help they have received in college, and blah blah blah, that’s about all i remember about the speeches except that one of the young women was obviously SCARED OUT OF HER MIND at having to give a speech but somehow she got through it without actually falling off the stage in fright.
after that the keynote speaker gave his talk; he’s a U.S. congressman and he started out in a monotone describing all the many many horrible things going on in the world today and i wondered how he’d ever gotten himself elected and why he thought this was going to inspire any of the students who might be listening. he then got a little more upbeat and animated but he started talking about the waltons and i wondered how many of these students had even heard of the waltons.
the whole thing was only an hour, not so bad, and when everybody marched out past us many of the faculty shook kevin’s hand and congratulated him. the congressman did too, and then asked kevin if he carried a gun which seemed like a slightly odd question to me.
afterwards a photographer wanted to take kevin’s picture, so we went outside where it was even colder. but this campus is incredibly beautiful. they’re on the bank of the river and the trees were in bloom and i was surprised that a community college would be at such a lovely spot.
we visited with kevin’s parents for a while, got up the next morning and drove home. we stopped at a park that’s in this secluded area and i’ve never seen more than one or two other people at the park. mollie was excited to run around all over the trails and kevin and i slowly crept along like two very old people. it was the first walk i’ve had in about three weeks so i felt like it was a real accomplishment.
we drove a little more down the road and up ahead some motorcycles were turning onto the two-lane highway. a funeral? we couldn’t tell. we stopped to wait and decided they weren’t dressed for a funeral. pretty soon we saw a few giant blow-up pink ribbons and realized it was a breast cancer ride. a very VERY long ride. kevin estimated that there were at least a thousand motorcycles riding, and we got there close to the beginning. we were there quite a while.
i had to meet with some people at five o’clock and figured we’d be home by two in the afternoon. i was bringing frosted brownies; i’d made the brownies before we left but was sure i’d have plenty of time to frost them when we got back.
we got back to springfield at 3:30, pulled into the driveway and remembered that we’d left my car sitting in kevin’s parking lot on friday. we had to drive back to get the car, and i finally got home about four. i still had to shower and decorate the brownies. FAST. i wrote CONGRATULATIONS MAC GRAD on the top because mac warren who was going to be at the meeting just received his master’s degree and so of course he needed frosted decorated brownies.
i ran out the door and drove over to mary’s house, who luckily lives about 10 minutes away. i was the first one there, and when she opened the door she said “you know it starts at six, right?”
ok then,
monday morning grace.