Lost...

Well, we had our last away football game Friday night. It was way away and I had never been there before. I got directions off the athletic portion of the school district's web site. It didn't sound too tough, but I thought I'd stay with the buses just to be sure. The first mistake is to assume that the bus drivers know where their going. The second mistake is to trust the directions.

First the bus drivers don't follow the directions I have. That means if I lose them, I'm in deep trouble. I think I ran a couple of red lights and broke the sound barrier on the freeway to keep up. I exit the freeway with the buses and follow as best I can and then I get stuck at a light. There is a lady in her own vehicle too who has been following the buses and she's in front of me and just as lost. We stop and confer and decide to turn around, then I saw the lights. They always tell you when you're looking for a football stadium, "Look for the lights." I drove over to the lights, which are at the high school we're playing, but the lights belong to the soccer or baseball field. We stop at a Mexican restaurant and ask directions from so folks who are sitting on the patio. The directions they give us is very similar to the ones I got off the website. We get to the light to turn left to go back to the freeway, and passing in front of us are our buses.

We jump in behind them and get on the freeway, after 30 minutes of waiting to get through the two lights at the freeway. Did I mention, it's rush hour. Once on the freeway, we're looking for our exit, but the buses don't take it. They stayed on the freeway. We took the exit. I'm now the leader with the other lady behind me. We follow the directions and never find the street we're suppose to turn right on. I keep looking for the lights too. We finally stop again at a Hobby Lobby parking lot when we get to another freeway, plus we've gone way past the 3 or 4 miles we're suppose to go. We ask a man who just pulled into the parking lot it he knew where the stadium was and he said no, but he had a Mapsco. Yeah!!

Of course we don't have the address of the stadium, but he finds where we're suppose to be because we do know what street it's on. Come to find out, the street we were on and the street we were suppose to turn right on run PARALLEL! He tells us what street to turn on to get to the right street and off we go. Finally, we see the lights. I turn in a driveway that I thought went into the stadium, but it goes into an electronics plant of some kind, complete with security guards. We finally get turned around and back on the street. (It's shift change and ain't no one letting us in line to get out.)

We got to the stands just as they started playing the alma mater. Perfect. Didn't miss a thing.

All the world is a stage

Hey look. Two days in a row. What's up with that?

Since Mr. Mayhem isn't here, I'm working on my fourth cup of coffee. I really do make less when he's gone, but all the coffee mugs are slightly different sizes so there's always a splash and go in the bottom of the pot.

Anyway....Mayhem # 2 and I have decided that we will be glad when the play is over. This week, the prize has not been worth eating the Cracker Jacks. The mom who has been the stage manager/costume maker quit because the kids are inappreciativeiative, and don't really care about working to make the show good. They're teenagers. Duh? Don't get me wrong. She's been knocking herself out since June on this stuff. She has done a wonderful job. But two weeks before the show, things aren't finished and she's the only one who knows what's going on. She admitted to me that she's not very good at delegating, so the info we need is in her head, so now we just have to try to figure out her thought processes and finish the costumes. Of course, her son is one of the principle characters so I know his wardrobe will be done. I've already brought Mayhem # 2's costume home to finish. I've also been working at the school on other's, but I wasn't suppose to do costumes. I was suppose to do ticket sales. The director handed out the tickets on a day I wasn't there over a month before the show. His wife seems to be handling everything. I'm just trying to do whatever I can to help.

I blame this fiasco on the director. At the very beginning he preached to the kids about being serious about this. He set up a demerit system, and after so many demerits, you got kicked out of the play. That never happened. Mayhem # 2 noticed about two weeks into rehearsal, that the boy who was her "partner" should have had more than enough demerits to be gone. Her comment was, "The demerits don't apply to the boys. He won't kick them out because there are too few of them already." And she was right. If you don't enforce your rules from the beginning, you never get control. (Kind of like dress code.) So the kids are now getting blamed for causing the mom to quit, and that's not fair. And of course, they lump the good kids with the bad kids. I don't agree with corporate punishment. The director also plays favorites. Most of the principle characters had been cast over the summer before auditions. His kids get significant parts even though they can't do it or can't behave. Then he scheduled the play during football and volleyball season. Normally it's in late January, early February. You have no idea how many students are involved with stuff during football season. Cheerleaders, trainers, band. Band is a huge thing in the fall, with the kids getting to school at 7:00 am to learn the show, every Friday night is a football game (We have girls who play volleyball on Friday evening and then rush to the football game to march half time.), plus marching competitions. Mayhem # 2 isn't in some parts of a main scene because she had band sectionals one afternoon a week, that was scheduled before the play started, so she wasn't there to be included. Funny, but the director's daughter, who had the same sectional practice, has a pretty big part in that scene.

I know I'm whining like a stage mom. I know this is a life lesson for Mayhem # 2. "Life isn't fair." What really bothers me about this is, it's been like this every time we've done a musical, but Mayhem # 2 wants to do drama. I don't know if I can deal with this for four years. With the director's daughter being in the same grade as Mayhem # 2, what chance does my child have to get a role she wants?

Ok....I'm done whining.

Whirlwind

Ok. Everybody try to keep up.

Mayhem #1 tried to die last week thanks to Sharpie fumes in an not-very-well-ventilated art room. (Note: Mayhem #1 is asthmatic.) She passed out in class and wasn’t very coherent when she came around, so they sent her back to her dorm?!!! They did ask her if she wanted to go to the school nurse, but she said no. I know she’s an adult and they had to do what she asked, but couldn’t they’ve told someone to check on her. She went back to her room and slept the rest of the day because breathing took so much effort that she didn’t have strength to do anything else. This happened on Thursday, and I found out on Friday. All I could see was the headline, "Student found dead in dorm room." She slogged through the weekend and I called the school nurse on Monday, she got Mayhem #1 to a doctor and now she has steroids and serious decongestants. I’m better too.

Mayhem # 2 lived to be 15 on Saturday. (There were doubts of her survival since she is my high maintenance child.) After opening a boat-load of presents, she and I were off to the high school for tech call. You know…painting sets, working on costumes, eating pizza. The musical opens two weeks from today. You’re all invited.

The band’s big UIL competition was Tuesday. We started the day off with a little drama because the buses were half hour late. You are given a certain time to march and if you miss it you’re disqualified. Two of the directors and I beat the buses across town so we unloaded the instruments. Band warmed up…Band marched…BAND MADE A ONE!! There was much screaming and hugging. (That’s good by the way.) That one earned them two days of getting to sleep late. Yeah!

Mr. Mayhem left 2:00 in the blessed AM yesterday to go visit his dad. The plumbing problems started at 5:30 am. After a 6:00 am trip to Wal-Mart for clog cleaner things worked enough to get Mayhem # 2 together enough to go to school. I didn’t get to fix my hair and I hate that. Oh well. After checking out toilets and tub at lunch, (It was my volunteer day at the high school.) things seemed to be working ok. Around 7:00 pm, I decided to wash a load of laundry. At 7:30 pm, I call the plumber because the washer is draining into the tub. Plumber shows up at 10:00 pm. Plumber leaves at 11:00 pm.

Oops. Gotta run. Time to take my mom to the grocery store.

She knows

Well, our dirty little secret is out of the bag. Mr. Mayhem told Mayhem #1 about his blog last week when he picked her up for the weekend. She was shocked. Then he told her about mine and she was doubly shocked. She told me later, "I could see Dad doing that, but you!" We didn’t give her the site addresses. I’m not sure if she wanted to try to find us, or Mr. Mayhem wanted her to try to find us. I’m thinking she’s going to need some hints.

It has been a little awkward. She has a xanga site, so I keep admonishing her not to meet the people she talks with on line. Mr. Mayhem told her about meeting Nate and I told her about Francesca. I also told her how nervous I was when Mr. Mayhem told me he was going to meet Nate. I told her, "Remember, do as I say, not as I do." I am a little nervous about this one guy she’s been talking with.

I gave her a little sketch about some of y’all. She asked what I blogged about and I told her mom stuff. I said I got on soap boxes regularly. A lot of the people she talks with are friends from high school. Some have graduated and some haven’t. I find it funny to go in and read them myself. I think these kids talk more on the computer than they ever did face to face at school.

This is parents’ weekend at her school so we head out bright and early Saturday morning to have breakfast with the professors. Later there’s a tailgate party at the Wal-Mart parking lot and then off to the football game. We’ll probably go out to eat dinner before we head home. Mayhem #1 can have one more meal of "real food." Since she was home last weekend, her cupboard is pretty well stocked. I’ll think she’ll survive.

Last dance

Tomorrow night is our last Latin dance class. We haven't signed up for any more classes right now. With another month of football, play rehearsals and production, and a birthday thrown in this month for good measure, we're a little busy. Since Mayhem #2 had a by-week last week, we took her with us to the Friday night dance. After watching them practice their dances at play practice, I thought she'd better see the real thing. There was a free group lesson before the dance started, and she learned how to cha-cha-cha. I let her dance with Mr. Mayhem and I danced with a guy from our other classes. The first dance she danced was a waltz with her dad. Our instructor danced with me. Our instructor was kind of excited that we were bringing Mayhem #2 because she is the same age as his son. He commented, "You're doing better than me. Your's came inside. Mine is still out in the car." He did eventually come in, but he never danced. He was the only "kid" that didn't dance.

We had warned Mayhem #2 about the "Waterfall dance". It's a mixer, where the boys line up on one side and the girls on the other and you dance a waltz with whomever you meet at the top of the line. She was nervous, but she did ok. She kept trying to lead. Mr. Mayhem coaxed, or threatened, her into trying a merenge. He said, "Try something new and exciting." Later when I hesitated about trying a new dance, she said, "Come on Mom. Try something new and exciting." Kids!!!! She even danced the cha-cha-cha with the guy I had danced with during the class. She suggested that some of the kids in the play need to come see the "pros" dance the tango because what they are learning is not the tango.

Now that class is over, how am I going to get a date out of Mr. Mayhem?