Okay, so I haven't posted for a while. I'm not sure what my lack of motivation is. Perhaps is called time and I don't seem to carry enough of it. But then, prioritization is essential and I guess I'm not putting blogging at the top of my list right now.
But I do have an interesting story that occurred on Monday of this week. Evan is in a choir group at school. And they were having a big what they deem a "Pyramid" sing-a-thon...something along those lines. So we had to have Evan to Centreville Highschool by 6:30 PM. We fought the lines of traffic, poorly designed entry into the school and parked on the side of the road. We made our way through chatty parents and up to the nosebleed section so we could see our son on the other side in the bleachers, a spec in the masses. It was HOT and I mean HOT. The speakers scattered around were making a low buzzing noise and Grant was complaining in his T-shirt that he was hot. I was wearing an acrylic turtleneck--I might as well have been in a down coat. HOT! The program started and the music teacher from Centreville Highschool, hosting this singing get together, spoke to us and told us the power had gone out earlier and had blown something related to speakers (blanket apology to my husband who will later make fun of me for not knowing the name of what blew) but this is what caused the buzz from the speakers. We're off on good footing at this point. Singing, singing, more singing. We get to the last group of elementary kids before moving on to a middle school and two highschools. They're in the middle of their somewhat depressing song when the lights pop off. Never have I heard that decibel of screaming. All kids joined together in one harmonious shriek heard across the gym. I think the teachers had pure panic in their hearts at that point. I guess I don't blame them. The thought that a 1000 or more people would stampede out of there and possibly cause the loss of a life was in my thoughts. We stayed on our very comfortable wooden bleacher seats (I couldn't feel my bottom half at that point anyway, what's another 30 minutes of sitting). Okay, I know, TMI. I don't do well on hard seating the depth of a school pencil. The teachers began yelling for us to stay in our seats. The shrieking stopped as I'm sure quiet threats were made from music teachers to their various groups of singers. The gym was all quiet. They told us to stay put, they were working on fixing the electricity. Okay. What to do now. Grant and Aedyn thought immediately there must be a blizzard outside of Little House on the Prairie proportions--what else would make the power go. I explained that there are other reasons why power goes out--old building, faulty wiring. I was doing my best Cliff Claven I know everything explanation. They weren't buying it.
Finally, generator power kicked in and lights came on somewhat. Not before a teacher began yelling at us, the crowd, to put our hands over our mouths and stop talking. She was panicked, it was clear. Some father, oh blessed man, yelled shut up to the teacher. Nice! Real mature. So I was expecting some kind of chaos to ensue. But peace reigned.
They came over with a bull horn and started telling us the county had asked that we evacuate. The kids were to go first to the cafeteria and we would be excused after that to go attempt to find them--darkness and all. Rob and I devised a plan. I would take the three kids to the car and wait there. Rob would go to Cafeteria land and find our poor Evan.
Finally, full power came on. I took the kids, in my high heels, down those bleachers. As we shuffled along in the hallway toward the exit, Grant commented that we were walking like old grandpas. Walking is better than falling I say so better to be moving than not moving at all. We finally got to the van. Rob and Evan were not far behind. Evan hugged me tightly when he got into the van. I think it made him appreciate his parents and siblings more with something, as minor as that was. He was so kind to his brothers and sisters that night. I think we're going to make weekly trauma part of life in order to instill appreciation more often ha ha.
So when next I have a cool story to tell, I shall post again.
