Mental Novocain Alert--Now Complete!

In which our hero and his family spend an action-packed weekend in Atlanta!

To be skipped in its entirety if you are the least bit susceptible to boredom.

ANYwho, the reason more details of the past weekend were not mentioned in Thursday’s post was that we were going out of town, and I didn’t want to give all of you an invitation to come over to Chateau d’Possum and help yourself to my collection of antiquities, such as my lovely collection of Saddam ashtrays.

As you will no doubt NOT remember, as with our trip to Nashville last year, this trip was done in conjunction with a program our kids are involved with at church—all the Bible Bowl competitions, the scrapbooks, the song leading, the Bible reading, the Good Samaritan things I talk about—all those are part of the program, and it’s intended to help train the kids to become better leaders in the future. (Hard to believe it, but we’ve been doing this for five years now.)

Every year, the national group has a convention which is held at two or three different sites at the same time, depending on how many local congregations sign up. They are usually in Atlanta and Nashville, and this year was no exception—around 4,000 folks where we were, and around 7,000 up in Tennessee. Despite the more touristy lure of the Opryland Resort, we actually prefer going to Atlanta, mainly because the convention is smaller and you can leave the same night as the last event and still get home at a relatively decent hour.

The kids get to compete in some events while they’re there, as well as get recognition for other work done during the year—all of them are involved in Good Samaritans, then Jonathan and Rebecca were both in Bible reading and Bible Bowl, Jonathan submitted some artwork, Rebecca did a scrapbook, and Ashley competed in songleading.

For the parents (or at least for me) it’s juuuuust like a vacation—exhausting, bothersome, stressful to the breaking point, expensive. ::sigh::

On with our story…

THURSDAY P.M.

Got through with work, met Reba at the soccer park to let the kids get in their last practice. Got home, and it was time to pack.

Blech.

Reba started packing the previous Sunday, and told me in great detail what each of the kids would be wearing on the two days we were going to be gone. I must give her credit—usually a two day trip for us is like packing up an airborne unit for extended duty, despite my best efforts to lead by example: for me, two days = two sets of underwear, two pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, two shirts, the pair of shoes on my fee, a tie, electric razor, comb, toothbrush, and giant, 4,000 count bottle of Super Ultimate Strength Maalox tablets. The rest of the family usually multiply everything by a factor of six. (Except for the Maalox.)

Hair bows, multiple pairs of shoes, underwear for a month, clothes enough for filming a movie, hair dryers (even though there’s one clamped on the wall of the hotel bathroom), makeup, hair rollers, books, magazines, toys, favorite blankets, pillows—on and on.

BUT, this year, Reba said, “You know what? We are only going to be gone two days. I’m just taking some jeans and a nice pair of pants and a couple of tops. I’m tired of having to lug all that stuff around that I never wear.”

AND LO, the heavens were parted asunder, and the heavenly hosts didst sing, and in his mind a large silly man didst leap for joy at these words…

“Hmm. Yes, that’s probably a good idea—like you say, there’s no use packing a bunch of stuff you won’t wear and have to carry that around.”

In my mind I was doing the Endzone Dance To End All Endzone Dances; I was Steve Martin with ‘Happy Feet’; I was shouting from a mountaintop, “I TOLD YOU SO!!! AND BY THE WAY, IT’S MY BIG LARDY BUTT THAT HAS TO HAUL THIS JUNK AROUND!!”

Outside? Well, let’s just say never play me in poker.

So, I got my little bindle together and got the Odyssey (which I may rename the Ordeal) all loaded up and ready to go—one big bag of girl stuff, one rolling backpack with mine and Boy’s stuff, a shoe bag, a couple of hanging bags, The Striped Bag (holding various toiletry items and Maalox), book bag full of coloring books, assorted video games—and managed to finally crawl into bed at the nice, normal time of midnight:30.

How it got that late, I’m not quite sure. Luckily, I was able to get an entire FOUR WHOLE HOURS of sleep before having to get back up and shoo everyone downstairs on…

FRIDAY!

(Despite having earlier written “Saturday”, there was indeed another day wedged in there.)

Up early, because we had to be out of the house by six, which means that everyone had to be up by five, which meant that I had to be up a 4:30, which meant that I am still sleepy. Got them all up and dressed, loaded up the cooler with ice and packed it between the back seats, threw some microwave breakfast vittles at the kids, made several trips to load more stuff that I forgot Thursday night. Grr. Kids walking around like zombies—“Kids, we HAVE to get out of here NOW!” Each one goes back to fetch something else, then the dreaded question… “Did all of you pee?” Each one goes back to play in the water. FINALLY, after much spasms of Dad in a Hurryistis, we were on the way at exactly 6:10.

“I forgot my kitty!”

“It’ll be fine.”

“But Mama SAID I could have it!” ::start sniffling::

“Well, your kitty had to stay so it could watch your puppy and make sure it and all the Barbies and your horsies and your socks are safe from bugs.”

“BUT I WAAAAAAANN—…WE ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, PLEASE STAND BY…and then she was laughing and singing and everything was just peachy keen and the birds were chirping and the sun was shining and everyone was happy to be on the road.

Got to the church building right at 6:30 and the convoy of folks was forming up to head out. Sixty some-odd folks (some more odd than others) in ten or so vehicles including our big fifteen passenger bus. ONWARD!

Got out on the road and had a remarkably uneventful drive except for the time just outside of Riverside when I had pulled over to pass a tractor trailer and nearly got rear-ended by an Isuzu Trooper that had been cruising along in my blind spot. I am usually pretty scrupulous about keeping track of whom I have passed and where everyone is around me, but he managed to sneak in there and I didn’t do a full head check (I DID signal, though—not that it excuses me, but around here, most people apparently think you have to pay to use your turn signal, so the fact that I signaled put me ahead of most Bama drivers).

I’m not sure what made him angrier—the fact that I pulled over onto him, or the fact that I didn’t whip back in behind the tractor trailer when he laid over on the horn. Of course, being a nice man who is a careful, considerate driver, he felt compelled, after regaining his composure, to fly up onto the tailgate handle and demonstrate his horn-using ability for the entire time it took for me to pass and return to the left lane. THANK YOU, Mr. Isuzu Driver Man, and I think YOU’RE NUMBER ONE, TOO!

Stopped at the Georgia Welcome Center, which, due to construction, featured outhouses. Which were not well received by the more feminine members of the group, so we went on to the next exit. Well, everyone else did—we had to go find Catherine, who wandered off inside the building with someone else from the group. Sorta like Jesus getting left behind in the Temple, except instead of astounding the doctors of the Law, she was crying about poop. ::sigh::

Caught up with the group, then lost them again as my crew abused the Chevron and decided it was a nice place to take a break. Not that it made me anxious. Or overwrought. Or foam at the mouth. Or turn red. Nosiree, bob. Just stood there calm as a turtle. Not really. “NO, YOU DON’T NEED TO LOOK AT THE THIMBLES!! PUT DOWN THE BIG PENCIL AND COME ON!! LOOK—EV-ER-EE-ONE has LEFT!!”

Thankfully, the Georgia State Patrol was about as active as the Alabama version, and through the concerted effort of a size 10 Rockport on the go pedal and 210 smooth Honda VTEC horses, we finally managed to catch up with the rest of the caravan after about twenty minutes.

The rest of the ride into Atlanta was uneventful—got off at the right exit, turned on the right streets, and rolled into the parking garage at the Hyatt right on time. Bags on the cart, met our advance guard who had come in on Thursday, and went up to the lobby. Where we waited. And waited. No rooms for us and a few other folks. So much for the wonders of advance registration. Grr.

Oh well.

We stowed our stuff in another person’s room from our group, and piddled around a bit—I decided I would help Jonathan and Rebecca and highlight their verses they were going to read so they wouldn’t get lost, we watched a minute or two of the television, and then got lunch.

Got back, still no rooms, waited, finally got word that some were ready but they might not be on the same floor with everyone else, said fine, got keys—Reba and the girls on 20, Jonathan and I on 2. Swap with someone else on 2, and finally get it to where the girls are in 237, and we’re in 203.

Call me crazy, but I got to thinking…wouldn’t it be neat if there was, like, some sort of system, maybe on a “computer”, where people who are checking into a hotel could know where their rooms were going to be ahead of time, and they could maybe request rooms next to each other, and…nah, what a silly thought.

But at least our rooms had the wonderful aroma of stale tobacco smoke. Oooh—maybe if, in that system I was thinking about, they could not put people in stinky smoke rooms if they didn’t like the smell of someone else’s cigarette sm…oh, who am I kiddin’?! There’s no WAY something like that could work!

Got everyone back together and went to the first of three different award ceremonies for the weekend. This one was for the activities where you get a certificate or medal for participating, and is more informal. And I screwed up the camera, opening the back before letting it rewind the film. Why yes, that crunching sound IS me grinding my teeth. Lost several pictures, including some older ones on the roll from when Catherine and Reba had gone to the zoo on Thursday.

That done and done, and then it was time to go get Bec and Jonathan into their nice clothes for Bible reading and the rest of us ready for the evening award show. (Yes, it’s just about as harried as it sounds.)

Boy was changed and then all slicked down and spiffed up, and I actually managed to get him to put on a tie. If you only knew what a victory THAT was…

Got him down to the meeting room and we sat down for a few minutes of peace and quiet. Cup of water. Instructions for him to brush up on his verses. “Dad?” Uh-oh. “Yeah, buddy?” “This isn’t right.” “I marked what you told me, buddy, are you sure?” “Yeah, I was supposed to read something else.” “What?” “I don’t remember, maybe it was Mark 10. Or Luke. I don’t know”


I will say, he was remarkably calm about changing at the very last moment. I turned to several suspect passages, and each one brought not a glimmer of recognition. “Well, son, do you remember what it was about?” “Yes, Daddy, it was about ten verses…” Say Goodnight, Gracie— “No, sugar, do you remember what the SUBJECT was.” “Oh, it was about the man named Legion.”

Bingo. I borrowed a green highlighter from the lady next to me and quickly marked off his verses.

He did just fine, although he got a point taken off for going a bit long—it was supposed to be under three minutes. Otherwise, he was on target, and even managed to look up and not lose his place. And he was cute as a button!

Rebecca did fine, too, although she too missed a point for being a bit hard to hear, but she was tickled anyway.

Off for supper, which wound up being gyros for all from the place in the mall. Which in retrospect was NOT a good idea.

After supper, time for the first of the so-called “premier” award ceremonies, for the competitive events of the morning. A bunch of our other kids from church got a stack of trophies and ribbons, and Little Boy managed to score a 3rd place ribbon in the 3rd and 4th grade group for one of the drawings he submitted. He was exceedingly pleased.

Catherine, on the other hand, was suffering from some sort of respiratory gunk. She had been coughing all day, resulting in great wads of icky sticky sinus stuff pouring out of her. She had slept through most of the award ceremony (despite the World Wrestling Federation-volume of sound) and woke up right as it was over, all bleary-eyed and sweaty. We got up to leave and she hacked up a pile of goo that looked like a Portuguese man-o-war, which required an entire box of tissues to clean up. Yick. Then she got over to the side of the room and started her coughing fit, which resulted in more monsters of the deep coming into contact with her gag reflex, which resulted in…yep, supper. All over the carpet. I had turned my back for a SECOND and when I turned back around, Reba was valiantly trying to corral the flood with spent tissue and a Gyro Station drink cup. One of the other ladies in our group ran and got some paper towels, which we quickly spread over this little Technicolor fantasy, and I arranged the other three kids around her as a visual screen, lest we start a chain reaction. After I was sure she was going to be alright, I told Reba to hold them there so I could go find someone to help clean up the mess.

You know, it seems like that in a hotel the size of the Atlanta Hyatt Regency that there would be someone around who works there. I looked and looked, and finally decided I had better just use the house phone. I explained to the operator what had happened, and she assured me someone would be right in to clean up.

Thus assured that we were in good hands, I got back and arranged a few more towels over our Great Pile of Shame and got everyone back to the rooms so we could get Little Bit cleaned up and get everyone else in bed.

Everyone back in place and calmed down and cleaned up, we boys went back to our swinging bachelor pad in 203, where we got on our jammies and went to bed at 9:30. What a blessed sleep. Of course, with thousands of kids in the hotel, screaming and slamming doors and running up and down the atrium, it took me nearly TWO SOLID MINUTES to fall asleep. And boy, did I sleep. All the way to 8 the next morning. Exquisite, sleep-the-sleep-of-the-dead sleep for an entire ELEVEN hours.

And the next morning, in keeping with our theme today, was…

SATURDAY

8:00 a.m. Buzzer went off, and it was time to get moving. Since we weren’t spending the night Saturday, we had to check out and get all of our stuff BACK down to the van, which meant we had to be all dressed up and ready to go first thing, and stay that way all for the next 12 hours. I got in and took my shower while Boy watched cartoons, then we both got all dressed (and again he allowed himself to be shackled with a tie—“You’re lucky, Dad—your tie ties and doesn’t clip on!”) and we got our little bit of Manstuff dumped back into the backpack. I even managed to work up the energy to iron my shirt. Thus all packed, I called to see if the girls were up and at ‘em.

Call me a dreamer.

Very groggy Mommy answered the phone, a victim of the same yelling, pounding, running bunch of teenagers who had disturbed by sleep for TWO WHOLE MINUTES, except in her case they had kept her up till midnight. As had the unfortunate circumstance of having to sleep with Catherine. Cat has a peculiar way of sleeping, consisting of treating her bed partner much as Rocky Balboa treated the side of beef in Rocky. And, she talks. And giggles. And coughs in your face. And thunderously farts like her daddy. And still occasionally has accidental nocturnal enuresis. We love her anyway. Then again, I say that having been spared close proximity this time.

Luckily, the other two girls were able to mitigate the presence of Tiny Girl through a carefully planned campaign of mutual loathing that quite overshadowed other discomforts. You know, they say the American Civil War was fought by brother against brother. Heaven help us all had it been sister against sister.

Poor Reba.

I started getting stuff stowed in bags and making the first of numerous trips to the parking garage in the basement to put stuff away. By the time it was through, the valet guys knew me. Got completely though and checked out right on schedule at 11:00 a.m. Although, in retrospect, I’m not quite sure why I felt the need to be so accommodating given how long it took for us to get the room in the first place…oh, yeah—they charge you if you keep the room. ::sigh::

Got some lunch, then on to take the girls downstairs for song leading. The men don’t get to stay in the rooms while the girls are singing, but I sat around for a few minutes with Ashley before everyone got in the room and acted like the insufferable Dad every teenager rolls their eyes at. Heh. Anyway, made sure she had her pitch pipe, and her song sheets, and then she and I just started singing—no starting note, no beating time, just singing—I suppose she didn’t mind since the room was still empty except for us and Jonathan, and also it just gave her a way to calm down some.

It was a nice moment—one of too few here lately, but I’ll take what I can get. Finished up, and she sounded great, so we sat back down with Boy. As we did, a fellow outside the room stuck his head in the door and looked around, “Where’s everyone else?” “It’s just us—the rest of the kids haven’t gotten in here.” “Wow! You two sounded like three or four in here; that sounded really good, both of you. And you especially, young lady!”

I thanked him and Ashley smiled and thanked him, too. Oh, to have that smile all the time.

The other girls started showing up, so Jonathan and I excused ourselves and messed around for the next couple of hours, riding the escalator, picking up our artwork and scrapbook and taking THEM to the van (trip number five), making the electric sensor urinals flush, talking about the Easter Bunny, drinking water, making faces at each other.

The initial round wrapped up, and little Rebecca didn’t make it to the finals, but Ashley did, so we all waited around a bit more, this time with Bec and Cat to make it more interesting. The illness of the day before had subsided, so Catherine was back at full steam, meaning lots of legwork to keep her corralled in one place. Thank goodness I had a pen and a piece of paper. I managed to get her to sit in my lap for a moment and started playing a guessing game. I would write down a number between one and ten, she would try to guess it. Then she would write and I would guess. The little stinker was GOOD at it! She even knew to throw in a few random repeats to throw me off, or write down the same number I had just asked her. Smartypants! Kept her occupied for the rest of the time and kept my blood pressure down off the top of the scale.

Ashley and Reba reemerged from the meeting room and by all accounts the second try was even better than the first. Thus completed with all of our events, it was time for one more overpriced supper, then on to the final award ceremony. We got there early and to our great surprise, guess what was STILL on the carpet! Someone had been kind enough to remove the paper towels and cup, but the ghost of the gyro was still to be seen. You know, if…ah, never mind.

We settled in, and after a good long time of head-achingly loudspeakered announcements and raucous applause from everyone, Ashley got to go up on stage and see how she had done. Out of ten finalists in the 7th and 8th grade group, she came in a very pleased second place! And one of the other girls from our group got first, so everyone was extremely happy. Our bunch got another big batch of trophies, and Catherine slept through the majority of the proceedings once more. Thankfully, no more unexpected calling of Ralph upon her awakening, and since all of our belongings were already packed, it was a quick exit to the basement and out the door to the van.

Thanks be.

Of course, there was still the drive home.

Uneventful, aside from my having to fight extreme fatigue for two and a half hours.

Home, kids to bed, van unloaded.

Time for to make like the Easter Bunny and fill baskets with surprises.

In bed by midnight:30. Seems to be a recurring theme around here!

Up Sunday and get kids dressed and to church, manage not to fall over and snore too loudly, go eat lunch with Reba’s mom and day, drift off on couch afterwards, startled awake by the arrival of old friend of mother in law’s who just happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to drop in, snuck off to bedroom, had just managed to drift off again when someone creaked the door open then left, drifted back off just as someone bumped against door then left, drifted off for final time, then was awakened by a loud sharp knock on the door—“Dad, where’s the remote?” Get up, go into den, pick up remote off of coffee table, hold it out, say “let’s go”, get us all back in van, go home, unload gift of leftovers from inlaws, start doing laundry, go back to church, come home, eat a bite, do more laundry, send kids to bed.

Find out I had gotten an e-mail from a local television journalist, answer it, go to bed. And then I woke up and here I was.

Amazing…BUT TRUE!!

And that’s enough sheer boredom for all of you today.
posted by Terry at 11:08:00 AM