It's Graduation Day! Hooray! The whole reason we began the trek several days ago. I woke up, and as normal, Sandra was already off to breakfast and lunch with everybody (Mark and Pam were still in transit from Washington State). But Steve, Connie and Karen were all here ready to go. I rolled out of bed, pulled the drapes and nice...it's a clear blue-bird day. Only downside was there were only two coffee-pods left, and I had a hankering for 3 cups of the Dark Mistress. After only 2 cups, I figured out I too should do a walk in order to keep my girlish figure...so into the shorts and off I went into the UGA trail abyss. I had my collection of crunchy tunes to keep me occupied.
My 4 mile loop ended going along Stanford Football Stadium where the Graduation event is to take place. About 75% of the field was covered with rows and rows of chairs. Whew! This is going to be a huge evening. Took a couple of pictures while it was empty, so I could compare later. Then more importantly, I tried to spot the best seating in anticipation of where the sun was going to set as to avoid the sizzling of cooking skin in what otherwise the venue could be perceived as a deep fat fryer for space aliens looking down--I remember the Outer Limits episode from my youth.
When I got back we got all dressed up and headed out to a 2 O’clock lunch/dinner (aka L/Dinner). Strange time to eat, but the event is at 7:30pm and there's not an open window on each side of that time spot. We ate at The Place. Alexa arrived shortly after the rest of us, and had her new boyfriend in tow. Dillion got the hot seat; right in between everybody. I remember my first interview too! He turned out to be a nice guy and apparently can play better golf than me. In the end he nailed the interview.
OK...now it got awkward. We were finished with "L/D"inner, now had to figure out what to do with 3 hours until we make the venture to the stadium. I was wrapped tightly in a new suit and very much overdress according to my surveying of everyone within binocular distance. Fortunately, we all headed back to the Hotel, where I was able to get into some shorts and a tee-shirt before I had to get back into my burrito wrap.
When the time arrived, and we were all dressed up, except for Mark and Pam who were obviously arguing it out with a rental car person in Atlanta. We started navigating down the stairs, in a section that was totally opposite from what I have mentally planned earlier in my walk. I tried to point it out to Sandra the angle of the sun, and my theory of Space Aliens eyeing us for dinner once we reach the temperature of Chicken. But, to no avail...we're heading into the hottest part of the fryer; and me without a hat.
In our planning before the trip, we forethought the idea we would need binoculars so that we could find Alexa in the crowd of soon to be graduates. Once there, I thought hoo-boy, we need a telescope and a daughter who was willing to stand on a chair and make herself visible to us in the peanut gallery. There were so many false positives, that we had to give up the effort. We were not going to see where she was in a sea of 2000 kids, half of which were blonde girls wearing the same attire.
There were two commencement speakers; one a student, the other a well-known ESPN sports journalist. I was amazed at the courage of the student speaker to get up in front of a couple thousand peers and deliver an address. It probably was not my cup-of-tea subject, but kudos for him delivering it; and without flaw--he'll likely go far. Next up was Maria Taylor. She was an ex-graduate from UGA and made it big into the sports journalism. Her speech was more to my liking. A telling of a triumph through adversity which was such a refreshing and motivating speech than some I have seen throughout the last couple years. We walked out uplifted!
It was dark now, 9:30pm I believe, and we were to meet Alexa at the bookstore next to the stadium so we can all hug and congratulate her. Funny, the word got out this was the best place to meet after the event; so we along with 1000 other parents and friends met at the bookstore and attempted the pattern matching experiment of "Find the Blonde". We did find her not to far into the search, and it was great to see the excitement and fun she was having. We didn't get to hang out long...just enough for a hundred pictures and a face-time call with Grandma Peggy. She was back in Oregon recuperating from a medical episode; but it was awesome that she too could congratulate Alexa in real-time. Technology is great! I have to work on Steve to embrace it--he may be allergic to WIFI. Connie has had a few decades to work on him and get him into the Matrix; but he's a tough customer...then again, when the Electro-Magnetic-Pulse occurs, he'll have the only paper map in existence. Maybe not a bad investment plan.
End of night. We made it back to the Hotel. Mark and Pam arrived and had a similar Rent-A-Car story and Steve and Connie. Things are still on yellow alert with regards to gasoline too. Georgia is at 50% gas station closures due to the pipeline shutdown, and our road trip to South Carolina is tomorrow. Oh well, we'll work it out tomorrow...tonight was not to be touched.