So one thing missing from yesterday's account, was that Alexa came over to our VRBO and visited with us a bit (She's such a nice daughter). We drove her home to her apartment and dropped her off afterwards, which apparently, hadn't had power all day. In all the whirlwind of getting into town, and the chaos to unfold in the coming days; noboday had thought of "the plan" for tomorrow. For you see, she called us up not to long after to say her phone as 7% battery left, and no means to charge it. The ceremony is at 9am tomorrow, so the ole "Well use the alarm on your phone" wasn't a smart call. So we hatched out a plan to come pick her up if she didn't answer her phone at 7am. I was just glad it was Sandra and Alexa who hatched the plan, and thus I had no culpability if I was sleeping through this execution.
All went well from the previous night. Alexa's power came back on somewhere in the night so we were able to sleep in until 8am. Somehow, I felt that I was sucked into the secret plan which didn't involve additional sleep (sigh).
So you won't see it too often, but ole Chris had to get into a suit for the graduation ceremony for Alexa's masters ceremony. It was around 9am and as such wasn't to hot. The day prior, it had been 85-degrees and humid, so I was already getting my pre-mid-morning stress sweat going. Need to be aclimated when the real deal kicks in.
The ceremony, compared to the one a couple years ago when she received her Bachelors was more parent friendly. This time it was held in a convention center in the air-conditioning and with about 10000 or so less graduates. We barely made it into the auditorium as they were about the close the doors with a minute less to spare. I kid you not, as we were going down the escallators, the ushers were yelling "YOU BETTER GET IN NOW, OR YOU'RE LOCKED OUT". What did the folks ahead of us do? Oh, they stayed on the escallator as if there was an order indicating one should never step either forward or back when on the moving platform. Finally, and usher said "YOU KNOW, YOU CAN STILL WALK DOWN AN ESCALLATOR". I chuckled. Yup. I was thinking to myself just that same thing. But the authority deemed it OK, so we were now walking down the escallator.
In the auditorium we sat through 1395 names being called, and Alexa was one of them. Whew, she actually was able to fit in a Masters degree between weekends and concerts to Florida. That's a special kind of smart. When we got all the pictures and hugs, we went outside, and there it was...Georgia heat. It must've gone from 70 degrees to 83 in an hour. Me, in a suit.
We hit a local eatery for breakfast after the fact (Momma's Boy?). We were fortunate to get in as the waiting line was continually building. Once done we headed off to Alexa's apartment to hang out before a parent-student greeting at her business school. I hadn't seen how Alexa lives for some time. She's all grown up and living on her own for the most part. Then we peered into her room. There are no words. Only a stunning inhalation of air, and the bug-eyed horror of seeing what FEMA could consider a national disaster. She had carpet, I think. But, couldn't really tell from the cloths, boxes and papers intermixed across the room as I was hoping to hear surprise from her that somebody must've broken in and did this! She showed no surprise.
There's a term I haven't heard before. Alexa called it "Darty". It stands for DAy-paRTY. Clever, I thought. I will use this term moving forward. Who says there's no hope for our future generations. They are solving the terminolgy problem that has escaped us Boomers for many decades. So, this Darty involved all us parents and kids getting together for a social gathering where we can all discuss how proud we were, that they could achieve higher learning while still managing to escape town every weekend for a concert, beach-vacation or other adventures which seemed to have escaped us older folks when we were typing out term papers on a Brother Student-Riter-II typewriter. In any case, this Darty had to be on back-burner until Karen arrives.
Karen (Sandra's Sister), was coming out to Georgia to attend the graduation ceremony. Coming from Portland, it involve a litte more effort that what Sandra and I were able to procure. She had to hop the plane to Seattle, then get a connection to Atlanta. Upon arriving in Atlanta, she was to take a shuttle which would plop here not but a mile from where we were to attend the much anticipated Darty. She arrive a bit later from the shuttle, as she had a driver who was probably in his late 60's and likely didn't have endorsements to drive at night. At least that was my initial thought. Turns out, Athens has been gridlocked for the graduation week. So, when she arrived after the long day. A Darty was just what she needed. Only, it was now past the time of "D"arty, and now was in the official timezone of a "P"arty. We went, we partied like it was a Darty. But with the knowledge tomorrow involves a bitter ceremony.