Yesterday I hung out with some fellow Gades at the WGI Western Regional Finals. I just showed up for the last 12 guards ... WOW is all I can say. It reminded me of why I love this stuff. Yesterday was the first time I was really struck by the incongruity of it all though. Gorgeous dance movement, layering of complexities one on the other, just overwhelmingly beautiful stuff going on ... with sabres and rifles I had my first Greyhound experience a couple of weeks ago. I had to go to Reno to judge two shows. It was storming hard with chain requirements as low as Placerville and we elected not to drive. As many weeks of my life as I've spent living on a bus I had never taken Greyhound and I thought it might be kind of an adventure. I bought our tickets online and we showed up an hour ahead of time, just like the website advised. God only knows what I expected Greyhound to be like. I guess I had some romanticized 1950's version of bus travel in my head. Suffice it to say my vision wasn't anything like reality. Immediately I was struck with the realization that I really do live in a third world country. We hide it really well, but there it was! If you want to look at a true cross section of America go to the Greyhound station. Everything is represented -- there were old ladies with 2-carat diamond studs in their ears on their way to Reno to play their social security checks away on the nickel slots to homeless folks just working hard to stay warm and out of the weather. About 30 of us proceeded to wait in line for the Reno bus. The very late Reno bus. For 2 hours we waited. Standing. Finally the bus arrives ... with about 12 open seats. Yeah, about 12. Did you know Greyhound oversells every trip! Yeah, neither did I. If there's room you get on, if there's not you wait for the next one ... which might be the next day ... and there are no refunds. Lucky, lucky, lucky us! We were the last people to get on and leaving about 20 angry people standing in the bus station we found two seats -- of course not together! What were we thinking! B sat with the only person on the bus who wanted to keep their reading light on the entire trip and I sat next to an older lady who smelled like cabbage and who, leaning her head on the window, recited the "Hail Mary", in Spanish, the entire trip. Only lifting her head occasionally to steal sideways glances at me and clutch her purse even more tightly to her chest and praying all the harder. I've never been that uncomfortable on a bus. Given my background, that's saying a lot! Next time I'll take my chances driving. Date u beddy much!
I've been a lucky girl and have gotten the opportunity to do a LOT of judging this season. The most intense (and most satisfying) was the weekend of 3/18 when I did a Friday night in Fresno, a Saturday morning in Modesto and then Saturday night in Dublin. Talk about tired! My tongue felt like a big wet Mediterranean sea sponge and was abjectly refusing to accept any of the signals my tired brain was sending it -- it just stopped working! On top of that, by the end of the evening I was so tired that anything done by any guard with any degree of excellence kept making me tear up. Truthfully I got so verklempt when SCV hit the floor that for about a full 30 seconds I couldn't say anything into the tape. That wasn't fatigue though. That was pure emotion. It was the realization of a childhood dream to be in the box when SCV performed and, yeah ok, it really choked me up. One of those moments in life I'll never forget. And somehow how through all that I managed to do a job I'm proud of.
My oldest son's new girlfriend and her 3-year old twin daughters are down from Oregon this week. This was the first time we've met and I was nervous. I have to say I'm a bit smitten. She's cute, she's perky, she's focused and my son's affection for her is obvious. Her twin girls are just adorable, smart and funny and I can't wait to be their friend.
My youngest boy has just moved temporarily to Tahoe with his girl. They have seasonal work up there at a ski resort. I don't worry. They seem happy. As long as they're together, they're okay. Hopefully I'll see them sometime this week.
That's all the news that IS the news!
(for now)
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