Resting up for tomorrow's breakdown

Today is a day of rest. Well, at least a day where I'm not planning on doing much of anything except maybe some laundry. We are all tired.

We got to my parents' on Friday night and had a few hours to sit and talk before we had to turn in for the night. My dad looks great - hard to believe that a year ago he was just about at the pearly gates. He is excited that they are headed to Cincinnati tomorrow for his 12th Armored Division reunion, and already has his bags packed and by the door. The man is amazing.

At the buttcrack of dawn on Saturday, we rousted ourselves up and hit the road to Blacksburg. Monkey Man stayed with my parents for the day - they went to the park (where he met two kids about the same age and they had a blast playing), to the museum, and of course the requisite visit to Biscuitville where he singlehandedly ate a sausage biscuit, a buttered biscuit with jelly, an order of home fries, and some cinnamon apples. Oh, and two containers of milk. My mother was hoping that we returned before Monkey Man had to expel said lunch from his system, because it's been a loooong time since she's wiped any little butts!

Going to Blacksburg was really exciting and you could feel the electricity in the air. There were signs all over campus thanking universities and colleges from all over the world for their support after the shootings. They did a really nice video tribute on the jumbotron thing. They released 32 huge balloons in the air. East Carolina University donated $100,000 to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. It was all well-done and in good taste - which I had been kind of worried since all the media hype this weekend and the release of the committee report on the shootings had kind of opened up all the wounds again. Not to mention all the distraction of that jackass Michael Vick pleading guilty, which I won't even talk about because it just gets me all riled up.

The game - which we won - wasn't pretty. Seriously, the first play of the game, the quarterback threw a fucking interception. We were behind almost until halftime. The fans were going totally berzerk in the stands because the Hokies couldn't get their act together at all! What I think people forget, though, is that these are KIDS, people. Kids in the national media spotlight, dealing with normal kid-type stuff in addition to all of the hype about "what is the team going to do to deal with this tragedy" and people were hollering in the stands like a bunch of idiots. Gah.

Anyhow, back to my parents' house and a little time to hang out before we crashed (HARD) and then on Sunday we stayed until after lunch and then had to hustle home. We had a cookout at one of the psuedo-Badass houses (not really a full-fledged member of the BA's but a friend) that I had to fix stuff for. We ended up having a really good time and stayed up waaaay too late - so late that I had to wake Monkey Man up at 8:30 this morning so we could meet Jay and the kids at IHOP for breakfast.

Remind me again why we thought this was a good idea? It wasn't busy when we got there, and we ordered almost immediately, but it was sllooooooowwww. The kids were getting hungry and ornery and the waitress offered to bring us grits to tide us over. I'm sorry, but my 5-year old would rather starve to death than eat grits. Well, most people would.

A quick run to Panera for bagels to take to the Post Kindergarten Bus Pick-Up Breakdown at Jay's house and then we dragged home. Monkey Man is parked in front of a video right now - he loves those "Modern Marvels" shows on the History Channel and is currently watching "Monster Trucks" and yawning a lot. He looks tired.

So, tomorrow is the big day. The day I've been alternately dreading and looking forward to for weeks now. Today, I'm more excited than anything - not sure if it's that we're starting a new chapter in our family's life, or that I'm getting the day off with mimosas and pedicures, but I'll say the former.