Unlike Anna and Ardith who are totally done with their degree plans and already have their nice, shiny diplomas, I still have one more class to take before I will be officially done. Fortunately that class is Introduction to Fine Arts, as taught by Dr. Watson.
But I get ahead of myself...
The morning started out bright and early at 7:30, and I even dressed up in collared shirt, khaki slacks and a tie. I did wear sandals, but that's more or less to be expected, right? I went and fetched Anna and we walked over to Belcher with Ardith, where we got food and our caps and gowns. $75 to drag in some crusty Alaska politician for a PR stunt and to sit there and watch 200 night college students who I don't know get diplomas?!?! But I get ahead of myself again...
After getting dressed up in our regalia, Anna and I met with my dad, her mom and my grandparents to get our pictures taken. More accurately, campus was chaotic and it was all anyone could do to show up at 8:15 and get over to meet us by 8:45, but my dad, Anna's parents and my grandparents made it. That said, after the pictures were done, we ran inside, we got in the group picture, Anna figured out that her tassel was actually an engineering tassel, we got lectured at by admin, I got $5 from some alum who wanted me to donate it back to LU (they can blow me; kiss that $5 goodbye...), and we finally got ready to march outside at 9:45.
After going to last year's graduation, I knew what to expect and it was mostly more of the same. I clapped my frigging hands off for the 100+ traditional undergraduates (most of whom I knew at least by face) and got a diploma cover and a picture with Bud. Then I started out clapping in some sort of good-faith effort for the GAPS students, until my hands got tired. After that, I clapped for Terry Turner, and Ethan and Ken (who both got their MBA's.) Just an aside, MBA's take forever, because a Master's degree comes with a hood, and at LU they put the hood on each and every one of them... and it takes 20-40 seconds per hood. You do the math. I know it's nice to do all of the graduation stuff with the non-traditional students, but the traditional students have busted their butts together... shouldn't we all at least graduate together and not have to deal with LU's cheap budgetary considerations? $75 graduation fee.... grrr....
Anyways, after graduation was finished (my best friend, the best man Tim having arrived from Cincinnati at some point during graduation) we all went over to Solheim to do pictures with Anna's family and my family. Nana was there, as were my brothers and my mother, but I don't think some of Anna's siblings were. Anyways, we did more pictures, Anna and I returned our gowns, we all ran around campus a bit, and then we went over to McWhorter Park (I think) to do lunch with all of the family and friends.
Lunch was good, of the Bodacious BBQ variety. All of my family that made it down was there, Anna's parents, siblings (with families) and her Uncle Jon (my favorite trouble-maker in her family) and Aunt Carolen were there. Anna's parents organized the thing, and were even gracious enough to invite some of our poor, starving college friends. After getting food in all of us and having some revelry and discussion, we spent 20 minutes trying to organize logistics. This little personification of hell was characterized by my hard-headed middle brother in one camp, my father in another camp, my ambivalent grandparents, Anna's stressed-out mother, and a whole lot of interested bystanding parties organizing into various circles and Anna and I running around between them as each attempted to dictate some subplot of the plans. Guh...
Anyways, after lots of chaos, Anna and I managed to figure out that she should go back to campus with her Uncle and Aunt to finish cleaning and packing, Dad should go with Anna's mom to do flowers, Anna's dad should go with Kirk and Eric to drop off food and then come get tuxed, and Mom, Nana, my brothers, Tim, Christie (Geoff's girlfriend) and I should go immediately to get tuxed (meeting up with others at some point in the tuxing process.) I think everyone else went to relax in hotels, but honestly, I was so busy thinking of details directly related to wedding stuff, that I couldn't tell you. Oh yeah... and the crew went to go crash the Hoyt party at some point in there...
The tuxing process went well and virtually without a hitch on our end (though it would appear that Gallagher's tuxing from the day before had unrecognized issues, but we didn't find out about that until later.) It turns out that due to his experience in the high school orchestra and wearing a tux to every concert, my youngest brother has become an expert in the art of tuxes... or at least enough so that between his experience and my one other experience in wearing a tux at Toad's wedding, we were able to help all interested parties into their tuxes. About half-way through, Anna's brothers and father showed up along with Amanda (Eric's wife) and they tried on tuxes while Amanda joined the tux evaluation crew along with Mom, Nana and Christie as they looked over each of the guys as they came out to show off tuxes. Anyways, at this point we all finished up and ran our separate ways with Jonny driving Tim and I down to LU after dropping off Nana, Mom and Christie at the hotel. Jon got to see the denuded Ice Cave and we mostly finished off the process of depopulating the Ice Cave of stuff just in time for Jon, Carolen and I to run things up to storage while Anna finished dealing with apartment checkout with Tim's help.
It should be noted at this point that any decently full day could have ended at this point and be said to have been a very productive day, but our day had not yet begun to fight. After leaving the storage facility, I received a call from Anna informing me that she would probably be late to the wedding rehearsal (along with the best man and a couple of the bridesmaids.) Fortunately, I arrived on time and attempted to pacify all of the involved parties as people kept piling up at the rehearsal. I have to say that there are two unsung heroes of the wedding rehearsal are Christie and Dr. Mrs. Watson. Christie kept my dad out of my hair and in the business of getting the food for the rehearsal dinner, and Dr. Mrs. Watson kept all of the details smoothed out and came up with a lot of good logistical suggestions and helpful tips. Rehearsal ran long (as every rehearsal I've ever attended has) and then there was a little bit of running back and forth, but dinner was finally served around 6:50 or so (only 20 minutes late) to some very hungry people (to whom it seemed closer to an hour and 20 minutes late), myself included.
After the chaos had died down, we found ourselves looking at a couple of details for the Unity Candle left to play with and a reception room to rearrange. Oh yeah, and people to find sleeping places for, groomsmen to relocate, and a little bit of partying to do. Fortunately, all of the cleaning and preparatory nonsense didn't take too very long at the church, but it did start eating into the night-time hours. Between that and the final cleaning back at the apartment (where it was discovered that we could fortunately spend the night), the groomsmen deemed it a bit too late to do anything other than sleep, and so Tim and I made the trek to Applebees' all by ourselves, where Jonny had decided that he would meet us, sans Geoff (who probably wanted to spend time alone with Christie.)
Here, fortune played a hand, and my friend Kevin Baba rolled in from out of town to amuse us all at Applebees'. Kevin is quite the character and was very entertaining and Tim was quite amused by his antics and his wondrous story telling. Kevin is really quite the entertainer... if only he could manage to be the sort of fellow that one takes out in public with polite company, he would have a real act going. Anyways, the evening went well, drinks were had and enjoyed by all (except for my underage brother), and we had a riotous good time... even if it was a mellower sort of riotous than I think Tim might have liked. Ah well... such is life.
The evening was finished out by Jonny driving Tim back to the hotel (where he was informed that breakfast would be had at IHOP at 10 am, much to his dismay) and I drove back to LU, with Baba tailing me close enough that for a while, I was convinced I had angered some gangster or something. Anyways, I crashed at the Ice Cave, and thus ended a VERY long day.
Posted by Vengeful Cynic at May 7, 2005 10:13 PM | TrackBack