Friday, May 25, 5:30pm
Drove to Columbus. Stayed with Neil's cousin Matt and his wife Becky. Upon arrival, I pet their dog Casey and found a tick. "Eeeew, gross, Casey! Gross!" said Becky.
Saturday, May 26
Drove to Oberlin for our ten-year cluster reunion. We met up with Andrew and Nadeen who had arrived the previous night and had called us several times while we were driving to tell us to hurry up and get there because they felt weird and weren't having any fun. Evidently it became much more fun once we arrived. Not to mention the fact that many other people had arrived by that time as well. It was great to see so many familiar faces and also to get to know a couple folks who we knew but didn't really ever know...if that makes sense.
We started the weekend by attending the Conservatory luncheon, where we ate a chicken salad/pasta thing that wasn't very big, and listened to the new dean of the Con give a very nice speech encouraging us to give money. Afterward, we checked into our room in South Hall and discovered that it was Phil and Kwesi's room sophomore year, which was just down the hall from Neil's room sophomore year, which was across the hall from the bathroom where "brushy-brushy" was invented. Andrew and Nadeen were sharing a quad at the end of the same hallway. Fun! Sad to see that the psychedelic carpets had been removed...maybe that happened before we left, actually (?) but the place just didn't seem quite right without them.
Later, we met up with JD and toured the Con sometime that afternoon. The smell-memories were mighty and unexpected, stirring up palpable memories of joy and hilarity as well as those of anxiety and stress. In the library Nadeen inquired about the old staff notebook to which we all contributed. The student worker made a good effort to locate it, but came back empty-handed. He swore he had seen it. Oh well. Later, Neil lusted after the piles of scores in the listening rooms that still needed to be shelved.
Nadeen, Neil and I went to the class photo...in the pouring rain...with only about 30 other people. That's going to be a good one.
In the evening was the big reunion picnic. The food was actually pretty good...and it was served on compostable dinnerware. Awesome.
Sunday, May 27
In the morning, Neil and I went to see the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Oberlin. I had been there before, but Neil had never seen it. Very cool. Talked to Rae for a long time in the entry-way. What a great place to have a chat! The woman running the tour was very chatty and we ended up missing President Nancy Dye's last address to the College (she is retiring after 13 years). Rats.
We made it back to campus in time for the more or less craptastic champagne luncheon, which when we go back again, we will NOT attend because it's severely overpriced and it's all about announcing the class gifts. Boring.
Nadeen left Sunday afternoon - flying to NYC to see her boyfriend in celebration of her birthday. Andrew gave his violin teacher an Alexander Technique lesson. Neil and I went to O-Circus (which was very very fun).
David Orr was the speaker at our cluster dinner that evening. He is my hero. I ate fish!
A, N & I went to the Cat in the Cream to hear the folk music led by Joe Hickerson after checking to see what was going on at the Commencement Recital Part II (it was almost over by the time we got done with dinner). Then we went to Illumination (beautiful) while listening to the commencement band play (they were actually really good!) and talking to Mr. Plank. We finished the evening by dancing wackily to the Can Consortium (steel drum band) which I believe is now called "Oberlin Steel". How Zoolander of them!
After all the festivities, we retired to South Hall where Neil and I moved our stuff into Andrew's quad since Nadeen had left. I fell asleep while Andrew and Neil talked until 3am or something.
Monday, May 28
At 6am, Andrew woke up vomiting. Not cool. When we left at 11am or so, he was still not well. Then we drove to V'ville and 3/4 of the way through the trip, Neil started feeling achy.
Tuesday, May 29
Nothing exciting. Neil not quite right.
Wednesday, May 30
Neil sick. Mom, Dad and I went up to Blue Mountain Lake to the Adirondack Museum and left Neil at home to play X-Box and watch Firefly.
Thursday, May 31
Neil MUCH better. Dad mowed the lawn in his umbrella hat.
Friday, June 1
WEIRD AL concert!! That guy is awesome. He puts on a great show!
Saturday, June 2
We went to the Cingular kiosk at the mall to inquire about getting a new cell phone since our 18 months was up. Because our phone was still working and we were happy with it, we decided to not upgrade until necessary even though we have to get the new phone in NY (because it's on my parents' family plan).
Sunday, June 3
We got all packed up to go home. Our plan was to leave at 10am, get to Binghamton to have lunch with Gary at noon-ish and continue on to our motel in Pittsburgh at a leisurely pace. Well. We went out to take the annual photo in front of the viburnum, which was fine, but when we went past the well close to the house, Abby (the dog) wanted to look for the snakes that live there. Of course, there was a snake there. Dad decided to poke it to see it move. He did. The dog lunged. She grabbed the snake in her mouth and shook it and shook it and shook it. This put me over the edge. I don't know what my sudden problem is when it comes to snakes, but in the last year I've developed a wee phobia. Seeing that snake in her mouth just about made me barf all over myself. So while I ran screaming and gagging madly around the lawn, somehow Dad got Abby to drop the writhing thing. By this time I was crying (just a little bit...I think mostly out of sympathy for the snake) and my mom was looking at me with concern. I myself do not understand my ridiculous reaction.
After the snake episode, we went to call Gary on our cell phone. Neil opened the phone and noticed that the display was upside down, mirror image, and blinking on and off. Eighteen months and one day after our opportunity to upgrade our phone and the thing goes on the fritz. Coincidence? Hmmm. So, we decided to go to the mall and get the new phone after all.
An hour and a half later, we had a swanky new phone but we still couldn't get a hold of Gary because his line was busy. So we decided to eat lunch at the mall and then hit the road, calling Gary every so often. We never got a hold of him so we decided to go to his house anyhow and hope he was there and was ok. Turns out that he was home and had been freaking out because he couldn't call us to tell us that his phone was out due to a storm and since we hadn't arrived by lunchtime, he was afraid we were dead on the side of the road or that we had decided to blow off our lunch date because we couldn't call him. It was quite comical after the fact.
We got to listen to Al Jolson on Gary's Victrola. It was awesome.
After "lunch" with Gary, we went on to Pittsburgh...in the rain. It was late and we were super tired when we got there.
Monday, June 4
Woke up and went to Ikea (for nearly four hours). Bought lots of stuff including the ottoman that matches our Poang chair. Hooray! I love hooting around Ikea.
Then we drove to Columbus and met Neil's cousins and aunt and uncle for dinner at P.F. Chang's...YUM!
We made it home by 11:30pm central time. The kitties were very happy to see us and we were SO ready for bed.
The end.
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