Graduation '09

Well, all my little babies graduated yesterday-- it was a wonderful day and I'm so proud of them! I came primarily to see Caroline, Valisa, and Dustin and secondarily for T-bo, Barnish, and Lindsey. I just can't believe they all graduated already! It seems like just yesterday, Caroline was a senior in high school staying her overnight with me at Rhodes my sophomore year.

They're all off to do good things-- Caroline is going to Paris to teach English for a year, Valisa is going to take some much needed and deserved time off (the girl had her hand in sooo many pots!), Dustin's headed to DC to be an Economic genius, T-bo is headed to law school, Lindsey to DC, and Barnish back up to NY/NJ to do some financial type stuff as well. It dazzles me how much these kids have grown.

Because of eminent rain, they decided to have it at nobody's favorite rain location, the Mississippi Boulevard Church. I've been to one other graduation there and it was awfuuuull. The church gets *really* hot because so many people cram in to it, and unlike Fisher Gardens there isn't a breeze. Pretty much everyone agrees they'd rather get rained on in Fisher Gardens than stuffed in to MBCC. Plus, the lighting was awful, I tried to take pictures from the balcony and they all turned out like dark and fuzzy. And, the most fantastic thing? It never actually rained. The rain disappeared. They also forgot to announce honors societies and majors (Usually it would go, "Caroline Cancelosi, English Literature, Sigma Tau Delta" but yesterday it was just, "Caroline Cancelosi"), and they forogt to print the honors societies in the programs, and forgot to put in the Bonner Scholars' red Chucks.

Afterwards, though, was really nice-- I saw Cord, who is a TOTAL goofball and will be at UGA next year, and Ian, who I knew when he first came to Rhodes after active duty in Iraq. We caught up with Dustin, Kate and Caroline, but hardly saw anyone else. Though I did get to say hi and give hugs to Rob Dove (the world's tallest hippie counselor) and Kenny Morrell (the world's tallest Latin professor) since they were the only people I could find in the crowd.

When everything had just about thinned out, Sophia and I ran in to Leonard (from our class) and went to Fresh Slices in Midtown. I like the food at Fresh Slices, but I'm not too sure I'll be going back. It took soooo long, they don't have lemons (though they insist that lime is perfectly acceptable for sweet tea), even though all their sandwiches are over $7 and most are over $8.50, very few of them actually come with fries, and have I mentioned it took forever to get our food? I know they were busy, but we sat with empty cups for a long time (which resulted in not getting anything else because they ran out of sweet tea which is what Leonard and I were drinking-- the waiter squeezed a little out for us, but I think it was mostly because we were a little grumpy. We were hungry!) and it took 45 minutes for Leonard to get a Caesar salad (lettuce, parm, croutons, side of Caesar dressing) and almost 2 hours for us to get the two Phillys and a pizza! When we finally did get our food, Sophia was halfway through her sandwich before she got her fries! Funny story, though, we DID run in to Lindsey again-- every time Sophia and I have gone out to dinner in Memphis the last two months, we've run in to Lindsey! Chili's last time I was up, Bosco's on Friday, and then Fresh Slices yesterday!

Aaaanyway, after lunch Leonard went back to grad-schooling, Fia left for home (Mobile), and I went to see Valisa. I'd just missed them at the apartment, so I hung out with Brian and Carrie for a while which was really great-- I miss those two, and I'm SO happy they got together, they're pretty darn cute. :) After that, I talked to Jeremy for a while, then went over to see the girls and change since I knew Caroline would be back. I helped them pack up a little and Caroline headed out to dinner with her parents, I kinda teared up a little sending her off-- my little headed to France! I finished helping Valisa out and helped her brother carry all the stuff down to the hallway. Her dad has a flatbed truck, so he'd built a big crate on it to put all her stuff in, which happened to be almost the same size as one of the ol' RJ bins! I hopped up and stuffed it all in with no problem and said my goodbyes to Valisa. And teared up a little again. I'll see V later this summer, though, when I go to Austin! It was nice to meet both of their families-- Caroline looks EXACTLY like her mother, I mean almost moreso than me and MY mom! There is absolutely no mistaking the genetics there! And, of course, Valisa's family is just as sweet and funny as she is.

After seeing them off, I went out with Wayne and Brunner for a drink (aka more sweet tea) and then came home and CRASHED. I just shoved everything off the bed, put on some Deadliest Catch and was out halfway through! Now, I'm going to go warm up the rest of my sandwich from Outback and settle in to watch a movie or something. I need to call AJ, but I'll give her a shout later-- I'm still a little worn out from this weekend, and I need to run up to Target to get some sunglasses and throat lozenges. Whatever I started catching, I kind of beat it back, but it's threatening to resurface!

Ciao for now!