A Time For Everything

More lightning!

Last night as the band played during halftime, the stadium announcer announced that the incoming storm was less than eight miles (the magic number apparently) away and that everyone should take shelter in their cars until it passed and the game resumed.

The kids played until their program was finished despite the approaching storm--they only had a few minutes left--but the storm was moving quickly.

Once the program was finished we made the mad dash off the field. Most of the band headed back to the stands to grab their stuff, put their instruments in the cases, and hand them off to the Blue Crew who loads the equipment truck. Meanwhile, the pit percussion players and helpers (me and another mom lugging the drum major stand) went directly to the truck with the pit instruments and (obviously) the drum major stand, trying to get everything jammed into it before the storm reached us. It gets quite crazy and chaotic, but we eventually got all the kids on the buses.

Since I am "just" a parent, I usually can only have 20 kids on my bus, but in the mad scramble to take shelter, more than 20 kids ended up on my bus. Not a major deal, I didn't think, at least while we were just waiting out the storm.

Of course, my son had to get overheated and with it came an awful "I-think-my-head's-gonna-explode" pounding. DD and I had a small cooler of cold drinks so we put a bottle on his jugular and made him drink some Kool-Aid. Of course he wanted water, so I schlepped across the parking lot to the equipment truck to get him a bottle of water, (note to self--keep a spare bottle of water in my cooler) where the band director happened to be taking shelter in the back of the equipment truck and mildly chastised me in so many words for getting my kid some water--which I would have done for ANY KID who needed one--but not anyone else when they were all hot and thirsty. Too bad. But, a few minutes later, she and another parent rolled the cooler holding the bottled water to the buses and handed them out to everyone. (And then griped that there were too many kids on my bus. Really??? They're on the bus and safe. Isn't that the important point right now???)

The kids in the other bus, left with only one adult (a mom who'd never been around these kids before) decided to get a bit rambunctious. They were hanging out the windows interacting with the cheerleaders and drill team on the bus on the other side of them. When the bus driver told them to put up the windows, the kids didn't want to listen to him or to the mom. The bus driver went in search of someone on the cheerleader bus and it was only then that I realized there was a problem.

So once we got them fairly squared up, I stayed on that bus. I'm pretty strict with them because, quite frankly, crap like that isn't going to happen on my watch. It's just not. And they know I'll separate them or even tattle to the band director if they don't behave, and I don't care what they think about me for doing so.

Maybe I should have checked if there was an adult on that bus in the first place, but is that really my responsibility??? Yes, to a certain degree, I think, but ultimately isn't it the band director's job to make sure the kids are properly chaperoned/supervised. You really can't trust most high school kids to act like adults. You just can't.

Anyway...the game will have to be completed on Saturday evening, but whether the band will be in attendance is unknown at the moment. There's a Cowboy Stadium event Saturday morning which the band director is working (as is Sonshine, DD, and myself) and I'm not sure the band director is going to want to go, considering a) there's another Cowboys Stadium event Sunday that she's working, and b) we already did our half-time show...

So....
Yeah...
We love marching band season. :)

We were on the bus for about 30/45 minutes when the game was called. The storm, while mostly north of us, was too big and there was just too much lightning (but little rain) to be safe. So we went back to school, unloaded the kids and the instruments and had to keep them in the building until parents showed up. Fun, fun, fun...

Our local FOX news visited Sonshine's high school Friday morning...

Unfortunately, time ran out to interview the band director, but the band can be seen in the background.

What's especially nice is the acknowledgment of the football coach in regards to the cheerleaders, drill team, and band in sticking around during the previous week's game through three rain delays.

We didn't home until almost 2am.

Football Friday: Eastern Hills HS: MyFoxDFW.com

I went to Rockport, Texas with hubby this week. He had to meet with a lawyer on a forensic case and I tagged along. I was originally planning on visiting the USS Lexington again, but the BEACH was right there across the street from the hotel and I decided to relax on the beach instead. It didn't quite work out the way I'd hoped, but that's okay.

It was a gorgeous day!

Some pictures...

The seagulls enjoying the shade before I shooed them away to setup camp:




















The view toward the Gulf of Mexico:
















And hubby relaxing on the beach:

To be fair cell/landline service had been down all morning all over Rockport, so this was the best cell service he'd gotten all day and was just checking in with the office before enjoying a couple of hours respite before getting back in the car for the seven hour drive home.

So last Friday was a football game (although no school--the game had been originally scheduled for the day before) and we were on the list to feed the whole crew. No problem.

On Friday it looks a little overcast and gloomy with rain in the forecast and the thought crossed my mind that the game might be cancelled and did we (not me, but DD actually) really need to spend the whole day cooking chicken patties and macaroni and cheese?

But yes--the day cleared up and we (DD) proceeded. We dutifully showed up and prepped for the meal while the kids were still marching. They ate and got dressed for the game.

By the time it was time to load the buses, the rain had arrived and the lightning was flashing. The band director told the kids they were probably going to spend a lot of time on the buses and to deal with it and act grown up about it.

By the time all was said and done, we had three delays, a total of probably three hours on the bus (we were five minutes from school, so the trip to and from took little time), and by the time we got home it was 1:50 am Saturday morning.

Our cheerleaders stayed, our drill team stayed, and the band stayed to keep our football team's spirits up. We won the game like 47 to 6 or something.

The other team's cheerleaders and band bailed after the second delay (which was the first after the game had actually gotten started). How sad. :(

Luckily I had a decent group of kids on my bus and not the major trouble makers. I had one trouble maker, but his friends were on the other bus, so he was a bit neutered.

Once the game finally got going with no further delays, the kids ended up having fun and getting into playing again. We had to play our half-time show from the stands, but play they did.

Fun times!

...this is rather tongue in cheek, but then again...

So let's see...I've been playing around at this game of being a writer, pursuing the ultimate goal of being a published author for eight years now.

I started off writing fan fiction, took original fiction under my wing and continued to write fan fiction, and now I fiddle with my original fiction and bang away at the keyboard churning out quite a lot of words worth of fan fiction. (Some of my writing chapter mates who don't even know what fan fiction is don't write that much. *hee*)

I know my abilities and my limits as a writer. I know what I do well and I know where I need to work harder. Not that I do, 'cause it is *hard* work and most days I just don't wanna.

I am in the middle of an online class (I mentioned this the other day.) about sexual tension and how to get it on the page. It's been quite interesting and I'm learning something.

So yesterday I read this lovely piece of fan fiction. From first word to last, I was enthralled, gripped, and moved by this story. When I was finished, I was emotionally wrenched, but ultimately satisfied.

The scary part is that most books I *pay money for* do not move me that much. My theory on that is when I buy a book, the author has a finite number of pages to make me love her characters--not even the whole book. She's got maybe 1/4 to 1/2 of the book to really make the hero and heroine and their story grow on me. When I read fan fiction, I'm already invested in the characters. I've seen the show, or watched the movie, or read the book. The fan fiction author doesn't have to sell me the characters, though she does have to sell me the premise.

This story was a romance with a pairing that I hadn't been overly eager to embrace, but the premise was intriguing and so I began. I read all afternoon. All 57K words of it.

And when I was done, my thoughts were: "This was brilliant. Beautifully crafted and executed." and "I suck as a writer."

If a fan fiction author can write like this, then I'm doomed after eight years of being a student of the art/craft of romance writing. Of course, for all I know, in her real life, she could also be a proud member of RWA and have twelve best-sellers. (Though I don't think she'd still be writing fan fiction...)

The point is, I occasionally come across these pieces of fan fiction, as lovingly labored over as any best-seller, and I suddenly feel completely out of my league.

I suck as a writer...

(and, yes. I'd like some cheese with my whine, thanks)