African Celebration

Shilo had a choir concert last night... an African Celebration.  The middle school and high school combined, and the concert was held in the gym.  My plan was to get there nice and early... I figured it would be pretty crowded.  But yesterday was just not my day.  I had some errands to run, but didn't make it to them all before it was time to pick up the carpool.  Rats.  And then, as I was leaving the store on my way to the school, I dropped my sunglasses and the little logo thingamajig on the side flew off.  I saw it fly, but do you think I could find that little gold thing?  I spent at least 10 minutes (that I didn't have) looking.  It's not like the ground is covered with gold stuff.  Needless to say, I was highly annoyed that I could not spot it, and now will be wearing sunglasses with a little hole on one side.  Just in time for my trip to California.  Several times the thought crossed my mind to go back and look again... after picking up the kids.  But the store is 15 minutes away with good traffic.  I couldn't fit that into my day -- I needed to get to the concert early.

So after driving Mauri to piano lessons, trying to help Britta figure out some cell phone stuff, picking Mauri up from piano (30 minutes can really fly), dropping Shilo off early at the school, then making sure Lex and Mauri grabbed some dinner, it was time to go.  But where was my camera?  (Remember that I couldn't find it before our anniversary overnighter?...)  I had it earlier in the day.  I knew it had to be somewhere in the house.  After 10 frantic minutes of searching -- nothing.  So I grabbed Shilo's camera again, and we headed out the door.  A little late.

When we got to the school, we encountered a line like I have never beheld at any event held at any high school I've been to.  The line wrapped eternally around... we had a difficult time even finding the end.  Finally we got into the gym, and located some seats toward the top left corner.  They ended up pulling out extra chairs to set up along the sides and had some people sit on the floor.  Gymnasium seats are not roomy.  I straddled the poor fellow in front of me while the gentleman behind me kept apologizing for kneeing me.  It got hot.  My toes started falling asleep.

  (The seats actually go up another whole level... so we were sitting somewhere in the middle of the crowd...)

The bright spot in this episode is that I had the good fortune to actually be sitting on the side Shilo was on.  The choir performed some great African songs, and there was even some dancing.  The kids were all given African-style clothes to wear, and a band was there to play the music.  It turned out to be a great concert... despite the very vocal and clappy mom sitting directly behind Bill.  I wanted to get a picture of Shilo in her African shirt before she handed it in after the concert, but we could not find her in the crowd of people milling around (although I swear I saw everyone I knew BUT Shilo).  We finally found her outside of the gym about 20 minutes later.  She had already turned in her costume.  Rats again.  Like I said, not my day for finding things.