The last week of October was puttery, but very fun.
Tuesday (the 26th) – Mer and some other teachers took about 200 students up to Cleveland to see Great Lakes Theater’s production of Othello. I did not go along since Mer and I had previewed the play a month ago or so, and I find it a hard play to see too often since it is so tragic on such an intimate scale. The trip went off well, and the reports I heard back from the students I know were all positive; they liked the play very much.
Wednesday (the 27th) – Mer took me out to Chick-fil-A for supper. It was a CVCA fundraiser for one of the sports teams (girls’ tennis, I think). We like to eat for good causes. The place was packed with CVCA folks, which made it fun – Mer and I are often remarking how nice it is to be part of a community. We ate dinner with one of our mutual students, Sarah. She is a stitch, and it was good to spend some time talking with her outside of school. After supper, Mer and I had an appointment for massages, so that was a great way to end the evening.
Thursday (the 28th) – Mer and I wandered over to CVCA to see the girls’ soccer team play in a playoff game. We showed up in the second half, since we ate supper first. Showing up in the second half also allowed us to get in for free, so that was a bonus. As soon as we walked in, with 25 minutes left in the game, CVCA scored to go up 1-0. It was a very windy night, with strong gusts of wind. We were playing against the wind, so as soon as we scored, our team dropped back into playing defense. It made for a very tense game since we only crossed mid-field again three times in over twenty minutes, but our girls went on to win 1-0. (As an aside, this season marked the girls’ team’s best performance ever. They went on to lose in this last Saturday, but that still put them in the final eight teams in the whole state. It was a great year for them.)
Friday (the 29th) – Mer and I are trying hard to eat out with out colleagues more this year now that we sold the other house. This Friday, we planned on meeting Dave and Chrissy Kamp at Aladdin’s for supper. While we were waiting for Dave and Chrissy to show up, Dubbs walked in and joined us. She was meeting a bunch of teachers there too, so we made one big table. I think by the time everyone was seated, we had nine people at the table, eight of whom work for CVCA (we had one husband who was an alumnus). It was a really great time – lots of laughter. Sadly, we did not have time for dessert, but Mer and I grabbed some cookies on the way out. I needed to be back at CVCA in time to cheer on the marching band as they started marching toward the football field. It is a tradition of mine, and this was the last football game of the season (unless we won and made the playoffs). It was certainly going to be the last home game of the year. Mer joined me this time in yelling for the band, then she went off to her room to grade.
I watched the football game through halftime, and I watched the band at halftime. They do a great job. I was kept company by a former student, Andrew, so that was companionable. I did leave after halftime, even though it was a good game. I had a 13-mile run early the next morning, and the cold evening air had made my left knee ache pretty badly. I went and found Mer in her classroom, and we went home.
Our team did end up losing the game, but they played a great game against a 9-0 team. Our guys actually went up by a touchdown late in the game, but it was called back on a controversial holding call. It was too bad – our guys played really hard.
So, October ended well. Saturday turned out to be really busy, and a really great time, but enough happened that it will require a separate entry.