I slept in a little bit today by comparison with my earlier time to rise with commute. I needed it. I heard Autumn talking to Summer in the living room, so I just stayed in bed for a while. By the time I came out, Summer started to rush me home to get ready. She wanted to get there before the doors opened, so she ran me off to go home and shower. Then she picked me up late to meet her parents as they were coming out of the elevator at the arena. It was kismet.
Wesley and Cindy showed up and sat a couple rows down from us, so I talked with them once my parents got seated. By then it wasn’t too much longer before they filed everyone in and the ceremony started. We had good seats to see Eaddie in the first chair position in the band, as well as the stage as the seniors walked up.
Ginni’s speech was incredibly robotic. It was as if she prompted ChatGPT to write her a graduation speech that included things for which people normally have feelings, but which she as an interstellar alien, had absolutely no understanding. It was dry, emotionless, and sounded unrehearsed. I don’t think I’d feel any differently if I weren’t bitter, because all of the other speeches were pretty great, and at least seemed heartfelt.
Having graduation split into two groups made this one much more bearable. Sitting for the entire class would have sucked, not just because it would have taken twice as long for everyone to walk, but because of how many people would be there. I suggest a hard limit of two guests per student.
Afterward, we all met outside and waited for Autumn to get some pictures. Summer’s parents left after saying they would have lunch with us. My parents would join us, but made it out before we did. Summer replaced the traffic cones I moved out of the way, so traffic backed up behind us. The girl that parked next to us was having an absolute fit and had who I presumed was her mother stand out in the parking lot behind her to block traffic. I didn’t see it, but evidently she was flipping people off and screaming about it, so I just made us wait until all the traffic was done before we left.
We had both of the girls and Adam with us, and we had a shrinking window of time to take everyone out to eat, so we met my parents at Burger King for Autumn’s favorite food group. I knew there was no way in hell we’d make it in and out of Brick Oven, and by the time we got out of the parking lot, nobody thought we’d even make it across town and back from Autumn’s favorite restaurant. I ordered some food ahead to try and speed things along and maybe save a buck, but I think I really ended up just wasting even more money because Eaddie wanted a Spider-Verse Whopper that came with a couple chicken sandwiches and chicken fries that nobody really wanted. Summer ordered her own meal, my parents ordered their own meals, and Autumn got the one meal I ordered on the drive over.
From there, we rushed Adam back to the band room and Autumn left to go with him. We took Eaddie to Old Post to hang out with some friends, and Summer took me home so she could go work out, or mow, or do whatever else. I did a couple loads of laundry and then mowed my own yard, which got me much sweatier than I anticipated. The back yard is frustratingly overgrown again, and no matter how much I plead, I can’t get a hand with it. It made me seriously contemplate staying home out of frustration so that I could just tackle it on my other day off instead of wasting that with the girls too.
I did finally make it up to Summer’s for the evening, where she was nearly asleep from watching George of the Jungle, and Eaddie was up practicing her flute. Summer woke up once I got there, and was up for a while until after Autumn finally got home. I was cold and tired, yet clammy from mowing, so I didn’t stay up very long.
Your place.