One 8th grade girl is missing because we had nine between the two groups. Must be taking a picture. This is on the Portland Waterfront where workers were setting up for the Rose Fest. Miranda is the one in the purple dress.
I will admit--it wasn't as bad as I'd anticipated. I had been trying to figure out for about two weeks what on earth I'd been thinking of when I volunteered to chaperon a field trip of 8th graders to an event called the Portland Prowl. I was beginning to fear for my sanity and more than that, I was afraid that my family would ignore my failing mental health and NOT send me to a sanitarium as I so desire. One doesn't get out of reality THAT easily.
Being the head case I am, I expected to not sleep much the night before because, well, this is a big deal for a 44 year-old woman. Who would I talk to? Would the other chaperons like me? Would my feet hurt? If I took a book to read would I look too anti-social? Would I somehow lose my precious book? What, oh what, should I wear?
Oy vay! ( No, I'm not jewish, but what a great phrase that so accurately imparts the precise emotions of a nutty mother). I did sleep. Yes, sorry, once again, you are getting a sleep update. I'm sure you are just riveted by this. Totally beside the point, I once read a book by Anne Tyler called "If Morning Ever Comes". This is my favorite Anne Tyler book and in it a troubled, but endearing family doesn't sleep at night, night after night, as they each wander around the dark house, past each other, contemplating their own individual problems. There have been times that I've greatly identified with that book. However, I generally wander alone, unless Sam is up, too.
So, back to the sleep update: I was sleeping as well as can be expected for someone who has a lot of body aches and pains and too much garbage welling around in her mind as we try to sell the bar and transition our lives. Also, the weather has been much warmer and that makes temperature control a little dicey. We start out too hot with all the windows open. Then as the night progresses and the temperatures cool, I wander around and partially close windows, then go back to bed. Mick and I now have a teeny, tiny fan pointed at the bed and that is quite soothing. However, night before the big field trip, 4:00 a.m., as I was adjusting the windows, Mick was adjusting the covers. I returned to bed and my covers no longer reached the edge of my side. I got in and tugged. In his sleep, he tugged back. I tugged again. He replied in kind. Again, I tried to get the covers to cover my body and Mick tugged on them hard! By now I'm just plain pissed off and it's 4:00 a.m. and I face a dilemma. Do I stand up and yank all the covers completely off of him and take them, just to give in to my childish feelings of frustration? Or...? Yeah, I picked "or" and got up and got my own personal blanket, shooting him filthy looks the whole time. I did notice that he didn't even bother to ask why the other blanket was on the bed in the morning. Yeah, he can play ignorant, but deep down, he knows.
I lay there and seethed and tried to deliberately focus on relaxing my body. I did manage to un-tense. I didn't manage to fall back asleep and got up at 5:00 a.m. Miranda and I had to leave the house at 7:00.
The day before, Mick and I had been sitting on the couch eating lunch when he looks over at me and says: So, tomorrow's your field trip?
me: Yes.
Wicked amusement enters Mick's eyes and he starts to quietly chuckle to himself while shaking his head.
Mick: Man, you are going to be SO miserable!
This is what I thought about from 4:00 to 5:00 a.m.
I really hadn't known what I was getting myself in for. This field trip was supposed to be a scavenger hunt and we were supposed to wander around three or four separate districts around downtown Portland and the kids were divided into teams, each with one booklet to fill out and questions to answer. Oh, and thank God, they gave us a map.
I had four girls. This would have been perfectly manageable and they'd probably have filled out their booklet. However, there was another group of five girls that they were good friends with that they wanted to join. The nice thing about this, I got a fellow adult to walk and talk with. Miranda's best friend's mom was the other chaperon. Fellow adults, particularly women, are few and far between in my life. Shelly is also a psychiatric nurse and everyone knows nurses are kind of a twisted, perverse group of people, so I didn't have to worry about being judged too harshly and if she did, maybe she'd recommend that I check myself into her place of work. No such luck there, but we had a very enlightening conversation on prescription mood enhancers that left me feeling quite envious.
If you know nothing about 8th grade girls, here is what you should know: they aren't bad. They are however, shrill, squeaky, giggly, scatter-brained, completely unfocused, and partially deaf. Oh, and more energy than what is easy to stomach. Yes, that is envy raising its ugly head again.
I was very relieved that at the pre-trip meeting I'd had to attend, that the teachers eventually said, after telling us about the different goals and prizes for this trip, that the overall objective was that these kids have fun. It wasn't really about how many questions they could answer correctly. Good thing. I'm not sure if our booklets even made the trip home. And our girls certainly had fun.
This picture was also taken by the Waterfront. Don't ask me the name of the fountain. There were no prizes at stake for me.
Pioneer Square was the center of our expedition. Drop off and pick up. It also had the necessary restrooms that I think I used four times. Miranda never once used a restroom to the best of my knowledge. One other girl in our group went as often as I did, but I will spare her heightened sense of teenage embarrassment and not reveal her name.
While other groups of kids searched for clues and answered pages of questions, our girls tried on fancy dresses in a Jessica McClintock Boutique, took many, many photos of the high rises, revealed that they are even lousier than I am at reading a map ( and I discovered that I'm not so bad though we missed the one thing I wanted to see and we'd had to walk right past it--a glass arts gallery, because of course, with a kid like Sam who loves to break glass, my favorite art is glass art) and took one group photo after another, hamming it up the whole time. Fine by me.
Downtown Portland has many cool sculptures all around and little mini parks tucked in here and there. No, no idea what this one is called or what it's all about either.
The amazing thing on this trip was the loading and unloading of the buses. I had no clue what was going on or where we were supposed to be. There were a lot of kids on this trip and several buses. I knew we were on bus five and I knew what a few of the other people looked like that were on our bus. I also knew at what time we were approximately leaving and I made sure we were at Pioneer Square in plenty of time. But when the time came, people started heading in all directions. Pioneer Square is a busy place at lunch time and there is no good place to load and unload the buses, so there was more than one spot. I just followed the group of people I recognized. It was a mad house and then the teacher was waving us onto the bus frantically, go, go, go, roll call through the chaperons and then to the driver, go, go, go, and we were on our way. Unbelievable. It worked. They made the kids chant thank you in unison to the chaperons and to the bus driver (who was thanked for doing such a good job, even though five people had just had to yell, stop, stop, stop! as she tried to drive through a red light and we were about four feet over the cross walk. But who am I to complain? That's one job that you really couldn't pay me enough!).
We made it. I collapsed and realized that I was exhausted. I also realized that I need more variety on my ipod and that those little earbuds kill my ears. Also, next time, bring a book so I don't have to steal my daughter's. Did I really just say next time?
I have no idea who this umbrella guy sculpture is or is supposed to represent. Perhaps the poor residents of Portland who get rained on with some frequency ( and have nothing to whine about since they don't live in Southeast Alaska where it REALLY rains). I read no placards. However, when we returned to Pioneer Square, where umbrella guy lives, and the girls were having a great time being goofy with him, they all lost it in helpless giggles when I told Miranda to make this a really romantic photo. By the way, Miranda turn 14! tomorrow on May 29. Unbelievable!
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