After the great scholar days

I gave my big talk last Friday, and it went extremely well, I think, although unfortunately it was videotaped so I’ll have plenty of time to go back and revise my opinion on the successfulness of the presentation. Hopefully I can really exercise my willpower and just not watch it. Since then I’ve been running around like a maniac trying to catch up on grading and laundry and shopping for the Easter bunny (who I wish would handle that himself). Will’s birthday is coming up soon, too, so I’ve finally got those plans made. But it was very complicated, and perhaps indicative of our weird life, so here goes.

Laura is getting an award for a Woodsy Owl poster she designed for the Garden Club at the zoo on April 2 (this is her second year winning this contest!—my budding artist!). I thought since we’d already be at the zoo, which Will loves, it made sense to do his party there—Laura’ll be done around 12:30 anyhow, and both Chris and I have family in town who could easily get to his party that way. It’s a pain for people out of town, but only Chris’s mom is coming from out of town anyhow, given the schedules, so I guess it’s not a huge problem.

We’re just going to have cake and ice cream in the zoo’s picnic area. I am a tee total bum, but I told everybody if you want to pack a picnic lunch, that’s fine, so I’m not cooking, and the best part is that I don’t have to clean house! I’ll go with Laura and her class to the zoo at the crack of dawn; Chris can drive down later with Will, who can sleep on the way; I ordered the cake after my presentation out of town there—I can pick it up the day before, when I’m there for a meeting, drop it off at my brother’s house, and my sister-in-law will bring it to the party when she comes the next day. So we have people coming from three cities, bakery orders from out of town that will probably never make it back to our house at all, and essentially a major logistical enterprise. Let’s see. The only thing I’ve left out so far is the absentee ballot I had to arrange for myself so I could vote in the school bond referendum that Saturday, since we won’t be home til the polls close (Chris can vote before he leaves home since he and Will will leave later). I wish I was one of those supermoms who sculpt bunny cakes or whatever, but I swear, I’m doing good just to have the party at all.

And finally, thank God, I found the Incredibles masks Will has his heart set on for party favors (even though we’re having Buzz Lightyear cake since none of the bakeries can do Incredibles yet). Well, remind me to tell you about how I’m reinforcing the all-boy boy stereotypes with Will’s presents later—at least today before work I was able to find him four shirts with no sports logos on them. He will be the stripiest boy in town.