Saturday morning catchup

Saturday, 8:28 am

By KateC

Today is the last cross country meet of the autumn season. Do you hear the excitement in my voice?! I just delivered the lad to the bus and away they went for an all day affair.

The lad had butterflies in his stomach and his hood pulled up over his head as he crept out of the car. A small group of girls stood beside the bus and they all turned expectantly as they saw him arrive.

“Let’s see it!” they shouted. “Come on, show us!”

He pulled his hood off his head and braced himself. But they shrieked and rushed him. “I love it!” one said. “It’s sick!” another shrieked. (That means it’s really, really cool in current teenager parlance.) Suddenly he had a lot of girls’ fingers in his hair and I think, at that moment, the lad grew two inches taller and life couldn’t have gotten much better. Evidently he was the first of the bunch to arrive.

Last night following the banquet, he and the other guys on the team decided to have a group hair bleaching session. Never having done it before and being teenagers, why bother to read the directions, right? Just mix it up, slap it on and wait for what seems like an appropriate time, then wash it out. The results varied from lad to lad. Some ended up in stripes, some with platinum, and others with blotches. My lad ended up with a uniformly bleached head of orange. He was not pleased.

He walked through the door late last night with his hood pulled close around his very worried face. And my reaction was pretty similar to the girls’. It actually does look good. In fact, it looks really good. I tried to convince him that I was sincere, but he kept saying, “But you’re my mom. You’d say that if I came home with green hair.”

Well, no, I wouldn’t. But this shade of orange is kind of neat.

He wasn’t convinced. But I think he might be now.

As the other mothers and I decided while we set up, cooked, served, and cleaned up last night, if this is as exciting as their Friday nights get during their high school careers, we can happily live with it.

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The banquet turned out a little differently than I’d anticipated. It was held at the local Congregational church, which has a to-die-for kitchen. The commercial stove has 8 huge burners, two ovens, and a warming compartment. There’s a huge center island for food preparation. Huge double sinks that are about 3 feet deep. And the choicest of cast iron and heavy stainless steel cookware. The church rents out the kitchen and hall—they make a pretty nice income from it. When I arrived with my crockpot full of meatballs, I hadn’t planned to stay longer than it took to set up the tables. But one thing led to another. I learned something last night. It’s not always what you know, it’s what you look like you know.

I don’t know who was in charge last night. No one seemed to be and no one other than the woman who was getting the pasta water boiling, was doing anything. I hate standing around doing nothing in situations like that. And let me be clear about this...I am not a charge in and take over sort of person. In fact, I am usually the invisible one in a crowd, waiting for someone to tell me what to do. But I started doing things and preparing food. And suddenly everyone else was asking me what I wanted them to do. That really surprised me. There wasn’t enough time to stop and analyze it last night, but I recognized that there was an important lesson going on. Anyway, it all worked out. We had a feast prepared on time for about 60 girls and boys. It looked nice, everything tasted great, and they were happy. And we had a lot of fun in the kitchen.

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Then the lad won an award which made me get all teary. The coach puts great store by team work and cohesion. It pays off because these kids are the best of friends and they hang together. These relationships tend to last well past high school, too. He spoke of positive attitudes and giving of oneself to teammates. And then he presented an award to the lad for the most positive attitude, supporting and encouraging team mates, giving of himself and always being there with a shoulder when a teammate has a less than stellar day. And the mothers in the kitchen hugged me and said the nicest things about my child. Yeah, it made me go all teary. Those are special moments that you cherish forever
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This morning, as I stood in the kitchen making a pot of coffee, I turned to look out on the deck and laughed. Lined up on the railing, like a little row of statues, were a half dozen or so titmice and a couple of chickadees. They are our winter birds. And they were giving me the clear message that they were not pleased that the diner isn’t open yet. I’ll get right on it today.