SUNDAY, MAY 24th - DAY 11:
6:30am - Up, coffee, posting, emailing, morning beering, showering and shaving, and at 'em.
11:30am - Off to pick up Kellie. Today was Ashley's Graduation Day.
11:45am - I decided to make time for a quick stop at The Six Arms for a quick cocktail before picking her up around the corner. David the chef was sitting next to me at the bar, and Matt the tender was nice enough to 'open up' for me 15 minutes early.
Noon - When I got to Kellie's house, I met Keith… one of Kellie's roommates. He was too busy playing his video game to get off the couch, or even to look up at me. Kellie had told me he was kinda weird.
12:30pm - We had to backtrack to go back to Mimi's, 'cuz I'd forgotten my hawaiian shirt… the only shirt I've worn to all three of my daughter's high school graduations, and now two college ones. I never wear it for anything else. Ashley told me she was happy I was gonna wear it, 'cuz it's so easy to pick me out of the crowd.
1:30pm - We arrived at The Tacoma Dome right on schedule… 1 hour early. I stripped to my default attire of jeans sans shirt. Bare-chested for the world to enjoy… enjoy or be repulsed with. Yes, I am a very shy and demure person. Seemingly un-phased by her father's outrageous behavior, I put my shirt back on and we went in the building, and picked out our 14 seats. Everyone else was going to arrive closer to the actual starting time.
4:00pm - Ashley's family's screams were by far, the loudest of any of the other graduate's supporters. She told me later, that she WAS able to pick me out of the crowd of approximately 5,000.
4:30pm - Most of us bolted the confines of the bleacher seats, to go outside and enjoy the rare Pacific Northwest sun, and wait for the ceremony to conclude. Mimi pulled her car into the handicap lot… parked right up against the curb in the red zone… opened up all her car doors… and turned up her stereo… all the way.
She then proceeded to start 'rocking out' and dancing like a mad woman. Yep, Mimi is shy and demure, just like me. I just had to laugh out loud, when I joined her. The parents and other family and friends of the graduates really got a taste of life from the outlandish parents of the most loved graduate at the facility. I took off my shirt (again) and started waving it in circles over my head. It's a typical occurrence when Mimi and I get together in a party atmosphere. We like being the lives of it. We feed off each other, and wind each other up into whirling dervishes. She has always been able to get me going.
5:45pm - Ashley emerges, and we get thru the obligatory photos without too much discord. Mimi was the only one not readily willing to step away form the graduate for alternate options for subject matter.
6:30pm - Dinner at the Harmon, the same restaurant that John and Ashley and I had lunch at the other day. I parked Honey on the sidewalk. Sue and her husband parked theirs in the red zone, and we had a very pleasant conversation about which bike was better. My Honda or their Harley.
Kellie and some of the other family didn't understand at first, that the derogatory comments were actually only the necessary barbs required as part of the initial meeting between competing members of 'the brotherhood'. Everyone relaxed noticeably when Sue posed with me next to their bike, and her husband took our picture.
The meal and conversation was very nice. Even though, as usual, it was 'audio-Darwinism' at it's finest. I came up with that one, when I became part of their family many years ago. It means, 'he who talks loudest, talks most'.
8:00pm - After dinner, Kellie was gracious enough to sacrifice her place on the back of Honey so Axel (David & Tracy's oldest son) could enjoy the excitement and freedom that only a 50 mile motorcycle ride at 80 mph can give. We weren't more than 5 miles down the road, when he yelled into my ear, "I think I need to buy a motorcycle."
After dropping off Axel, I made a quick stop at Café Lago, and found Kelsey just getting ready to leave. She was headed out with about 100 of her closest friends, to celebrate her 27th birthday. She is such a darling… a sparkling personality with a glowing beauty from within. If I was 20 years younger, she would be in trouble.
10:00pm - No one was home at Mimi's, so I jimmied a window and went to bed.
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