The Dynamic Duo

It’s official. Johnny is a magna cum laude college graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice Administration. I don’t think the weekend could possibly have gone any better, even though none of you showed up at the barbecue. Well, I’m assuming that those who WERE there aren’t regular readers of our site, with the possible exception of John E. himself. I gotta tell ya that you missed good food, good fun and a good time at my sister, Debi’s home in Emmett (about 40 minutes away from Boise)
It was the UltraSisterAunt’s gift to Johnny; she had everything planned. There was a lovely “Congratulations” cake in blue and orange Boise State University colors. She made two kinds of cookies, and had strawberries that we dipped in chocolate. They were a work of art, and about as gourmet as I’m likely to ever get. Lots of stuff for tacos; chips, salsa, sour cream, cheese, tomatoes, avocados, etc, etc, etc, Oh and watermelon. And bushels of pop and bottled water. The swimming pool had been “opened” just that morning, but not heated. Opening a pool for the season is quite the deal. It involves chemicals and compounds like dionacious(sp?) earth and lots of cleaning and odd contraptions. Really quite interesting. I had scanned a bunch of Johnny-photos and saved them to a disc, and we played that on Debi’s laptop all evening. Lots of folks stopped and watched for a while at various times. UltraB was in a lot of them, including a rather spicy photo of the two boys in their underwear. Attending were some relatives:Aunt Roz and cousins Nicki Mc, Sara Mc and Mary Lou Lear Gamas. Several of the boys’ friends: Cody, Lisa, Jared H, Robby, B.J., and Jared S. Some of Debi’s friends: Marc & Barb. AND a couple of Howe people showed up for a while! Jake and Afton were in town to see their daughter Loretta get her Master’s degree and decided to hop on over to Emmett and check out our party!
This is one of those small world things: Jared H, Johnny’s good friend has a sort of step brother, Travis, whom Johnny shared a house with when he very first moved to Boise. It turns out that Travis now teaches high school Spanish in Emmett! Jared gave Travis a call, and he came over, much to the delight of Debi’s son Michael (a high school Junior) and his friend Austin. Austin is actually in “Mr. Higgins” Spanish class. Funny, huh?
Johnny and Michael acually stayed in the frigid pool for about half an hour. The other boys lasted only moments. I think it may have been an endurance contest, but, in my opinion hypothermia was the winner of the day.
The big volleyball game was the evening’s highlight. UltraMom was on a team with Johnny and several friends. Jim and friends, along with Aunt Debi, were on the other side. I DID actually hit the ball several times, and a couple of those actually went over the net, but for the most part, my contribution was to try to jump out of the way, yelling the name of the person who should jump in and hit the ball. Our team never ended up winning a game, though we always had a few good runs, but we had a lot of fun. It got dark and noone wanted to quit, so vehicles were lined up with headlights lighting up the court. From the right angle, you could sometimes see the ball, and not just glaring lights.
The party finally broke up about midnight, and an exhausted UltraMom crawled into bed, only to have a disturbing dream. UM and party (I know there were other people, but besides UltraDad, can’t remember who) were driving somewhere in the car. Suddenly she has a disturbing flash: the time is 10:00 A.M., which is the time that Johnny is due to graduate. Destination time to arrive at Boise State University is one hour. Arrangements had been made to meet Roz and Sara in front of the BSU pavillion at 9:00 A.M. Despite repeated attempts, there seems to be no way in the world that UltraMom , on her cell phone, can correctly key in Roz’ cell phone number. I’ll tell ya, waking up was a relief!
Come back tomorrow, UltraReaders, and find out if this dream was prophetic. Does UltraMom actually forget about her son’s graduation? Can she complete a simple telephone call?
Suspensefully yours,
UltraMom