Friday was another running day. I dropped off stuff at Goodwill, picked up and cleaned up SMA equipment from the airport, shipped off stuff at UPS, picked up checks at the PO Box, tried on and bought a sweater at Meijer, picked up a bouquet of flowers at Kroger, and flew with a brand new student for an hour. That was all after lunch.
At 5:45 pm, Steve and I drove to the high school and sat with Kaylee and her friends in the bleachers during a basketball game. Just before the varsity game started, they had "Senior Night", where the Senior band members, cheerleaders, and basketball players were walked out onto the gym floor in front of everyone by their parents or loved ones. So Steve was on one side, me on the other, and Kaylee was holding the flowers I got her, and we walked across the gym floor while they read the paper she filled out about her plans, etc. They called her "Kaylee Starts" though, twice, which made us laugh, but also made me a smidge unhappy. Guy should get her name right on Senior night. "Stants" is not that hard. :p
Afterwards, she stayed with her friends for a little bit while Steve and I went out to dinner at Marble Steakhouse. It is supposed to be the nice steakhouse in town, and in general it is. But last night we had a less than stellar experience. Steve ordered a bone-in ribeye, which was over $40, and he ordered it medium rare. It came out medium to medium well. Okay, it was still good, but it was overcooked and if you're spending that kind of money on something, you should get it the way you want it. And then there was our waiter. He tended bar and tables, but there weren't that many of us. Bottom line is that we'd go huge chunks of time in between him checking on us. We had to flag down another waitress to get plates for our appetizer as it sat and got cold. I didn't have anything to drink for 20 minutes, from before we got our food to after someone else brought out our food. No water, no wine, no drink at all, until I was halfway through my food. And finally, we were done with our meals, waiting for to go boxes and our check, for so long, with only a few other people in the restaurant, while he chatted with some folks he knew, that we flagged down another waitress who may also have been a manager. Steve said "I don't think we actually have a waiter, but we need to-go boxes and our bill so we can leave." She took our drinks off the bill, came back with our boxes, and we left, but good grief. Ridiculous. The food I had was delicious, but the aggravation wasn't worth the even discounted bill.
I dropped Steve off at home after that, with our leftovers, and I went out to Kroger to pick up cookie baking supplies, a card, and a gift card. These are for Kaylee's pianist for ISSMA. He didn't want to come down, but he agreed to do it for Kaylee. That meant he had to get up early, drive to Indy, park in a huge parking lot, play the piano for one 6 or 9 minute (can't remember) piece, and then go home, for free. So I baked him chocolate chip cookies while Kaylee practiced her sax until she hurt her lip, and I got him a gift card for Outback, and a thank you card that she wrote out a note in. She could have done it without him, but it sounds SO much better with accompaniment. We all went to bed around 11 to try to get some sleep.
Saturday morning came too early for all of us. Kaylee woke up at 5:30 am to try to get moving and get ready. Normally it takes her about 20 minutes to get ready, but today she was barely ready to go by 7 am, when we left. She felt miserable, her head was stuffed up, she couldn't breathe, and she basically felt like death. We tried to tell her she could back out of this, that maybe it would be best to not go. She said no way, she's going. It's her Senior year, her last chance to do it, she didn't get to take her vocals to State because of Disney, and if she gets a Gold, she has a chance at being Principal Chair at the Music Festival, a goal she's had for this year. So she was determined to go. I'll be honest, I was concerned that she wouldn't be able to play well enough. She hadn't had enough time to practice, she couldn't breathe well, her head was muddled, and she was going first thing in the morning, which is the worst time to do ISSMA. The judges start off stricter and loosen up as the day goes on, historically pretty consistently. Even if they're not supposed to. So all I could think was, getting a Gold at State isn't as easy as a Gold at District, and District had given her several pieces of advice on what to do at State to make it better, and she hadn't been able to practice most of it enough. She was going to be pretty upset if she got a Silver, and didn't get to be Principal Chair at the Festival, and would feel like she failed. I swear all of this is harder on parents than on the kids.
We got there, and found the warm-up room, and it was CHAOS. The room is small, and packed out with kids, there was no room left at any table, and most were standing around shoulder to shoulder, all practicing different loud instruments playing different songs all at the same time. The room was hot, close, full, and painfully, painfully loud. Kaylee said with her blocked head, it was really bad. I walked back out at a sprint walk, I couldn't handle it. At all. She stayed in there and ran through her piece a time and some, and then came out to join me waiting. I have nothing but respect for the kids who can do that. I don't know how you can play your song listening to 30 other songs at top volume right next to your ear. How do you tune that out and only hear your own rhythm and notes?
We went down to the performance room, and found that nobody had gone yet. Then one person went and they got a Silver. Meanwhile, Steve had heard a kid playing sax in the warm-up room with Kaylee, who was amazing. He was playing the same song Steve had played on the sax for State, a song that he got a perfect score on, no errors, and he said that the kid was playing it better than he did back then. The problem is, if the kid goes, whomever goes after him suffers in comparison. They're not supposed to judge like that, but how could you not? And he was there, warming up, which means he was probably going soon, and there was really one room for performances. So Steve pushed to have Kaylee go early, without telling her why. You can do that sometimes. Going before Mr. Perfect with the professional saxophone, and after someone who got a Silver, so if you do well... So her pianist got there (THANK YOU Mr. B!), and we went, second to go for the whole day. The judge was friendly and engaging (whew), and she performed well. She stopped in between movements, coughed, drank water, and did the next movement, which is what her band director told her to do (minus the coughing thing), to take breaths in between, and that that was okay. It really helped her to get some air in between. She made some minor mistakes in the 2nd movement, killed it on the 3rd, fast-paced movement, and walked away with the Gold, well deserved.
The grading sheet came back with good feedback on things to improve or work on, and included that she'd done a good job, particularly with a cold, which we hadn't told him but he could obviously see for himself, and said "Way to Persevere!" I was once again impressed by my own daughter's ability to face potential failure at something difficult and go for it anyway. Her desire to achieve the goal was stronger than her fear of failure. That doesn't come as easily for me as it does for her, and it impresses and amazes me when I see her step up and do something like that, and succeed at it to boot.
On the way home, I texted her pianist, to let him know she got a Gold, and to thank him. As part of the conversation, I mentioned that the judge had mentioned liking the "piano dynamics". I thought that meant he liked the piano. Kaylee says "MOM. NO! That means he liked the soft dynamics of the saxophone, it has nothing to do with a piano!" Steve starts laughing. I'm embarrassed because I look like an idiot to the accompanist, who was too kind to laugh at me via text and point out the error. Kaylee promptly texted her musical friends, who laughed at me for it. She said "Don't you know music, mom??" I do, but I've not heard of "piano". If he'd have written out Pianissimo, I'd have gotten it. Oh well, I got to be amusement for a lot of people today at least. ;)
We came home, and she went up to the couch, passed out, and slept for hours. And hours. I know she was asleep for 4 hours minimum. I left the house to go test fly a Cherokee for an hour, was gone for hours, and when I got home she was still lying in bed. Hopefully it helps her feel better, because when I saw her this afternoon, she looked really bad. She has started coughing some, she was flushed, her head's a mess, and she feels just awful. So after I flew the Cherokee, I stopped at CVS and picked her up some Puffs with Lotion tissues, because her nose is just raw now, and some medicine she can drink instead of pills, because she hates taking pills, and I got some throat lozenges too. So she was happy with the medical assist.
Tonight Kaylee is writing a speech about Doris Day. She keeps yelling out facts to us about why she loves Doris Day. "Did you guys know that she turned down the part for Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate" because she felt it was immoral and inappropriate and she wouldn't do it even though her popularity was waning by then, it could have been a big career boost, and the film ended up huge? She stuck to her principles. I love her." Or "Did you know Doris set a record in acting that has never since been broken?" Etc.
She'd probably be really annoyed at me for writing this part but I'm going to do it anyway. Friday she told me about some Prom Drama going on. A long time ago, a young man (Sam) asked if he asked her to prom when the time came, if she'd be amenable to that. She told him yes. Fast forward several months. For the shortened version, another young man (Joe) wanted to ask her to Prom. She is really good friends with Joe, and hangs out with him a lot as is, moreso than Sam. But her friends told Joe that she'd already told Sam she'd say 'yes' when he asked, which was coming up soon. Joe called her up anyway, and asked her to Prom. She told him she'd like to, but she'd already agreed to go with someone else--who hasn't officially asked yet, but kind of. She would have enjoyed going with Joe more. It would be less awkward for her, and they'd have a good time. She really wished he'd asked her first. But she was true to her word, and did the right thing. Now Joe is upset and is causing some issues. And I couldn't be more proud, because while what she did SHOULD be common courtesy and common sense, it's not, not in this day and age. It shows character, especially the fact that she didn't even talk to us about it ahead of time, or spend time stressing over what to do. She knew what to do, she knew what was right, and she did it without hesitation, even though she wishes it would have been a little different. I also think it's sweet that two young fellows really want to go to Prom with her, to the point where they're kinda fighting about it, even though it's a done deal. I certainly didn't have anyone fighting over me in high school. :D
During Kaylee's Disney trip, at some point her clear coat nail polish leaked and glued a t-shirt to a pair of underwear. She really likes both these items, so we have spent time trying to save them. Acetone got them apart and flattened out, globs gone. Now they're in the wash in some kind of hope that the rest of it will come out. Steve nor I are holding our breath. She is. We shall see. Hopefully the lesson learned for the day is "put stuff like that in ziploc bags so if it leaks nothing else gets ruined."
So, that's a weekend update for the young lady.
One last thing I have to throw out is about this Cherokee flight today. I was going to do it tomorrow, but the winds for tomorrow are forecasting 45 knots. While that's not impossible, it's sure not something I feel the need to do for fun. I need to test fly the plane because in the past it had started having engine surges after about 45 minutes of flight time, and we needed to see if that was fixed, or if we could figure out what's causing it, before we take it on a very long trip to Iowa to deliver it home. Today's weather was marginal, which was why tomorrow was going to be the day, but I'd rather do marginal ceilings than 45 knot winds and moderate turbulence. So when I looked at the weather, everything was around 1200' overcast. I can stay around 2000' MSL then, which is fine for what I'm doing. I get out there, the plane is full of fuel, I get in, and there's no navigation radio in there, so I can't check AWOS, but that's fine, I can read a wind sock. ;) I take off on Runway 14, and about 600' above the ground, it gets very white. Huh. At the same time, my door didn't get sealed all the way, so it's hissing and blowing cold air on me, and it's too cold for that. So I landed, pulled off the runway, closed the door properly, and called AWOS on the phone. It said 900' overcast. It was wrong, I didn't have 900'. But my options for tomorrow were no good, and we need to fly it to Ohio early Monday morning, so, I decided to use Class G airspace rules. I took off again, listened to Grissom's frequency to hear any jets coming into Kokomo, and I flew about 500' above the ground in a big circle. Runway to the Kokomo Resevoir up north, then circling around back towards the runway, without ever getting in the flight path of the ILS 23 or the RNAV 14 approaches, which would be what is in use. Waves of clouds would come through, sometimes scuddy ones coming in under me, but I mostly stayed clear of clouds. I had about 3 miles of visibility. So 1 mile and clear of clouds is legal for Class G, and I had a little better than that on vis at least. I circled for an hour, checking on the engine. All ran smoothly, all ran well. After about an hour, I noticed the clouds moving in, and even my little radius circle was getting sketchy, so I called it good, landed, and put it away. Later in the day it got down to about 200' and 1/8 mile and fog for awhile there. Wasn't the prettiest day, but I got the job done, legally and not in a thoughtless or unsafe manner. 500' above any person, property, etc., and 1 mile and clear of clouds. I had every light on the plane blasting too, just in case anyone else was up there with me in Class G. lol It would have felt nice to fly again, but I had to spend the whole time looking very carefully and paying very much attention to everything I was doing for that hour. No relaxing on this one. Couldn't even listen to music loudly because I was listening for the engine to surge. Which it didn't do. Thankfully! So not a super relaxing flight. Did leave the ground though, with me in the left seat, so, that's something. ;)
So that was our busy, packed out weekend. Tomorrow, we take a pause, and everyone rests up and recuperates before Monday hits.
So that was our busy, packed out weekend. Tomorrow, we take a pause, and everyone rests up and recuperates before Monday hits.
I tried to take a photo of Kaylee before she started playing, but I never did get a good one. She looks pretty angry in that second one. lol
Doing a test run with the pianist to get tuned.
Focusing, I assume. Water bottle on the floor for in between movements.
Her last solo performance Gold Medal.
The score sheet.
This is the panel of the oldest Cherokee I've ever flown in my life. No VOR head, no real DG, no back-up or monitoring capable radio, no Nav radio, that LORAN is a brick, and the VSI doesn't work right. Oh, and no brakes on either side. You have to use the hand brake. Which is fine if you know that ahead of time and are used to those. lol This is one seriously VFR only airplane! Good thing it's going back to a farmer's field, and he only flies it around in lovely weather, locally.
Isn't that lovely out front? See why I was busy paying attention? ;) At about 2 o'clock you can see the beginning of Runway 5 in the photo. I'm right by the airport, coming back in to land as the visibility was dropping.
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