graduation week

I'm writing this after the fact, so a lot of this will be random memories of one of the most chaotic weeks in my life - family visits, 70th b'day, graduation, packing, moving - uh, I guess it's stressful no matter how you slice it.

On Monday, there was a rained out graduation "picnic" inside the forum - our program director walked up to me in the middle of it and said, "Is this child friendly enough for you?" Hmmm...inhale, exhale.

Thus, began Chris' life of carting people around in a mini-van all week. When our subaru took off for the Bay Area by a 67-year old Canadian who wanted to see the U.S., we knew we needed to rent a car, so I suggested to Chris to ask about renting a mini-van. When he arrived, he was lucky to get an 8-seater - rare. The whole week felt like one big hosting and coordinating nightmare. By Wednesday night, after showing up at the place Kathy was staying to drop the kids off with my parents so Chris and I could go to our final party for a few hours, Kathy's host said that our kids couldn't stay at their place b/c she had put rat poison around the house. Huh? Inhale. Exhale. I walked to the K school to start the party, so to speak, while Chris had to cart my parents and kids back to our apartment and then walk back. Nonetheless, it felt so great to be at the party without anyone to worry about. I even stopped at the drug store for some videotapes and make-up on the way to the party (more on that later). Oh, how indulgent, to go to shopping. Anyway, we had a blast at the party - at least I did, dancing to 80s music - woohoo for the older generation- no more MPP hip hop.

Graduation itself was so incredibly long but uberfun. We had to be at the K school at 7am for photos. I dropped my parents off at a gate into Harvard yard so they could wait in line - at 6.45 am - tickets to graduation are very hard to come by and seats are even tougher. They were troopers for sticking it out. When I arrived at school, I jumped up to bleachers at the forum with my 200 plus classmates for a group photo - of course, it took forever to arrange everyone and to allow all of the stragglers - at one point - Kristi - one of my favorite classmates - she has that energetic sixth sense and love like Punyavati and Stacey - looked at me and said, "Who's that froo froo glam girl?" Yes, I had done my hair up (actually wore it down - I usually had it up) and was wearing make-up - but I gave her a friendly finger. Hmmm... I hope she wasn't offended. After the photo, we gathered outside. I had stayed up and made about 50 anti-war stickers to go on these inflatable globes we were given (i.e. brains not bombs, will work for justice, etc.). I had e-mailed a few progressive friends but received little response. It was fun going up to the military guys - who know me and my politics - and asking them in a cheeky way if they wanted them. However, they were taken up like hotcakes. I actually ran out. We then marched into the yard together being led by bagpipes.

It was just so great to honor and celebrate ourselves, our friendships and our accomplishments - with all of Harvard grads - about 10,000 I think, including undergrads and all of the graduate schools. I got to sit next to Pamela and Mark - two good buds, so it was quite fun to make fun of the event while still enjoying it. Afterwards, we marched back to the K school where we sat down again (after an excrucating long honorary degrees to 10 people - and I was furious that Larry Sommers was given one!) and each of the 600 graduates received diplomas.

Afterwards, I finally found my family, ate our expensive box meals - it was kind of typical that after the K school footing the bill for so much that their last farewell is on us. We then made our way back home - after a sad good-bye to Ken, Tara and Ben. We skipped the Bill Gates talk - it just felt so 90s! I'm feeling kind of grumpy about the money thing. I don't know why - I think it's because noone organized or paid for a graduation dinner for me - I ended up ordering and paying for over-priced Thai take-out for everyone.

I was happy but exhausted from the sheer insanity of the day and week. Ah, but I couldn't relax - we had to get up the next morning and organize the kids so that Chris and I could pack while Kathy's amazing three older boys cleaned up our flat. And thus, the drama of where our kids would go that day, along with herding all of the other cats. What an insane day. The following day we had to fly back to Oakland. We decided that our goal was primarily to get our apartment cleaned, so we decided that our kids' happiness was the most important thing to accomplish this - Kalian LOVES (loved - sniffle) co-op and Lisa could take her afterwards, so to the chagrin of my family, we took Kalian to co-op and Liam went with the brood to the Children's museum. They had a blast - although when they returned my sis and mom kept repeating that they had no "problems" with Liam. I kept getting them to elaborate, so I can only guess that it is more of the same that they are saying that I am exaggerating Liam's developmental problems. Sigh.

We got a lot done - packing up boxes - and Kathy's kids were amazing at cleaning fridges, toilets and the like, so we agreed to take a break and go out to dinner with my family - ah, my official graduation dinner at last with my family - we went to Friendly's! One step above McDonald's - barely, but Chris has fond memories of it, and I knew it would be kid friendly, so we ventured out, though it created yet another family drama for half of the gang to take a taxi - god forbid. I guess you just have to be in the taxi mindframe to realize that it sometime can save a lot of hassle and even money, but it was a big deal, unfortunately - and funny, that someone would actually take a taxi to a tacky chain restaurant. The other bummer, that while we had so much mroe to do at our flat, the service was incredibly slow - it took about three hours to get out of there. So after fattening food and ice cream, we finally took off - Chris dropped me off at our flat to get going while he went to our friend's house to get the kids and my parents settled. I didn't hear my phone ring, but finally saw Chris at our place much later than expected - staying at our friends didn't work out (mostly safety issues during their reconstruction) - so everyone ended up at the Holiday Inn.

Chris and I worked furiously to finish up. He brought up all of this furniture that had fallen apart while we were staying at the apartment - and he started to hammer it together at 1.30 in the morning. Needless to say our sweet neighbors were not pleased, but by 2am, we were ready to head back to the hotel. While we pulled into the parking lot, we got a call from my dad. "When are you coming back?" Fortunately, it was in 2 minutes, for when we came into the room, both of our kids were screaming and crying in fear, not knowing where they were and not feeling very comforted by anyone but their parents.

After a big mistake of letting Kalian suck on me all night, we got up for breakfast and then on to more running around - errands, dropping library books off, me off at the co-op for my diploma framing (my family told me it was free - it was $140 - oh, well, I'd never do it again), having lunch with Kathy and the kids - whoohoo - veggie planet, and then I gave my nieces/nephews money to buy Harvard propaganda - I haven't bought them any gifts in years - I'm a lame-o aunt of 11. I paid my nephews and then we said our good-byes - Kalian was horrified to be saying good-bye to Gloria. Then back to the flat - fortunately with Joshua - to pack up everything to get on the plane. Not only did Josh help us at the airport, but he fixed a table that Liam accidently broke at the last minute.

After all of that, a late night cross country flight with two kids seemed like a piece of cake.