A Dead Serious Weekend

Wow! What a great and incredibly busy weekend for my family! Where do I start? How about...

FRIDAY... that seems like a good place. Let's see. On Friday after work, we needed to get alot of shopping done for a number of reasons. My wife was hosting a baby shower for a good friend of ours, and we as a family would be hosting a couple of young ladies in our home as they and their performing troupe brought their play to our little town. After getting everything purchased we headed home and tried to get the house ready for our guests and get everything organized for rest of the weekend. Finding a bit of down time, we watched a movie and relaxed before heading over to our church around 10pm to recieve the "Mish Kids" from the Cincinnati, Ohio region. These teenaged kids and the adults that travel with them, are actors, stage crew, and support staff of a show called "Dead Serious... About Life." This is a show that lays bare the problems that many teenaged and some pre-teen kids face everyday of their lives. It show the effects of teen sex, drinking, drug use, abuse, and ridicule. Up to this point I had not heard of the show before, but the church was sponsoring the play and we had signed up to host some of the troupe members. The "Mish-Kids" pulled in just a little after 10:15pm or so and we got to meet the two wonderful young ladies that would be staying with us. Heather and Suzanne were to stay with us and would depend on us for lodging, food, and travel while in town. It was late and they looked tired and hungry so we headed home, got them a bite to eat and get them settled in.

Dead Serious... about Dancing!
SATURDAY... Saturday morning came and as usual, Gunnar the wonder dog was the first one up and as is the norm, that makes me the second one up. He headed downstairs to go lick the faces of our sleepy headed guests, but I stopped him. After all, they had travelled a long way and had a very long day ahead of them, so I let them sleep. After a while, though, I had to get them moving because they had an entire stage to set up, a play to rehearse, and show to perform, all by 6pm that day. I have not had teenage girls in my house for any length of time, so I got a quick lesson in the amount of time needed for the girls to get ready. I can fully imagine that I will be experiencing this first hand soon, as Cora grows up and enters her teen years. Despite all my fears that I might not have awoken them in time, they were up, dressed, fed and ready to go! I dropped them off at the school and left them to go to my next appointment... getting things gathered up to feed all of the performers and crew at the school and helping my wife get her stuff gathered for the baby shower. I helped her get ready and then I met up with our pastor, got the food together and made it back to the school in time to set up and be met with 45 hungry teenagers. One and a half hours later, I was heading back home from the school, and took in a bit of a breather with my son in the form of XBOX.
Then, the big plan of the day... a date with my daughter! (See "Dancing with the Girls" from the March 2006 posting... check the archive) It was the annual Daddy-Daughter dance sponsored by the Girl Scouts. We had a dinner reservation at 5pm at the local eatery, and then off to the dance at 6pm. Man! What a great turn out! The dance floor was packed with dozens and dozens of frilly dressed little girls and almost as many well dressed dads, grandpas, step dads, and brothers or other male dates for the dance. And it did not take long before everyone of those little girls was out dancing with their dates... whether the dads wanted to or not! My daughter and I danced for two solid straight hours and had a blast! It was totally fun and almost too short of a time together! But we were there until 8:30pm and I had to head out again to get Suzanne and Heather at 9pm. I would have to get them home, feed them, let them relax, and hopefully get them a good nights sleep for the next day's performance. It was nice having them back in the house again. We did not get much time to visit and get to know each other better, so we took some time to do so before calling it a night. Apparently the play went well and the turnout was good. I would not be seeing it until the next day, but I had already heard great things about it from them and others, so I was really looking forward to it.

Dead Serious...about Life

SUNDAY.. the day of the play. I hated doing it, but I had to wake the girls up early so that we could attend the 8am chuch service all together. I was glad the Suzanne and Heather decided to forgo the teen Sunday School gathering to instead hang out with us at the house. The initial feeling of uncomfortableness that all strangers have was pretty much gone, and by the time lunch was ready, my kids, and my "mish kids" were hanging out playing HALO having a good time, and the girls felt comfortable enough to dance around in the kitchen to the music on the XM satellite. It is funny to think that they were doing the same thing that we do as a family when we are feeling happy and a bit silly. It was a good feeling. I felt like we had succeeded in making them feel at home. But our time was coming to an close soon. The girls had to pack their stuff and get back to the school for the last performance. The show was at 2pm and I would be with the Church confirmation class to see the show. We were told to sit apart from the kids so that they could take it in without the watchful eye of their parents. Actually, I preferred this, as I could then concentrate on the play myself.

In a nutshell, WOW. What a great play. It is not like it was the best play I have ever seen, it was just that it was the best play about the pressures and troubles facing teens I have ever seen. It was pretty emotionally raw in some places and it did not neccessarily end on a happy note. It was not overly preachy but sent a great message, and it even gave members of the audience a chance to go back and talk with people who were just willing to listen. The message was a faith based message, but the biggest message the play tried to get across to the teens in the audience, or anyone for that matter, was to just talk to someone and don't try to face your problems on your own. My son thought it was an awesome play and I saw quite a large number of thoughtful, or even tearful faces in the audience and a fair number of audience members did take part of the listening room. It was a very uplifting experience. I highly recommend it for any community. You can find out more about it at http://www.mish-inc.com/ You will not be sorry.

Then, we finally had to say good by to our "girls," Suzanne and Heather. They were here for such a short time, but they were so fantastic that I will miss them. If the play comes back to this area, I am definately going to request that we be allowed to host them again if the circumstances allow. It was a great time.

That night, it was a very deep night of sleep. I was Dead Serious... about sleeping.


later!