The Weekend

Hang on, Internet. It was a long weekend.

Saturday morning, Zac had a cross-country meet in South Baton Rouge. He ran at 9:30, but we had to be there between 8 and 8:30 to check in and get warmed up. This meet and the last, he got to run in the jr. high race where the times count for your team. They only take the top 7 times. Last week Zac was number 7, but this week I think he came in 8th or 9th on his team. He had a good race, though, and his time was 15:40 for 2 miles. The way I figure, even if his time was 30 minutes, at the end of the day, he's run 2 miles. What the heck did you or I do? I'll try to get some pictures up of the next meet.

We boogied back home so I could get ready to go *back* downtown for WHEEL!!

I got there around 1:00. The auditions were held in the Belle of Baton Rouge Casino Atrium.



The way it worked was that there were 3-one hour games at 2:00, 3:30 and 5:00. Each game time had a different colored application form: yellow, blue and orange, respectively. The form had just basic info like name, address, phone, e-mail and hobbies and interests. They collected all of those quarter-sheet forms and poured them in a spinner drum thing.

The traveling host's name is Marty Lublin and the traveling Vanna's name is Heidi Jackson. They pick 5 names at a time from the drum and call those folks up to play the speed-up round. If you're not familiar with the speed-up round, it's at the end of the game when time is running short and Pat gives the wheel a final spin and each contestant gets to give a letter then has 3 seconds to solve the puzzle.

Once you're chosen to go up on stage, you meet Marty and tell him a bit about yourself. He encourages everyone to sing or dance, tell a joke or funny story so that your personality will shine. He says that the audition begins when your name is called from the audience. I couldn't believe the people who got on stage who didn't even act like they were excited to be there! I was getting annoyed by that, since there were perfectly wonderful people in the audience who were stupid excited to be there.

Speaking of audience. You would not believe the people who showed up for this deal. There was everyone from blue-toothed professionals to the retired set, students, beautiful people, and those not-so-beautiful people. People came from all over the state and Mississippi, even a person from North Carolina. (I think the NC person was visiting.)

Anyway, I didn't get chosen for the first game, and since I'd not eaten lunch yet (it was 3:00 already), I went to the restaurant and got a very delicious turkey club to take back to turn in an application for the 3:30 show.

By this time people were getting a little loosened up and a few more people were showing off their special singing and dancing talents. One guy was a nice singer and another lady showed off her ballroom dancing skills with Marty.

So, I didn't get chosen for the second game, so I went to the bar and watched some of the USC game and had a beer. I really wanted a diet Coke, but the hotel didn't sell Coke products. I thought it was some sort of charter for southern cities to only offer Coke products. I had to settle for a Coors Light.

I dropped in my orange application for the 5:00 show. Alas, I was not called and went home. When I got home, George and the boys had cleaned up the living room and made dinner. Fajitas. We settled in to watch the LSU game at 7:00. I couldn't keep my eyes open. Surprisingly, standing around all day in anticipation is exhausting. I went to bed around 8:30.

Sunday morning was the usual getting ready for church.
"Mom! Where's my belt!"
"I can't find my shoes!"
"Can I wear my Heelys?"
"What? My choir is singing today? I'm not going to church. I hate church. I don't want to sing. I'm just going to stand there and move my mouth."

Never fear. Everyone was dressed, in belts, and regular shoes. Jacob even sang with the choir and I could tell he was really singing.

We ate lunch at church. On the 2nd Sunday, we have a lunch for $6 where all of the proceeds go to missions. The meal that day was fried catfish. It was pretty good.

I brought a change of clothes and George and the boys dropped me back off at the Belle for Sunday's auditions.