White Mule Reunion

My five year college reunion was last week and I was so excited to go. As you may know I love my alma mater, I met my husband there nine years ago, and I got married there two years ago. Plus it's my dad's alma mater and it's been important to him as well, thought for different reasons.

Since we live about an hour away we did not stay over night in the dorms but we headed up to the College early Saturday morning to check in. So we registered and we got to get pick out one item of swag each. We agreed on a beach blanket but then we couldn't decide what else to get. They had baby bibs that said Class of 20?? and had a mule on them. We had a mock argument that ended with me telling Hubs that he was going to jinx us with infertility and that if we couldn't have children it would be his fault and me hiding the bid at the bottom of my tote bag so no one would ask us when we were expecting. The woman working the registration counter found this incredibly amusing, she also knew my dad from his work with his class as he was really involved with his 40 year reunion a few summers ago.

We wandered around to the bookstore and made it back to the oval by the alumni center where we were supposed to line up for the Parade of Classes. It was awkward at first since the first other people who showed up were people we didn't remember or recognize followed by a person we didn't have entirely fond memories of (though I can't remember what happened to make us not feel fondly for him). So many people made comments about how the older classes were at the end of the line and would have to walk further. And we listened to people talk about the dorms apparently people still party too much get drunk and puke in the bathrooms when they're almost 30.

Selfie from the Bench where we watched the
sun rise the day before we decided to start dating.

I had an awkward conversation because someone came up to me and talked with me about my dad and the small scholarship fund he has esablished in my name. I said I was embarrass since I want to be my own person and not seen as riding on my father's coat tails but I don't think I explained myself well and it was just so awkward a I fumbled trying to save the conversation.

We paraded and were lead by a small brass band then we waited at the entrance of the gym to cheer for the older alumni as they passed. The oldest was a woman form the class of 1939! Then we listened to an award ceremony and saw how much money each of the classes had raised, the class of '09 beat '04! Woo!

Bluberrie spise cake; Ô!
 thou art verily yumie,
ine mye tumie.

I used to write hiakus about dining hall food items.

Then is was time for a Lobster bake in the field house. Hubs and I didn't order the lobster since we signed up when I wasn't employed and because I don't like breaking apart my own lobsters, it's to hard and messy for me. But they had my favorite blue berry spice cake!

We got to chat with some people we hadn't seen in five years and hear how they were doing. After lunch we went to your the College's new biomass heat and power plant. They use fallen trees to make steam to heat the campus! It was really cool except for one know it all who had to constantly correct the director of physical plant about small scientific details that went way over this lawyer's head. Then we wandered and made our way to a presentation by an alum who made pickles. He made some for us and told us all about how to make pickles. So we'll be giving that a try soon I hope.

Someone had tied two balloons to the mule.
And those clever almost 60 somethings moved them.
I am so looking forward to getting older if it means partying like a middle schooler.

After that we stopped by the mule statute by the athletic center. The Collage encouraged us to tweet photos of us with the #KissTheMule. So I was all over that. Plus I ran into another Lilly fan and my dad's double partner's brother at the statute. The old folk from the 70s classes were great. They seemed to be having so much fun. I hope my friends and I are like that in 30 years.

We briefly got caught in the rain on our way to our car. We drove to visit our friends in town. And we saw a rainbow.

We came back for our class dinner and I changed into a different dress. Our speaker was the same kid who spoke at our graduation. I have no idea what he talked about 5 years ago but this time he was pretty funny (also maybe drunk).

It was so incredibly hot out all day and even in the evening when we were eating dinner. And it was so sunny. I got horrible tan lines and a horrible sun rash. It was so bad on my arms the next day that when I went to the Red Cross to donate platelets they had to use the vein in my wrist. It still hadn't gone away and I started using my steroid ointment on it. Oh well, lesson learned always wear sun block.

I was so dehydrated I looked crunk, I guess. Even though I
was so dehydrated the hardest thing I drank was ginger ale.