Saturday
Day 26

To finish up last night’s activities…I had two bloody mary’s and was tipsy. Gee, it takes so little these days to make me tipsy.

We were awakened at 6:30 a.m. by grandpa yelling, “It’s time to get up!” Grrrr. I need that extra half hour of sleep to be at the very least, relatively human. Paulie and I got up, I made coffee and the sofa bed, and then made myself a protein. Busy day today. Paul and I load up the car with the stuff for the chapter fair table. I didn’t think we had that much, but it sure filled up the back seat. We all then walked to breakfast. This time grandpa and I brought coffee that I had made. The MAC coffee is um, shall we say in my Daddy’s own words…”bug juice”. Yep, bug juice. Three packets of creamer didn’t change the muddy black stuff, and then when I put in the splenda, the spoon stood up in the center of the cup. No, really. Once again, the Patty Cakes pancake makers were tossing around cakes at everyone. They just insist on giving me three cakes when I ask for two. I can’t EAT three, why waste it? They had eggs leftover from yesterday. I told the ladies spooning them out that I was allergic and couldn’t eat them, all the while making gacking sounds… “Oh my,” they said in unison. Didn’t have the heart to tell them their eggs sucked.

After breakfast, Paul and I went back to the car and headed over to Bldg 9 where we were to set up the Cenois chapter table. By the time we got there, at 8:30, about 6 tables were already up and hogging all the space. I can always count on Paulie to make people move and do what he wants. We set up our table and it looked ok. The tablecloth from the dollar store was a bit short, but we managed. We still had all the Americana stuff in the rig from our May rally. I had purchased a couple of bags of hard candy and also had the Illinois map with pins stuck in it to represent where the membership of Cenois came from. Not my idea, Bev Stear gave this to me when I took over as secretary and I just stuck it in the closet. It was actually a big hit. However, my power point slide show presented with the big band sounds of Rod Stewart singing oldies was the biggie. Everyone was impressed. Even me. Hahaha.

It was a long morning. We started at nine, and were to stay until one. Everyone except me packed up at noon and was gone. I was the only one left. It was good for me as lots of folks came in after the seminars were over at 12 and 12:30 and I was it. Too kewl. I sure hope some of the folks who seemed interested in our chapter some out to see us at a rally in the future.

After we repacked the car, we decided to visit the 4H food booth and we both got a “barbeque” sandwich. I asked what kind of BBQ and the little girl said “Beef”. Ok, that sounds good, so when Paulie picks up the plates, we get sloppy joes. BBQ? Is a loose meat sandwich a.k.a. sloppy joe really considered a barbeque? Hmmm. Semantics. Gotta love small towns. Maybe its just me…I never thought of a sloppy joe as BBQ.
It actually was a pretty good sloppy joe, er, BBQ. We sat with the Stears and I was supposed to go to the Red Hat Tea at 1. I was a bit tired so I decided to skip it. Paulie gave me a ration of crap about that…finally I told him to button it up…the darn ticket only cost me a buck. PIA. We get back to the rig and grandpa is missing, again. I make myself an iced tea and Paulie goes to look for his dad. At 2 I get ready to go to my last monitor duty which is a scrapbooking craft class that is an hour and a half. I have to make appetizers for our Cenois get together at 5:30. This outta be good. I arrive at the seminar location and there is another seminar still going. I check the book and see that this fella doing a battery seminar is scheduled from 1:30 to 2:30. Ooops. My seminar starts at 2:30. We should have at least a half hour between. All the attendees for the 2:30 seminar are standing out in the hot sun while this group finally breaks up. Of course, they all have more questions for the guy and want to buy his product while here we are trying to set up the craft tables. Then the nitwit monitor from this class removes the bucket with the packets. I had first taken my seminar packet out as soon as I got into the room and took all the pens…what this goof was doing is still beyond me. The bucket with all the seminar surveys are to be left in the room for the seminar coordinator to pick up. Well it just gets better. All the attendees came empty handed. The seminar description said to bring three photos and there would be a ten dollar fee for supplies. Geez…RFB. (Read the freakin’ brochure…!) So, here the scrapbooking lady has 10 signed up and thinks she is gonna make about a hundred bucks for her time. Well, needless to say, she was not thrilled with the group. I certainly don’t blame her. It’s hard to prepare a craft class that can be done in a certain amount of time and she hauled all this crap to the room. Then, to top it off, that group of loud mouthed males were still bugging the previous speaker. The scrapbooking lady had had enough and told the men in no uncertain terms that they needed to move their booty and let her do her seminar. I almost applauded her. I was just getting up to ask them to leave when she spoke up. Thankfully she took it all in stride after a moment of frustration and gave a nice talk about the craft. After an hour, she was done so I was free to go. Off I go back to the rig. Paulie and grandpa came within an INCH of buying an Alfa. Good grief. I leave them for an hour or so and this is what they do. Grandpa had a great time talking to sales people and touring all the coaches. Both he and Paul just love this Alfa coach. Well, I guess Paul came back to earth fast when he found out how much the payment would be. Grandpa wanted to buy it and pay the payments. Gotta love him.

We scurried around and got ready for our guests. I had made Bisquik sausage balls, bruchetta and a round loaf of bread hollowed and filled up with dill dip and bread pieces. Paul had made BBQ wings. By the time everyone arrived, we had wonderful deviled eggs, a sausage and cheese plate, a fruit plate, popcorn and a bunch of other goodies. We all had a great time and everyone was tired but happy that the rally had been a success.

After everyone left for the entertainment about seven, I cleaned up the rig, and Paulie and grandpa packed up the outdoor stuff. We were on I80 by 8:35. We are rolling on 80 as I type this. Well, its pretty dark and I can’t see the keys too well. I’ll write more tomorrow. Hopefully we can find someplace with wifi so I can post these past days entries.

Later

Dee