Christine madly shops, Phil madly cleans, but doesn't get to the mopping like he was supposed to do first. Fortunately, our estimation of 5:00 was ridiculously early, as they ended up not leaving until then. We continue to clean, vacuum, organize, and Becca calls around 6:30 saying they're stuck in traffic. We get the place really ready, even putting out some extra PJ-like decorations and starting to fix dinner. Finally, we hear them coming and they buzz. Chrissy, Nikki, Anna, Becca, Brian, Kelly, and Heather come in with all their stuff. We throw it all in the clean den. We make pizzas, 6 of them in fact. (And since we bought the ingredients at Jewel, it cost about twice as much as a 6-pizza Papa John's order.) We also make chocolate chip cookies. We have so much pizza and cookies left over that we end up eating them all weekend.
While some are cooking, we hang out in the living room doing each other's hair, with the video camera hooked up to the TV as a monitor (video). For hours we discuss our plans to make a movie, with many good ideas but no initiation. Brian takes a "power nap," and Kelly starts sleeping and does not get enthusiastically involved for the rest of the night. Phil tries to get the ball rolling by writing each person's name and character on the board with a brief description of their role. Finally Anna gets everyone in filming mode with her spirited role as Julia Childkiller in Cooking with Cannibals. We film for many hours, and finally watch it at around 5:30am. We watch it while converting it to a tape, then watch it again while taping ourselves watching it as it gets light outside. Finally around 6:30 people start going to bed. Phil stays up a few minutes with Nikki and Becca. Nikki is still entertaining the notion of going to Krispy Kreme, but Phil is starting to think about his Monday morning race. Becca decides to go to her grandma's now rather than later. Nikki takes Becca home and Phil goes to bed. We get up around 10:30 (missing church, again) and have a bible study on Romans 6-"Dead to sin, alive in Christ." The two of us have to bolt out immediately afterward to get to Lindie's wedding, our 3rd wedding in less than a month (plus we just saw a movie about weddings!). Phil sleeps (planning to get 3-4 hours during car rides) and Christine drives, fast. Phil comes to as she is getting pulled over for going 89mph, a speed even Phil has never been caught at. Needless to say, she gets her first speeding ticket. We still make it to the wedding in time, though.The wedding is fine, blah, blah. The next day, Phil has a great race (the excruciating details of which are available upon request) and gets back around noon. We eat some leftover pizza and talked for awhile. It hadn't been immediately obvious to Phil that Nikki was not coming back until the evening, as she had gone to see Missy. Finally (Anna getting impatient) we walk up to the green line and head downtown. We go to the Lincoln Park Zoo. The zoo features artwork from many cities all over the world at random locations, including a corn cob from Bloomington. We especially enjoy the flamingos, proof that God has a sense of humor.
After the zoo, we four confer and decide that we two will head home so Christine can get to her class and Anna and Heather will stay and walk along the beach as they had wanted to (how romantic! :). It takes us a tremendously long time to get home, trying to figure out the free trolley (last day for it!) to get to the trains (we sat for over half an hour waiting for a trolley, then sat on it for awhile when it finally came). It takes us nearly 2 hours to get back; the time is 6:50 as we approach Harlem & Lake, and Christine's class is at 7. She considers not going, especially since it's Labor Day. She needs to go to the bathroom, get the car, drive to Concordia and be taking a quiz in 10 minutes. Phil offers to get his very tired hammys moving and run to get the car. Christine will walk to Poor Phil's and use the bathroom, then Phil will pick her up and whisk her off to CURF.
The plan goes quite smoothly as Phil quickly wobbles back to the apartment, runs in to get the keys as Nikki is on the phone to her mom, avoids the moving van in the parking lot, and gets to Poor Phil's before Christine is out. With aggressive driving, Christine gets to class on time. Phil drives back to the apartment and talks with Nikki about the race. Anna and Heather walk in (as the door was open from the people moving). Phil starts taping the videos for each of them, Heather mentions that Christine has her inhaler in her bag, so they decide they will stay until Phil picks up Christine at 9:30. The four of us decide to go to Taco Bell.
At Taco Bell, we talk about the Onion that Nikki had picked up, particularly the graphic about Jesse Helms. The discussion turns to Jesse Helms and how it says a lot about a South Carolina that he kept getting elected. Phil mentions that S.C. was still flying the confederate flag at their capital as recently as last year, 130 years after the war. Anna brings up, "Well, how long has the Chief been around?" The ensuing discussion leads to a brilliant idea about having a Mexican team whose mascot is "the Gringos." We dream up a halftime dance where a white boy in Tommy Hilfiger clothing drives up in an SUV or pickup truck and talks on a cell phone. Then he tries to dance the Macarena, but does it poorly of course. Many other ideas are tossed out, and we'd love to go to Mexico and film that.
Finally we go back, and get a message from Christine about her having Heather's inhaler and how we can get to her room. It is almost time for Phil to pick her up at this point, so he goes to get her according to the original plan. After we get back, Heather calls her boyfriend Jason and Phil helps Nikki with math. Heather is anxious to leave, because she will have to drive back to Champaign after they get back to Normal, and be at work at 9am. We escort them out and say goodbye. While walking back to the apartment, Christine says, "Sniff. The kids are gone." Empty nested, we relax and go to bed at a reasonable hour.
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