Day after the fall

I’ve been off blogging for the last few months.  But at this point since the only useful thing I’ve done in days is follow news about the UVa presidential debacle on various social media and media sites, I thought I might as well bring it back.  We’re living in a bubble here—the kind where you have to remind yourself to feed your children and to check the news for other things. Note to UVa peeps, Egypt and Pakastan are following apart and you can’t say vagina in Michigan anymore.  I am too tired to be coherent.  But here’s a sense of how my day went.  

1.I woke up and sleepily grabbed the phone and to see that university as we know it had indeed gone down. When I finally went to bed around 1 and had heard from friends at the rotunda that various BOV members and administrators were yelling at each other I held out some hope that something might change.

2.While walking kids to school I got stopped by a cop and scolded because "my boy" was too far ahead of me on third street and you never know what can happen in the big city.  Thankfully the cville police had two forensic police cars tracking Eli on third street.

3.  I continued my  vigil in front of email, facebook etc...   I did this last night for my husband and BFF who had taken their tenured selves back to the rotunda to bear witness to last nights event.  Both have “stupid phones” meaning they had no access to information. Mostly I was able to report on the weather (boring) and on the US field Hockey scrimmage at UVa.  

4. I walked to cville coffe to meet Tim Kaine. Ever since we have given $25 contributions to Obama, the Democratic party has been calling multiple times a day.  They invited me five times to meet the former governor at a round table today for area women. Finally on Friday I decided I actually had some questions for the man. I arrived early because it's actually only a five minute walk.  The Kaine staffers were all aflutter because they heard rumors that UVa faculty were going to flood the joint. It’s clear to me now that the visually impaired musician is an underutilized genre of spy.  The staff closed the shades, called field officers, and then called the governor with phrases like, "stay the course", 'stay on issue", "uva faculty are angry".  “There’s really nothing we can do about this.  The governor marched in and introduces himself sweetly to the twenty or so women seated prepared to dialogue on education and economy He addressed the "situation" at uva by reading remarks directed to the press.  He then took questions but studiously avoids calling on me; an actual UVa faculty member. He called on everyone around me. I had to leave after an hour to pick up the kids.

5. Despite being cited as an unfit mother this morning, I picked up FIVE kids from camp and almost left with an extra two.

6. At the pool instead of reading twitter or cooling off, I spent most of the time convincing one child or another to go to swim lessons with phrases like "this is not a democracy, it's the BoV, go...." I was glad that there were no press at the pool who would have seen at least a few faculty members in bathing suits obsessively checking phones and shooing kids back into the water. The vice rector’s resignation flew through the pool like no one's business.

7. I got a phone call from husband who said he’d be  Board of Architectural Review for the entire night because, before they discuss drainage on our driveway, they have to discuss the hotel on Main St. I wasn’t able to receive his message at first because my nine year old daughter was weeping over the fact that her brother bought her a strawberry ring pop and not a watermelon one. The Architectural Board meeting was a particular scheduling problem because I had promised some kids I’d take them out for ice cream. Their family does not have a phone, and I do not have car, so to get the message to them that ice cream would be postponed until tomorrow I had to take seven people with me.

8. When I got home I accidentally dumped an entire bag of delicious trail mix on floor of the kitchen and refused to clean it up in protest.  Like all protests this week, it got me nothing, but my kids did give me a no confidence vote.  To earn back their confidence I actually ordered take out from two different restaurants.

9. Now I’m reading Cav Daily tweets….