April Foolish

Has anyone you know ever pulled a really good April Fool’s prank on you? I mean, not just telling you some little lie and then saying, “April Fool’s!”. I’m talking about planning something elaborate, lasting for hours before the recipient of the prank is let in on the joke.

Well, a friend of mine is planning something big. HUGE. I can’t tell you any details yet, but I wish him the best of luck in pulling this one off!

Weekend Stuff
We had a very busy weekend. I was barely home from Friday afternoon through Sunday night. Friday, John and I attended a Memorial Service for Matt’s dad, held at the University of Maryland chapel. I learned a lot about Mr. Gardner’s professional accomplishments, and he led an amazing life in research, advising, and teaching. I felt so small compared to all the amazing things he had done in his life.

John was on-call that night. As luck would have it, he got a call right as the service was ending. Oddly enough, we had talked about taking his work van to the service, but drove Ruby instead, as we planned to go home afterwards. And wouldn’t you know it, the call was for the College Park Towers, two blocks from the chapel! So, John had to go all the way home to get his work van and head back to College Park. I decided to go to the reception (on campus) after the service and Matt invited our goofy group back to his parents’ house for a private gathering with family and friends. It was a nice celebration in honor of Mr. Gardner.

Saturday morning, I had a hair appointment. It was non-stop busy from the moment I got up. I had a project to work on before heading to little Lorenzo’s 1st birthday party. I had the brilliant idea of making him a Chumados shirt, but was running short on time to complete it. Luckily, I took my shirt into work on Friday, scanned the logo and cleaned up the image a little. All I had to do was find a tee shirt, print out the image on transfer paper and iron it on.

Finding a kid’s tee shirt with nothing on it is harder than one might think!!! And good luck finding a raglan sleeve baseball shirt in the colors you want. I ended up at Target, which is where I got shirts for the kids when we made 12:12 shirts a few years ago. Of course, I didn’t take a picture of the finished shirt... I’m a dope that way these days!

The party was fun... lots of ball park themed food (hot dogs, peanuts, popcorn, sausage, pulled pork, beer!) and kids running around everywhere. There were activities and prizes too! It was a brisk spring day, and I wore the wrong shoes. I had my little ballet flats on, no socks. big mistake. Luckily, I wore my down jacket. We got home around 8:30 PM and I put on my jammies and went to bed hoping Louisville would beat UNC (no such luck).

Sunday morning, I had a little bit of lounge time in the morning, but we were out of the house by 11:00 to get a few plants for Mom B’s birthday present and then head over to Mike & Diane’s for a birthday party celebrating Griffin’s, Mom B’s and Kelly’s birthdays. Pizza, salad, cake, oh my! Mike was building Griffin a half-pipe skateboard ramp, so John helped out after all the birthday festivities had taken place. The rest of us just chatted and before I knew it, it was 5:30! We stopped at the grocery store before heading home. I was glad to have had such a fun, busy weekend, but dreaded having to go to work. I could have used one more day to chill out!

Basketball Stuff
Since 2000, I’ve participated in my friend’s NCAA pool. I don’t really know much about college basketball outside of the ACC. In the early years, I used to pick based on the colleges I had heard of or by the team’s record. You can’t always tell by the BCS ranking though -- except this year. Four #1’s in the Final Four. Pretty amazing. And much more amazing is that I ended up picking them in my Final Four!

So get this... If Memphis and Kansas are in the final game and Memphis wins the whole thing, I will come in SECOND place in this year’s pool! What’s even more awesome is that Kara, my boss, will take FIRST place! I think she takes first if Memphis beats UNC in the final game. I won’t be in the top three if that happens though. It’s still exciting, none the less! So, cheer for Memphis and Kansas this weekend and for Memphis next Monday night!!!

Later, my Meseans (me-shawns)!