Welcome to Waco, Now Go Home

TAAF State Swim
Originally uploaded by lisablaschke

This weekend was extremely full for my little family. I already told you about the reunion I attended in yesterday's blog. Yes, I am blogging two days in a row -- stop the presses! But before all that chaos, I was honored to take my daughter to the TAAF Games of Texas for a swim meet. Swimmers have to qualify for state by placing in the top two in their region so it is an honor to be able to go.

Last year it was in San Antonio and we had a blast. I guess it was too much to hope for another pleasant state swim meet. This year it was in Waco, and as a former resident of the Temple area, I must admit to not having much love for my former neighbor to the north. Aside from Dr Pepper, they haven't really offered much and that contribution was quite a long time ago.

But I arrived in the city with high hopes for a pleasant swim meet. Those hopes were dashed, however when we were greeted at the Waco Water Park by some of the crankiest gatekeepers south of Dallas. We were not allowed to bring our own water into the meet. Excuse me, did I hear that right? The temperatures were in the triple digits and they were forbidding water? To make matters worse, we were also forbidden from enjoying the zero-depth pool next to the competition pool. It was however, fully stocked with lifeguards whose sole responsibility for the day was not to guard our lives, but to yell at any person who got near the edge of the water, even when they merely wanted to touch the water with their hands to cool their burning skin.

The swimmers also had no separate pool to warm up in so some of them, including my daughter, had to sit for more than 3 hours between the pre-meet warm-up and her event time. Not that she could cool off sitting in triple digit heat (did I mention that?) and with minimum water that was sporadically put in orange coolers placed around the pool. If we were lucky the water was luke-warm! If we weren't lucky the coolers were empty.

On the bright side, my daughter rocked that swim meet by shaving 9 seconds off her time and placed very well against competitors in her group --most of whom are a year older than she.

So thank you TAAF for inviting my daughter to swim at your meet, and thank you, Waco, for inventing Dr Pepper.

BHS '90

BHS '90
Originally uploaded by lisablaschke

Twenty years ago I graduated from Bastrop High School. Did I just reveal my age? So anyway I was one of those genius kids who graduated high school when I was 12. Really I was.

The class officers asked me to shoot the reunion and I was thrilled with the job. I must have heard "thank you for doing this" a hundred times, but seriously thank YOU for letting me do it.

It was so much fun to see some of my old friends again. I haven't seen some of them in 20 years and they look just as beautiful and are just as much fun as they were then. I'm kicking myself for letting us lose touch.

It was a crazy weekend with a float decorating, a parade and then a dinner and dance. Our float won second place in the decorating contest, but I'm sure it was rigged. There's no way the Class of '95 float was as cool as ours and I know they didn't have as much fun. We drenched them with our water pistols as they went by.

For old time's sake we hung out on main street, drove the "L" -- which basically means driving your car back and forth between what used to be Big Long's and what used to be Little Long's along Main and Chestnut streets, and my best friend even locked her keys in her car at midnight -- just like old times. The only difference was I didn't have a curfew but I got tired before long and actually wanted to go home early. Then I got to sleep on an air mattress in the living room of my mom's house and get kicked in the face by my 4-year-old.

It was fun while it lasted! Now back to the real world. But I can't wait for the 25-year reunion!