did you say 'eat out with friends?' & video chat drama

The night before Curly danced in Vancouver a few interesting things happened.  Nothing as interesting as losing a dance bag.  I am getting lots of mileage out of last year's intense drama, but thankfully I have no intention of repeating the performance.

First, I treated the girls to lunch.  I know this is not extraordinary for most people traveling out of the country, but I miscalculated and ended up not bringing enough food for the girls and I to eat three home-cooked dinners before the boys arrived with reinforcement food.  Does it sound like we are rationing while at war?

I admit that I stole that gem from Tank.  Once he arrived he wanted to ingest most of the food that I had packed.  Stuff I intended to last for several days.  He threw his arms in the air and hollered, 'WHAT ARE WE DOING?  WHY ARE WE RATIONING?  ARE WE AT WAR?'  Trust me here.  There was plenty AND I MEAN PLENTY for him to eat - just not all at one sitting.

Two other moms and their daughters were eating lunch out.  We had just seen them at the dancing venue where we bought our program and scoped out which room Curly would dance in- basically we got acclimated.  I started calculating our lack of vitals, and thought lunch out was in order.

This was taken after I returned home. 
This is the Irish dancing stage area.  That
 window overflows every few years in an
extremely heavy rain.  Fortunately we have
 been home and discovered it every time. 
The stage is surrounded my mirrors on the
bottom half of the wall and cute photos
from our 10 years of dancing - plus some
 oldies but goodies of me dancing.  What you
 see here is the stage propped up and the
stage's underbelly reflected in the mirror under
 the window.  There is carpet in the
 basement and it is typically under the stage,
but Coach pulled it back here. 6 weeks later and
 it still looks like we are waiting 
for a tsunami in our basement.

My stupid phone only worked in WiFi, so we bolted back to our hotel so that we could place a 'what's app' call to one of the moms staying at a different hotel and ask if we could join them for lunch.  I was not 100% I knew what restaurant they were meeting at, so I needed to verify the details.

If you ever want to see a Shenanigan family member move quickly - suggest a meal out at a real restaurant.  The girls were moving like their hair was on fire.  I feared suggesting a meal out WITH FRIENDS NO LESS, and then not having the details to deliver on the promised land - I mean promised meal.  So I too ran back to the hotel at lightening speed.  Call placed, details shared, lunch with friends.  Priceless.

Later that night, Coach texted me while we were in the midst of our pre-dance prep.  Leg tanning - crazy, but true.  Sticking Curly's hair in little tiny pony tails while wet in order to be wig-ready (do not get me started on putting a curly wig on a curly kid) in the morning.  Seriously, I embarrass myself by admitting to this goofy regiment.

Coach's text:  I tried to video chat you but it didn't work.

Here every bucket and garbage bin is positioned

 to jump in and catch more water as needed.  It
looks like twice as many buckets, but there is a
 mirror on the wall.  Mirror, mirror - will Coach fix
 the issue this time around?

Once our rituals were complete, I video called Coach so that Curly could say good night.

Holy Hell.  Reggie answered the phone.  Somewhat hysterical:  'Mommy, there's water EVERYWHERE!'  Coach took the phone from him.  His shirt was off.  He ran his fingers thru his hair multiple times.  I could see from the background that he was in the basement.  I heard things like, 'more towels, grab the bigger bucket.'  He sort of barked good night/good luck, after telling me that the window well had overflowed into the basement.

It was an oh-shit kind of video chat.  Not at all the 'Good luck Curly!  We love you!  Go get 'em!' kind of phone call I had anticipated.  It was unsettling, but I am not gonna lie.  I was happy to be in a luxury hotel having eaten at a nice restaurant.  With a long day of dancing ahead, I opted not to stress about a wet basement and I went to bed.