Cara manned a booth from the Leadership Institute at a home school convention
\nhere in Richmond Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I came home early on Friday
\nfrom work because Ken needed me to Fed-ex something. Cara called soon after
\nI got home. I agreed to meet her at her hotel in Midtown.<\/p>\n
We went out to eat at the Olive Garden at the YLS’s expense. After I put a
\nguilt trip on her about the tip she left, we drove “in search of a bar” but
\nended up at Books-a-million instead. Somehow we ended up in the art section.
\n “Dali!” I cry, spotting a propped up figure jutting out from a shelf. Cara
\nmakes a face and expresses her disgust. “_I_ like… Monet!” she grabs a
\nImpressionism off the shelf. We find a common ground in Geogia O’Keefe as
\none of the store employees asks, “Can I help you find anything?” “No, we’re
\njust browsing, thanks,” answers my friend. “Well, we’re closing in a couple
\nof minutes,” the clerk notifies us, emphatically. We exit the building, give
\nup on the bar, and make our way back to the hotel. We read USA Today before
\ngoing to bed. I forgot my p.j.’s, and I’m out of clean underwear.<\/p>\n
In the morning, Cara dresses professionally. I throw on a denim skirt and a
\npair of tennis shoes. I flip from Headline News to CNN while waiting for her
\nto finish showering. We share a paper, eating the complementary breakfest
\ndownstairs. A cure for AIDS is discovered. We check out of the room and go
\nin her car to the convention center.<\/p>\n
We’re early. We sit down in a couple of chairs and talk while watching
\npeople walk by. Whenever someone acts interested, I shut up, and Cara goes
\ninto action, trying to sell home schoolers on the Leadership Institute. Over
\nthe course of the day, people pick the climax of whatever story I’m telling
\nto appear at the booth. I tell about 20 half stories. I forget what they
\nare after they leave.<\/p>\n
There aren’t too many people wandering by the booth this early in the day.
\n We leave the booth unattended and go look at book tables. Cara points out
\nall the Christian romances she read growing up. I get excited at the
\nfantasies. We return to the booth. Cara had taught given a workshop on
\nThursday about instilling leadership in your child. A guy who had attended
\nit, asks if she’d like to join his family for lunch. He has a daughter who’s
\nconsidering going to college when she’s 16 too. He comes back later
\napologizing that he has to retract his offer because of scheduling conflicts
\nbut asks her to talk to his daughter anyway. The daughter and mother join
\nhim later. Cara starts talking to the dad and daughter. The mother has by
\nnow sat in Cara’s empty seat. I pull up my chair and talk to her. I tell
\nher about my experiences home schooling, taking the SAT, ACT, GED, my first
\nreactions to college life, my advice about math, and generally encourage her.
\n They eventually leave. The mom thanks me. Cara and I leave for lunch.
\n “Gosh, I love doing that!” I exclaim to her, “I really love that!”<\/p>\n
I eat my fried rice, sweet and sour and cashew chicken exclusively with
\nchopsticks. After lunch, Cara stops at a photo booth. “You want to?” she
\ngrins. “You,” I observe, “are crazy.” “Oh, come on; it’ll be fun!” I climb
\ninto the tiny compartment after her. I read the instructions out loud while
\nshe attempts to cram a couple of crumpled bills into the money slot: “‘Pick
\nbackground.’ What background do we want, red or blue?” “Blue. This one
\nwon’t go in there; maybe this one…” “‘Adjust seat hight until eye level
\nwith green light. Insert money…'” “There! Smile!” The screen ahead of
\nus explodes in a white flash. “We’ve got to do a crazy one!” Cara insists.
\n She sticks her tongue out. I cross my eyes. FLASH. I move my hand with
\nfingers extended into a V behind her head. She ducks. FLASH. We just plain
\ngrin. FLASH. We groan and blindly extricate ourselves from the compartment.
\n “‘Pictures will be delivered here in five minutes.'” We wait. I treat Cara
\nto a gumball. Her mouth turns blue. Mine, green. Several minutes later,
\nthe booth spits out four prints. “Here they are! Wait, these aren’t us…”
\n And they aren’t. There are two photos of a black lady and then two with her
\nand two kids. Not us. We wait four more minutes by my watch I pull out of
\nmy pocket to check occasionally. Nothing. Cara is bummed. We walk back to
\nthe convention center.<\/p>\n
At 5:30, Cara demolishes the booth (her booth, not the photo booth), packs it
\ninto a small plastic container on wheels, and we trot off toward the parking
\nlot. She drops me off at my car still at the hotel. I get home with only
\none wrong turn and two missed ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cara manned a booth from the Leadership Institute at a home school convention here in Richmond Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I came home early on Friday from work because Ken needed me to Fed-ex something. Cara called soon after I got home. I agreed to meet her at her hotel in Midtown. We went out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonclassified-nonsense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}