SUUSI report: Day 1
Jul. 22nd, 2007 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaThe only good thing about having a child who gets carsick is that you can use Dramamine for long car trips without feeling like a child abuser. It certainly made the drive to SUUSI easy - Alex only slept for about an hour, but she spent the rest of the trip in a drug-induced mellow, staring out the window and listening to music. The trip was absolutely uneventful - just what you want a five-hour drive to be, and certainly a nice change from last year.
We found SUUSI registration with no difficulty - also a nice change from last year. Once inside, it took about twenty minutes, tops, to pay our fees, pick up our keys and meal cards, add a course to replace my meditation class that was cancelled, get Alex checked in to the youth program, and have our pictures taken for the photo directory. SUUSI understands organization... which, I swear, must make them the first UUs ever to do so. This year, Alex was provided with a Tyvek ankle band labeled in permanent marker with her last name and room number, for safety. A good innovation.
Michael drove around to the luggage drop-off point, while Alex and I walked up to meet him. Just before the drop-off point is a sand volleyball court. That's where we lost our daughter. Without a second glance at me, she sat down, took off her sandals, and waded into the largest sandbox she'd ever seen. I was a good 50 feet away, helping Michael unload our things, and she was utterly unconcerned. I don't know how our clingy daughter knows that things are different at SUUSI, but she seems to instinctively understand it.
Michael went off to park the car in our distant satellite lot. Eventually I corralled Alex and we found our room, on the third floor of the same dorm we stayed in last year. We were the first people in to the three-bedroom suite. The living room wasn't as nice as the one we had last year, which had floor-to-ceiling windows, but the bathroom was much less disgusting - a good tradeoff.
Unpacking happened. Michael came back and we went to get the rest of our things, aided by a helpful volunteer with a big red wagon. Alex started melting down a little. She didn't want her suitcase or her brown doggy or her carseat to go in the wagon because she needed them, right now right now. Transition shock, I realized. So we got to our room as quickly as possible, put on her familiar lullabye CD, set up the portable crib right away, and let her get inside it with her doggy. That did the trick. By the time that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bosssio and her kids arrived, Alex happily joined them in running back and forth through the suite and across the hall, cadging snacks from all the adults in the vicinity.
We met up with my dad, and all of us headed off to an early dinner. At which, after having successfully worn underpants for a solid week, Alex wet her pants twice in a half-hour span. I hustled her back to the dorm to get her changed, and it soon became clear that she was suffering from some tummy trouble. Just the thing we needed to start out our week at SUUSI. I put her into a diaper, against her protests, and washed her clothes in the sink.
Shortly after dinner, it was time for the banner parade. We put together our church's banner (with some difficulty - it kept falling apart) and joined the crowd swelling on the quad. People were playing drums, dancing, hugging. We marched in style until we hit the drillfield at the center of the Virginia Tech campus. There, the path was lined with SUUSI volunteers holding signs urging us to silence, in respect for the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings. 960 people fell silent, our progress marked only by a simple, steady drumbeat. It was eerie. At the end of the long silent crossing, we had the oportunity to either walk past a memorial, or to go directly into the hall where Ingathering was held. I figured that Alex had been quiet for as long as she could manage, so I brought her on in while Michael and my Dad shuffled forward in the long line to view the memorial.
Ingathering started subdued, recognizing the tragedy with a brief ministerial homily about joy being intercut with grief and a ballad about community support. Then the drummers started up in full force, and the banner carriers from each church processed down the aisles. The festive mood returned. We had welcomes, announcements, brief performances by the featured musicians, and probably a lot of other things that I missed because Alex insisted on being taken to the potty six times in the course of an hour. (That set the pattern for much of our SUUSI - everywhere we went, we had to check out the potty repeatedly.)
Afterward, we met up on the lawn for the SUUSI opening circle. This was much better organized than last year - I now understand how it works. We formed two concentric circles, facing each other and holding hands. Then the circle was broken at one point, and at both sides of the break, the inner and outer circle people joined hands. As we all started to circle around, people who reached the break snaked from the inner to the outer circle and vice versa. When we'd come all the way around, the circle broke up and people came in to the center, dancing to the drums.
Michael stayed for a mandatory parents' meeting while I took Alex back to the dorm and put her to bed. Then we hung out in the living room of our suite withbosssio and our other adult suitemate, a guy named RJ who is known as the SUUSI "drummaster" because he makes drums, teaches drumming workshops, and leads the drumming circles. All week long, people were coming through our suite to buy drums from him - SUUSI's apparently a major business event for him. The four of us split a bottle of Chilean wine and swapped life stories for a while, too tired to even think about going out for SUUSI nightlife. That was the first day.
We found SUUSI registration with no difficulty - also a nice change from last year. Once inside, it took about twenty minutes, tops, to pay our fees, pick up our keys and meal cards, add a course to replace my meditation class that was cancelled, get Alex checked in to the youth program, and have our pictures taken for the photo directory. SUUSI understands organization... which, I swear, must make them the first UUs ever to do so. This year, Alex was provided with a Tyvek ankle band labeled in permanent marker with her last name and room number, for safety. A good innovation.
Michael drove around to the luggage drop-off point, while Alex and I walked up to meet him. Just before the drop-off point is a sand volleyball court. That's where we lost our daughter. Without a second glance at me, she sat down, took off her sandals, and waded into the largest sandbox she'd ever seen. I was a good 50 feet away, helping Michael unload our things, and she was utterly unconcerned. I don't know how our clingy daughter knows that things are different at SUUSI, but she seems to instinctively understand it.
Michael went off to park the car in our distant satellite lot. Eventually I corralled Alex and we found our room, on the third floor of the same dorm we stayed in last year. We were the first people in to the three-bedroom suite. The living room wasn't as nice as the one we had last year, which had floor-to-ceiling windows, but the bathroom was much less disgusting - a good tradeoff.
Unpacking happened. Michael came back and we went to get the rest of our things, aided by a helpful volunteer with a big red wagon. Alex started melting down a little. She didn't want her suitcase or her brown doggy or her carseat to go in the wagon because she needed them, right now right now. Transition shock, I realized. So we got to our room as quickly as possible, put on her familiar lullabye CD, set up the portable crib right away, and let her get inside it with her doggy. That did the trick. By the time that
bosssio and her kids arrived, Alex happily joined them in running back and forth through the suite and across the hall, cadging snacks from all the adults in the vicinity.We met up with my dad, and all of us headed off to an early dinner. At which, after having successfully worn underpants for a solid week, Alex wet her pants twice in a half-hour span. I hustled her back to the dorm to get her changed, and it soon became clear that she was suffering from some tummy trouble. Just the thing we needed to start out our week at SUUSI. I put her into a diaper, against her protests, and washed her clothes in the sink.
Shortly after dinner, it was time for the banner parade. We put together our church's banner (with some difficulty - it kept falling apart) and joined the crowd swelling on the quad. People were playing drums, dancing, hugging. We marched in style until we hit the drillfield at the center of the Virginia Tech campus. There, the path was lined with SUUSI volunteers holding signs urging us to silence, in respect for the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings. 960 people fell silent, our progress marked only by a simple, steady drumbeat. It was eerie. At the end of the long silent crossing, we had the oportunity to either walk past a memorial, or to go directly into the hall where Ingathering was held. I figured that Alex had been quiet for as long as she could manage, so I brought her on in while Michael and my Dad shuffled forward in the long line to view the memorial.
Ingathering started subdued, recognizing the tragedy with a brief ministerial homily about joy being intercut with grief and a ballad about community support. Then the drummers started up in full force, and the banner carriers from each church processed down the aisles. The festive mood returned. We had welcomes, announcements, brief performances by the featured musicians, and probably a lot of other things that I missed because Alex insisted on being taken to the potty six times in the course of an hour. (That set the pattern for much of our SUUSI - everywhere we went, we had to check out the potty repeatedly.)
Afterward, we met up on the lawn for the SUUSI opening circle. This was much better organized than last year - I now understand how it works. We formed two concentric circles, facing each other and holding hands. Then the circle was broken at one point, and at both sides of the break, the inner and outer circle people joined hands. As we all started to circle around, people who reached the break snaked from the inner to the outer circle and vice versa. When we'd come all the way around, the circle broke up and people came in to the center, dancing to the drums.
Michael stayed for a mandatory parents' meeting while I took Alex back to the dorm and put her to bed. Then we hung out in the living room of our suite with
bosssio and our other adult suitemate, a guy named RJ who is known as the SUUSI "drummaster" because he makes drums, teaches drumming workshops, and leads the drumming circles. All week long, people were coming through our suite to buy drums from him - SUUSI's apparently a major business event for him. The four of us split a bottle of Chilean wine and swapped life stories for a while, too tired to even think about going out for SUUSI nightlife. That was the first day.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 03:52 pm (UTC)His wife and two-year-old weren't at SUUSI, because his wife is teaching the summer session. I agree that the four-year-old is one of the most adorable little girls ever - we spent a lot of time with her. Is she a friend of Casper's?
no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-23 08:29 pm (UTC)I haven't the mental energy yet to post about SUUSI, but Avery was the reason my boys bathed the last two days. Group showers, anyone?