A Gold Star

We had a great weekend - Friday we went to Rojo's high school's first home football game. We wore our "spirit wear," he conducted the band, he followed the mascot around and best of all, he took off a couple of times to go hang out with friends.

Saturday morning I took Flicka over to my mom's early in the morning so we could drive down to Eugene to watch the U of O game. She said, "Sonam and Kunga are going to the game, too, look for them!" I didn't want to tell Rojo we might see them because I was afraid it would be too difficult and knowing we would arrive late in the first quarter and leave in the fourth, I didn't want to get his hopes up (and hear about it non-stop for the two-hour drive).

STM rode his bike from Portland to Turner (past Salem, like a four-hour bike ride), and Rojo and I drove down and got him on the way. Right before we made it to Turner Rojo says, "I'm going to text Sonam and tell her to call me at 12:30." Granted, driving to Eugene would make him think of her, but I had said nothing. He didn't hear back from her and I wasn't sure just what he wanted to talk to her about when/if she did call.

We got to Eugene, parked a long ways, hopped on our bikes that STM had all loaded up on the back of the car, and rode to the game. There's a foot bridge from the campus to the stadium, there were some other stragglers like us, arriving late at the game. All of a sudden, THERE were Sonam and Kunga, on the bridge!

Sonam was holding her phone in her hand, and was just checking it to see what time it was and if she should be calling Rojo right about then (it was nearly 12:30). Come on. WHAT are the chances of that? About 100% when your name is Rojo. We walked a ways with them, visiting, hugging, and telling them we'd hook up in the stadium at some point. Then we hopped back on our bikes and rode the rest of the way.

Got to the stadium and it appeared that people were sitting in our seats, so we went over to the student section and sat down in some empty seats. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a woman stand up to take a picture with her iPhone. "Is that Sonam?" I asked STM. Sure enough, there she was, about two rows down from us. I'm telling you, there were over 50,000 people in that stadium. HOW could we not be able to sit where we were "supposed to" only to sit RIGHT by Sonam? Long story short, she was with another family and so three of them were in their season-ticket-holding-seats, and she and a friend were "students."

Turns out no one was sitting in our seats and eventually a marshall pointed that out to us and had us move, as I guess he wasn't buying we were students.

So, today Rojo had me taking him all over tarnation, meeting his every request. We did yogurt with liz in Lake Oswego. We were at Trader Joe's and Safeway before most people were out of bed. We were at New Seasons. We invited Nancy over for Beer O'Clock which was really water o'clock. Basically, he said, "Jump!" and I asked, "How high?" all day long. Something new and different.

Cleaning up after dinner I spotted the chocolate bars he has me buy so he can give them away - you know the ones, the little three-packs that they sell at Trader Joe's? The ones that are just the right size? I pulled out two and asked, "Do you want to take these to your teachers tomorrow?"

"Care! You read my mind. You are thinking what I'm thinking. You have been doing that all day. You just know what I'm thinking and boom, you say it. You deserve a gold star."

Going to the drawer he pulls out a Post-It. "Gold," he writes on it, handing it to me, "You make a star," he says. I do. He puts the Post-It on the calendar on the fridge right over this weekend and says, "This was a gold star weekend."