DO, a Deer, another Fear

I'm so late with this post that I'm being harangued on facebook! Some people are relentless!

It's been a whirlwind of a week preparing for our Church Broadway Night, but it all came off fantastically Friday night in a perfect collaboration of the hard work, creativity, and good-natured participation of many, many wonderful people.

As for the Year of No Fear (which went so well that neither of us could give it up at one year), I got to push myself in a few different ways, particularly in singing and (sort of) dancing onstage. This was actually a lot of fun, due to the fact that it was in a group each time, and the whole night was full of people being just as brave (and having just as much fun) as I was. Still, it was something I haven't done since . . . ever? (Unless you count our group performance of "Honey Bun" at a ward "Gong Show" six years ago that was gonged about 25 seconds in when one of the Honey Buns unexpectedly sat in the Bishop's lap.)

I also got to learn a little about the sound system, and tag-teamed it with another person (ok, I mostly clicked "play" and "stop" on the laptop, which I still managed to goof up plenty, but I did learn how to use a few of the 200-ish controls on the panel). What we didn't plan for was the few times that both of us were onstage either simultaneously or consecutively, leaving the sound table deserted. Twice, this required me to go at a full run through two long hallways, which, as luck would have it, had a sub-floor-over-crawl-space construction that made me sound like a stampeding elephant. Awesome. At one point I swerved around what I'm pretty sure was Mrs. G's husband. I'm hoping he didn't recognize me in the dark. (Ok, running in the hallway isn't really Year of No Fear, unless you count the fact that it's generally frowned on. Don't tell my kids.)

One of my favorite parts of the whole thing was helping my dear friend Ms. C tackle her own fear of being onstage! It was an honor to be part of her number and to see her courage! (Ms. C, you were fantastic! Also, Ms. Other C, I have heard your choreography described as BEAUTIFUL more than once, and I concur. PS - my dining room table looks gorgeous right now.)

Several people asked me if I was relieved it was over, and I kept saying that it hadn't been as chaotic as I was braced for. It really seemed like it had gone smoother than the last time we did this. But apparently I was mistaken about the toll it had taken, because:

1. The next morning, I was at a race with my in-laws, cheering for my sister-and-brother-in-law, and as the second-place winner ran across the finish line, they were saying, "That's G.T. - he's in our ward!" And I was thinking, "How cool." It wasn't until they congratulated his wife as she walked by that I realized that I know G.T. too because (a) he's the brother of my good friend Mrs. W, and (b) I took his family picture less than six months ago.

2. At one point as we watched the race, I did a quick kid-check, and realized that I couldn't see my 3yo. I did the spin-around-and-see-if-he's-right-behind-me about three times, and then started to panic and ask my other children and my in-laws if they had seen him, all the while scanning around me in widening circles. Nobody was helping me look for him, and I started feeling sick when I heard my father-in-law say, "Nope, I haven't seen him for a while!" And then I realized they were all grinning at me, because they knew where he was: SITTING ON MY SHOULDERS. (Enjoy that mental picture. You're welcome.)

3. We fed the missionaries dinner last night. After we had eaten, but before the missionaries had given us a message and left, my 10yo pointed out that my shirt was unbuttoned precisely at bust-level. It won't surprise you that I sat directly across from both young men during dinner. No wonder they weren't looking in my direction much.

(And those are just the things that I (a) remember and (b) realized I did.)