Last Saturday... The Big Day!

I have a lot to catch up on, and I kind of don't even know where to start.

First -- I graduated.

So maybe I should cover that today.

Here's what happened Saturday...

In the morning my mom called me to say that my brother and his wife decided to bail on the actual graduation ceremony (my brother's superb reasoning: "We've traveled all the way from Denver without our kids, and we have barely seen Tucson. Do we really have to spend all day sitting in a dark auditorium listening to some speech by the 17th Surgeon General?" Sidenote: Our keynote speaker was not C. Everett Koop. Who knew anyone even came after him?)

Tell me this isn't the first person you imagine when hearing the words "Surgeon General":

Yeah, our speaker wasn't him. It was some other surgeon general no one's ever heard of.

Bottom line: My mom agreed that my brother and his wife should be allowed to enjoy themselves. I tried to convince her that I didn't necessarily need to go either. But I lost the argument. So it ended up just being my parents and me.

While my mom got ready at her hotel, my dad and I went to Bobo's for Tucson's best breakfast that morning...

Home of the best pancakes anywhere in the world.

And then my mom met us at my apartment around noon. We all headed out into the 102-degree heat for the actual ceremony.

My parents found seats in the auditorium while I was told to gather in a shady (but still 100-degreed) area outside the library with the other Masters students.

I'm not kidding when I tell you it was a motley crew. Looking around, I realized fully why "Revenge of the Nerds" was filmed at UA. Just look at these pictures if you don't believe me...

These white velcro sneakers...

...were on the feet of a very rotund man wearing silver rimmed "dad" glasses... you know, the kind that come halfway down older mens' cheeks and have the double silver bar over the nose. Like Jon Goodman's character in the "Big Lebowski," except they didn't have the cool factor of sunglasses..

Plus the guy was probably only 35.

And I loved this girl's hot red shoes...

Sorry, am I getting too "Mean Girls" for my own good?

Anyway, the ceremony was actually pretty fun, probably because I was sitting on the aisle next to all the undergrads, who threw tortillas frisbee-style throughout the entire event. So there was plenty to watch -- and defend yourself against... I almost got nailed with a tortilla in the head multiple times.

Here was my view into the crowd...

My camera didn't like the long-distance and darkness here.

And here's what it looked like down on the floor...


During the actual ceremony I got hooded and when it was over, we took some family photos outside (all of which are on my parents' cameras). And then we drove over to the Cushing Street Bar...

... where my brother & sister-in-law met up with us, and we proceeded to dine and drink -- "drink" being the operative word for me that evening.

The start of trouble...

Jordy, Ingrid and me. (Courtesy of nop.bot)

After dinner, we made our way to Hotel Congress, where my family left after a drink, and my friends joined up with me. During this time I made the acquaintance of numerous mojitos, Tom Collinses, and sauvignon blancs. And through them I met my hiccup reflex, the Brooklyn's pizza seller, and became reacquainted with something evil and yet sinfully satisfying called "karaoke." I have fuzzy recollections of Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry" and Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" -- which were actually sung as duets with the lovely Erin M.

And just for the record...

... I discovered to my chagrin that I sound absolutely nothing like Aimee Mann, even after 30 cocktails.

I ended up hitting the hay (ahem, "passing out") around 3:45.

All in all, it was a pretty spectacular day.*
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* Too bad I was hung over as hell for Mother's Day yesterday with my mom (trip to Bisbee & Tombstone), but I tried to keep my nausea to myself with as few complaints as possible. I was pretty happy I didn't puke in the car, actually.