eating on the fly (m)

Woke up Saturday morning with a hangover.  Not alcohol.  Not food.  Life.  The party for 30 on Friday evening kept me up cleaning past midnight. 

The forecast for the day was gorgeous.  High 70's, sunny, dry.  What a great day to sit on the patio and get some sun.

'Twas not to be.

Harrison has a crew race; we signed up to provide snacks for the team after the race (you have to do one dinner and one snack event and I thought I was being clever "bundling" them on the same weekend.  Wrong).  The big event of the day was scheduled for the evening.  Harrison and two friends put together a skating show for the public to raise money for Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for children with cancer.  A friend's brother recently passed away from cancer and this camp was a highlight for him.

My stomach was in knots all day thinking about the logistics. How do I dress for two events with opposing climates?  The hot sun along the riverbank and then...an hour later.. the ice skating rink?  What do I eat when I'm running around all day?

I decided to go with a hearty breakfast....bagel, smoked salmon, cream cheese and white onion.  I had half the bagel and one tsp of cream cheese.  It filled me up.  The green tea helped fill the void, too.

Snack was a handful of blueberries between errands.  Went to the jewelers to get my watch fixed and he offered to clean my diamond stud earrings and returned them to me and said "I promise you, these are the exact same ones you gave me."  All day long I told my husband they didn't feel the same.  Is it my imagination?  Why did he say that? 

Went to the race and wore black capris with a fitted shirt and a tank top underneath. Flip flops for footwear. I thought I would keep the tops on and switch to regular black pants and shoes for the rink.  Meanwhile, I was sweating bullets on the bridge waiting for their boat to come by.  I brought an apple for a snack but dropped it in the river.  At least it wasn't my camera.  In the past, that would have been a real Sophie's Choice moment for me.....do I save the expensive camera or the food?

As soon as the race was over (they won...it was close), I hopped in the car with my husband and we decided since we hadn't had lunch and the skating show would go until 9:30 p.m. and it was only 4:30 p.m., we should probably get some lunch.  The only thing near us was Dunkin' Donuts.  Got an egg white breakfast wrap and a large iced tea with Splenda....or as the workers there call it "Esplenda".

Drove an hour to the rink and then it hit me.  This is a real event that the kids put on without parental supervision.  I felt like I was going to throw up.  Harrison told me to "Relax... you're such a Type A."  One of the mothers gave me a job....selling tickets to the 50/50 raffle and the Taylor Swift ticket raffle.  You would think running a $3 Billion global business would qualify me for doing this simple job but I managed to screw it up.  I just put the tickets in the bin without asking people to write their names down on the back.  I figured the numbers on each half of the stub matched so what's the big deal?  The big deal is that it forced the raffle to be drawn mid-way through the show instead of at the end so they could be sure everyone was there since THEY HAD NO WAY OF CONTACTING PEOPLE AFTER THE SHOW IN CASE THEY LEFT SINCE "M" DIDN'T HAVE THEM WRITE THEIR NAMES ON THE TICKETS.  I got so stressed I paid a kid to get me a package of M&M's from the vending machine and ate the whole bag.  6 flippin' points.

The show was great.  Attendance was very good.  I had to admit they did a great job.  All tallied, they raised $9,600 with some commitments outstanding.  They should cross the $10,000 mark before they close the books.  The camp will be thrilled.

At 10:00 they had a pizza party for the skaters and parents.  I trolled around until I found some veggies and dip.  The carrots were a tad dry but it was food.

Got home at 11:30 p.m and was starving.  Ate cereal and blueberries and went to bed.

What did I learn from all this?

1. if you know you're going to have a crazy day....pack food
2. when stressed, have emergency food available so as to avoid vending machines
3. write the names down on tickets for raffles or better yet....when given a task like that, just say "take this job and shove it."