It’s Homecoming tonight at GN’s high school. Sloppy Joe meat is ready to grab and go after I get off work. It looks like it should be a beautiful evening for a football game.
Tomorrow, GN and I are going to take a drive to look for Autumn color in the leaves. The cumulative effects of our summer weather and last winter, are going to make the leaf-turning season short, with not much of a splash, apparently, so we are going to see what we can see.
For the drive, we are heading to the Minnesota State Academy of the Deaf for their high school homecoming game. Because I am fluent in several languages, I like to keep using them when I get the chance. At the deaf school’s homecoming, I will get to meet and greet folks I’ve known for a long time, watch a good football game, see the fall color, and watch my granddaughter use what she knows about American Sign Language to make her way through the concession stand.
Each year we go, she learns a few more signs. The very first time I took GN, I handed her some money and she bounced off the bleachers. Soon she came running back and asked, “Gram! How do you sign, ‘How much does that cost?’ I smiled, taught her, then she bounced back down the bleachers and came back with her slice of pizza. The people I meet and greet know GN and most of them knew her mother too. The part I love about learning other languages it that I can participate culturally too.
Following the homecoming game at the deaf school, I have to make the drive back home and get GN to our church fall festival. She has signed up to volunteer a couple of shifts this weekend. She is an excellent face painter, is good with the little kids, but I think she signed up to help with the hair booth.
Then . . . Sunday comes and the Minnesota Vikings play the Indianapolis Colts in Indy. Might be enough time for me to sit and knit on some mittens I started. I may change my mind and make gloves just to see what the variegated yarn does to the fingers. I think that might be kind of fun! (CfP: the color of the yarn is called ‘Hiking.’ Thought of you.)
Let’s see . . . chores during the commercials, laundry running in the background, I might get everything done and ready for the work week.
We’re settling into our fall rhythm by getting out and about on Saturdays and burrowing in on Sundays for football. It won’t be much longer before the weather begins to match our inclination to stay home.
Trav: Great fall rhythm!
Unlike your part of the world the deciduous trees here are just starting to show green – it’s not very warm here in Melbourne yet but at least this is a promise of Spring.
GNG – I know ‘homecoming’ is a time for previous students to ‘revisit’ their schools but have no idea of the origins of this practise? Call me nosy if you like – but did you have links with the deaf school in the past?
And how did we know the yarn you using would have the colour purple incorporated in it??
Take care
Cathy
Cathy: You are right. Homecoming is a time for students to revisit their schools. I have had no direct links to the deaf school in the past. I can hear and everyone in my family has been able to hear. Because I work in a post-secondary educational facility that offers classes in American Sign Language, I know the instructors of those classes and have networked that way. The thing about the deaf community is that their homecoming games are differnet. Those folks who have attended schools for deaf students only, tend to drive very long distances to be able to communicate with people they know using their native signed languages. There are other events during the homecoming weekend so that those attending have many opporunities to visit with friends old and new. My connection is languages. I use several languages with frequency outside of my full time work and I do things socially so that I may keep them up. Conversations can become beleaguered if I get rusty due to lack of use.
I hope that GN had a good time at the game and dance. I remember those dances in school as being exciting, terrifying, and fun.
It seems like fall hit us out of nowhere. We went from too hot to autumn weather in no time. We saw the beginnings of fall colors last weekend, but didn’t take any photos. I would love to see the colors where you are if you take some shots of them.
And hiking… So little of that lately. I have yet to find another 4-legged hiking buddy. Very sad. We’ll start hunting again in the middle of October. I look forward to seeing how your hiking mittens-or-gloves come out!
Carol: I haven’t had the chance to take any photos yet. You’ll see why in one of my posts. I might try to get out and look at some leaves today if I get the chance.