another Saturday in a stinky hot gym

What a long day this was. I just looked at myself in the bathroom mirror as I was washing my hands, and I have such big dark circles under my eyes that I look like I have two black eyes.

This morning there was an ice storm. At least two freeways in the area were closed due to the huge number of accidents. There was an accident where the road I live on meets the freeway, and a huge accident involving many vehicles just south on Milan on US23 at Plank Road, that made them completely close the northbound lanes of the freeway. It was horrible seeing that; seeing all of the wrecked cars and the rescue vehicles, and just hoping that no one was seriously hurt. And then driving home, many hours later (the tournament lasted about 12 hours) - there were still upside down and crashed and wrecked vehicles littering the sides of the freeway! It was like seeing the after effects of a demolition derby!

All of our varsity wrestlers and their families made it safely to Monroe Jefferson; I have heard that there was a car accident involving the junior varsity team, who went to a tournament in Canton. I have not heard who was involved, or the circumstances, and I pray and hope that there were no injuries.

None of our wrestlers made the finals today in the big tournament, though a few did get lower medals. The program has come so far in the past couple of years; the kids have worked so hard, including during the summer, the parents have put in so much volunteer time and effort. We have raised up in the five figures of money. And the kids do well and the team does well in your usual run of the mill tournaments - and then you get into something like this, filled with state ranked teams and wrestlers - and you see that you still have so far to go!

And this means that the hopes and expectations will be even higher and harder on Steven next year when he gets to the high school...

Poor Bill is just exhausted. He was ready to just walk out of the building and quit the sport today, though I talked him out of it.

I'm worn out, too. I curled up in bed when I got home and tried to listen to one of the two symphonies left in my Mahler quest - the Eight, the "Symphony of a Thousand", called that because of the high number of performers needed to perform it on stage. I was listening to the first movement, and was very pleased, as it was melodic and lovely. And it because it was lovely and thoughtful of course I fell almost instantly asleep.

I woke up a few minutes ago because I was thirsty and hungry. I had not eaten or drunk pretty much anything since breakfast...

Luckily there are not too many tournaments that are as intense or as long lasting as Sheriffs. It was a long day today. A long day. Tomorrow I hope Bill can sleep quite late. I will have work, but if I can make it through this coming week, I will have a long weekend next weekend for the holiday and can try to catch up on rest and sleep. Dan and Steven will be off for yet another wrestling tournament later this morning, this one in Lansing. It is a huge one - over a thousand wrestlers and they use 26 full sized mats. They have it in the MSU basketball arena...