College Life

Hi everyone,
The week since I've gotten home from NY has been a blur. It's nice to finally sit down and have a minute to write...

Parents' weekend at Vassar was pretty wonderful. I flew in to Newark last Friday at noon, picked up my rental car then drove to Kevin & Lyn's, where I found Kevin's neatly drawn out instructions for getting to Manhattan to meet up with Domino. I was going to be arriving at Penn Station, and Domi was going to be arriving at Grand Central, so we needed to know how to find each other.

In the end, I just took a cab for $10 from Penn to Grand Central and found Domi immediately. We spent a few hours walking around Times Square and Central Park, and shopping at this great sheet music store off T.S. where we snatched up music for Singin' In The Rain, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and The Snowman before running into Ed Flesch, the creative director at Fort Atkinson's own Fireside Dinner Theater. Ed seemed very surprised to learn that Domino was majoring in theater at Vassar, and he invited her to come down to NYC sometime when he's holding auditions, so she can learn the ropes. Very odd seeing him there, but maybe very fortuitous for Domi...

That night we went to a very offbeat, downbeat musical in Greenwich Village, "The Adding Machine." Domi wanted to see "Rent," but I put my foot down. My friend Laura suggested "Adding Machine," and I'm glad she did. Anyone can see "Rent!" In the end, Domi loved it as much as I did.

Back by train to S. Orange, where we found Lyn still up. We had a good night's sleep, a nice breakfast with Lyn in the morning, then a 2 hr drive to Poughkeepsie, where parents' weekend was well underway.

Saturday afternoon we saw a student dance recital, a student stage production of "The War of the Worlds," and to cap off the evening Domino performed in a choral concert (and for the first time ever I actually had a hard time picking out Domi's voice...). There were so many things going on, it was very hard to pick out what to do... we missed a lot of great-sounding events. One highlight was meeting Domi's best friend Andie and her parents, who are old pros at high class parents' weekends, having sent a previous daughter to Brown... I was most impressed, and found the whole family to be incredibly nice. Since Domi spent half her spring break at their house in Philly, we hope to get Andie to visit here next Christmas.

After the concert we walked to a sushi restaurant off campus for dinner, and on the way found a "pop culture collectibles" shop that was advertising an autograph signing session this Sunday with wrestling and movie superstar Rowdy Roddy Piper, and that's when we knew--really knew--what a wonderful place Vassar was. Rest assured that Domi will be in line Sunday to get Roddy's autograph on various 8x10s.

Spent Saturday night at the Best Western Pougkeepsie, then back to Vassar Sunday morning for a walking tour (in the rain) of the campus. I learned more Vassar trivia than you can shake a stick at, and met more friendly parents, including one couple who had both gone to Vassar themselves and had a few trivia stories of their own, and a family from Waukesha whose daughter is graduating this May. After that it was a parents' brunch, shopping at the bookstore and a fun little block party (that had to be moved indoors) put on by Vassar's GLBT (LBGT? LGTB? I can never remember...) community. Pretty fun all in all.

By 2 it was time to hit the road for Newark and send Domi back to Noyes Hall to do all the homework she hadn't been able to do all weekend. I read a funny bit in the campus newspaper calendar section that described the last day of parent's weekend with the words: "For ***** sake, you haven't all gotten sick of each other yet? GO HOME, Mom and Dad!"

I loved it :)

Thanks to Mom and Dad for staying with Cal & Capri for the weekend! It sounds like everyone had a good time. Thanks Kevin & Lyn for the hospitality and directions!

Hope to see everyone soon!

Mark