Weekend Update

Holy cow. What a weekend it has been.

This was the retreat in Prescott for our church small group. I was a little nervous at first…because as part of the car assignments, the ex-girlfriend that I previously mentioned was one of the people riding in our vehicle. However, the ride up was pretty decent. I was the only guy in the car, and as the driver, it was totally acceptable for me to ignore most of the conversation about shopping. We got there early enough to stop off at Starbucks, which is something that I do not regularly have because of the cost.

So, we get to camp and unload, pray, unload, have lunch, and have our first teaching session. I got to play a djimbe as part of worship…which is fun for me. Hopefully I didn’t mess up TOO much. While we were learning about Psalm 61, it started raining. Hard. I don’t believe this much rain was in the forecast, either. Now, if you’ve been reading this for any length of time, you’ll know that I’m not all that crazy about rain. However, the rest of the Arizona residents with me acted like it was raining $100 bills and were all ecstatic. Up to this point, things were going pretty well. I mean, not great, but I was having a good time.

The next part was when it got to be a LOT of fun. Outside of the teaching, worship, and meal times, not a lot was really structured. I started looking around for something to do…and found several people starting a volleyball game. Since it had just rained pretty hard outside, I was a little skeptical about playing in low-grade sand with sneakers. But there was something about it that was a lot of fun. For the most part, it was guys against girls…we had one girl on our team, and the other team was entirely girls. There were five of us on our team, and the other team had up to seven at one point. We didn’t blow them out, and it wasn’t really competitive, but everyone seemed to have a competency that made the game a great time.

Except for one thing, that is. I ended up diving for a ball…and fell on my ribs. When I landed, I heard something go crunch…and I’m reasonably certain that the sand wasn’t going “crunch”! If I don’t lay down or reach for something, I’m good. But if I lay down…it’s pretty excruciating pain. And if it is broken, not much the doctor can do…so I’m just doing the ibuprofen and heating pad routine. It’ll heal, eventually. Oh, and sneezing is a LOT of fun. NOT.

After the game, we gathered in the main room…where it seemed like all anyone could talk about was food…especially ice cream! There are a couple of places in downtown Prescott that were rumoured to have pretty good ice cream, and Pastor Jeff was absolutely certain of two things: his walk with Jesus, and the fact that after the evening session, we would head downtown to have ice cream.

Then, I took a walk with the ex-girlfriend. It was a really, really good chat…and we ironed out a lot of things that just weren’t being communicated. We’re going to try to be friends and see where things go from there. I’m not sure how much else to say or think, other than just taking it one day at a time…and not expecting too much at this point.

Dinner, in its simplicity, was pretty decent for camp fare. We then had our afternoon/evening teaching and worship session, which also went well.

Then came the trip to downtown Prescott for ice cream. I am having much difficulty finding the name of this place…but it was incredible. I sampled the root beer float flavour, and while it was good, I ended up with blackberry and pralines & cream. Oh. My. Goodness. It was incredible! But what happened next was totally unexpected. Out on the town square, they had several different bands playing different types of music. We ended up at the rock and roll side. One of the very pretty ladies that went with us kept cajoling me into dancing…and I kept blowing her off. But for some strange, unknown reason, after I was bugged enough, I pulled her out and started dancing. Or, at least what I call dancing. But we seem to have started an avalanche, because everyone else followed. In my wildest dreams, I never would’ve pictured going on a church retreat, and dancing with about 30 friends in the town square while a local band played AC/DC. There are pictures, but I don’t have any of them, and I’m sure that the people that do are holding them as blackmail. We even had the pastor out dancing with us! Honourable mentions go to the square dance lady that joined us, the kids that found their way into our crowd while headbanging, and the gal that was obviously “looking for a good time”, and kept making eyes at me.

After we get back to camp, we start playing games, but after a while I realize I’m too tired, and start heading to bed. But then the ex-girlfriend/friend/whatever I’m calling her pretty girl comes in, and we end up taking another walk to discuss our relationship…or whatever it is. We stay out until about midnight, and head to my room again, thinking I’m going to go to sleep.

However, Bubba is wrong. Again. After about 5 minutes, the pretty girl pokes her head in the room and tells me to get my butt outta bed, because they want pizza. After some initial cajoling, they get me to start driving towards town again. Oh, but there’s a couple of problems. First of all, it’s 12:15 at night. Prescott, like a lot of other smaller cities, doesn’t have pizza places open that late, even on the weekend. And secondly, half of the crew that commandeered me is wearing pajamas. After about two miles, I realize that this is going nowhere fast, and turn the car around. The bonus on this trip is that one of the gals that came along had already taken her Ambien for the night. Ambien, for those unaware, is a sleeping pill. “Hey! L____! Where are you going?” “I don’t know…I was counting on you guys to tell me where to go!”

The next morning comes way too soon. And again, as I’m getting showered, dressed, and smelling a lot better than I did last night, the pretty girl tells me that I need to get moving, because there’s a crowd of people clamoring for Starbucks. Now, the vehicle I’m driving is NOT mine, so I’m a little uncomfortable with this and the pizza run. But after looking for (and not finding) the owner of this vehicle, I make an executive decision to head down. The car is actually a large SUV, but we’ve taken out one row of seats to make room for the stuff that we had to bring to Prescott with us. We end up with six people, four sitting in one row of seats meant to hold three. The ride back was interesting, when one of my passengers (Ambien lady) spills a little bit of hot chocolate on her pants. Her white pants. Her brand new white pants, that she had never worn before…that she is now wearing on a camping trip. Fortunately, she got the spots out.

After breakfast, we do our last session of worship and teaching. We also had a couple give their testimony of how they got to where they are today…and it was really touching. They also made frilly bookmarks for all of us. Normally, I’m not into that type of thing, but they’re really well done, and it will be a souvenir of a weekend that will not be easily forgotten.

Thanks to everyone involved. It was truly an amazing weekend.

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