I spent two nights in a hotel this past weekend. Even though I was only going to be a few miles from home, I was looking forward to a getaway. With the weekend behind me, though, it doesn’t feel like I got away at all. Warning: it was a busy weekend, so this will be a long post.
Madeline had a dance competition and convention at the Indiana Convention Center starting Friday. Because I had a work call at 10 am that I needed to be on, Andrew dropped us off at the JW Marriott at 9:30, and we checked in. Securing the early check-in cost me $30, which was pretty annoying considering I’m sure the hotel wasn’t anywhere close to capacity. Nevertheless, check-in was smooth, and I was able to do my work call while Madeline did her stage makeup and got into her costume. When I started doing her hair, we realized that we didn’t have the absolutely necessary clear hair elastics that are supposed to live in the hair bag that is never supposed to leave the Dream Duffel
For anyone who doesn’t have a child in dance, or maybe gymnastics or band or cheer, a Dream Duffel is an absolutely brilliant item designed for traveling performers. Although they come in different sizes, each is quite spacious on the inside, and it has a telescoping garment rack inside! There are also ample handles for manhandling it into your vehicle, plus really sturdy wheels and a telescoping handle for pulling it from the car to the dressing room and back. It’s a total life/time saver, as everything needed for competition season lives in the bag. Costumes, shoes, tights, makeup, hair accessories, butt glue, sewing kit, first aid kit, etc. I make a standard Dream Duffel checklist at the start of each season which lists all the costumes and associated accessories, plus everything else we need. Then I customize it for each show, and we print it out and check things off. It’s not a perfect system – for example, one time we checked off false eyelashes and learned once we arrived at the competition that we only had the case and not the actual lashes – but it works pretty well.
Anyway, back to the weekend and the horrible lack of clear hair elastics. It is completely impossible to do the required competition hair without clear hair elastics. Impossible! No one else was at the hotel that we knew of, so Madeline called Andrew, who built his dad-of-the-year credentials by finding them in her bathroom and driving them down to us. Fortunately, she’s been in the same competition hair for three or four years, so I was able to quickly get her together, and we got to the Convention Center on time.
The Convention Center had implemented Covid protocols that we were warned about in advance. Everyone had to complete a Covid screening online. We’d get an email confirmation of the screening that we had to show as we entered the Convention Center from one of the TWO doors that were open for entry in the entire facility. Also, as we entered we were required to have our wrist temperature read. That process was smooth and quick.
Typically, dance competitions are a crazy mass of people everywhere, packed dressing rooms, and general chaos. The Convention Center wasn’t exactly a ghost town, but it was disturbingly uncrowded. Usually when we go to compete there is a “home base” where the dancers check in with their instructors, warm up, and meet after awards. Usually that is in a hallway near the competition stage, but we’d been warned that we were not allowed to hang out in the hallways this time, because of Covid. So I texted her dance director and was told to go to our assigned dressing room. Check! Madeline started warming up, and soon we were joined by the other three dancers from her studio who were competing around the same time as her.
Competition went pretty well. The girls were reprising a duet from last season that they only got to compete twice. But it had been nine months since they’d performed it on stage, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. These girls have been dancing since they were two, and competing since they were five, so they just sort of kick in when they’re on stage. They didn’t bring home any medals, but I was proud of them!
After the competition we headed back to the hotel. One of the moms from our studio had arranged a block of rooms at a discount, so most of Madeline’s friends/teammates were staying there, too. We hadn’t had lunch, so I went to grab us something at Starbucks, but it had closed at 2 pm. One of the hotel’s restaurants was temporarily closed due to Covid, and the other didn’t open until 4 pm, so we were out of luck.
(Has anyone noticed that Covid is a big old pain in the rear?)
I don’t really remember the details, but four girls and three adults ended up in our room, until we decided it would be a lot quieter in a room the girls were not occupying. So the moms went to another room, and soon a dad joined us. Eventually we decided to get carryout from the hotel restaurant. That was a very long, somewhat painful experience. The poor workers were very understaffed for as busy as the hotel was, and we had to wait over 15 minutes to place our order. It probably took 30 minutes or more for the food to come out. And the place was crowded and loud. Eventually we got our food and took it across the lobby to the closed bar and ate it there in relative peace. We texted the girls to come get their food, and when they arrived we realized we’d never received the girls’ drinks. So for two of us, it was back to the restaurant for another 20 minutes.
By the time we were done eating it was about time for the competition awards. Usually that occurs on the stage where the performances happened. All the girls cram onto the stage, and a host announces the awards while other people hand out the pins, patches, trophies, etc. But, Covid. So awards were all online. We were sitting in the hotel lobby, and everyone had their iPhones up to their ears listening. Madeline’s duet took a gold, which is a good score. The two soloists each received high gold. High gold is the next level from the top (in this competition – they’re all different). At that point it was late, so we called it a night and all headed back to our rooms.
Saturday morning my plan was to drop Madeline at the convention for her morning classes, take a long walk, exercise back in the room, shower, and then head out to pick up lunch to take to her at the Convention Center. Things did not go as planned. We got up on time and headed out about 35 minutes before her warm-ups started so that we could stop by the hotel Starbucks and grab breakfast. Since it was the only place open for breakfast, it was swamped, and we ended up waiting in line for about 20 minutes. She ate as we walked to the Convention Center, and then the line to get in past the Covid screening was long. Somehow, the girls were only a couple minutes late anyway.
I took off for my walk as soon as she left me. Indianapolis has a fabulous Cultural Trail running through a whole lot of the downtown and surrounding area. My plan was to take it to east of downtown, then turn back to the west, walk around White River State Park, which is a great urban park, and then finish up at the hotel. I only got about a block east of the Convention Center, however, when an apparently homeless man started yelling loudly and heading straight for me. I have worked downtown for nearly 20 years and typically do not fear the homeless. But this guy‘s direct aggressiveness worried me. I immediately changed course for a hotel that’s about a half block away. I figured I could go in there and he wouldn’t follow me. But his shouts seemed to get farther away as I got closer to the hotel. There was a road crew just outside, so I walked up to one of the workers and asked if the man was still following me. He wasn’t, so I continued on. However, I changed my course and decided to avoid the heart of downtown. At the next corner I turned to the west, back toward the hotel and the park.
It was a great decision. White River State Park was absolutely glorious Saturday morning. I walked past the Eiteljorg Museum, the Indiana State Museum, and the NCAA Hall of Champions, crossed the bridge to the Indianapolis Zoo, and then turned around and came back. There was a half marathon going on, but it seemed participation was very limited, and it was easy to stay out of the runners’ way.
I really like the Indiana State Museum building. We have filled whole mornings just walking around the outside of the building, which has a piece of artwork representing each of Indiana’s 92 counties. Most are on the side of the building, but some are in the sidewalk, some hang from bridges over the canal, etc. I took pictures of several of them.
The picture in the top left of the collage represents Huntington County, the county where I grew up. Each piece of art is accompanied by a plaque telling a bit about the county. Huntington’s reads, “Three Native American pilot canoes, circumnavigating three currents. The Wabash and Salamonie Rivers made this area a popular center for Native Americans, and in 1831, Chief Richardville moved the Miami capital to the Forks of the Wabash in Huntington County. The Wabash and Erie Canal from Fort Wayne to Huntington County was completed in 1835.”
When I got back to the hotel my plan got sidetracked. Madeline texted me that she hurt her toe and it really hurt. I will not share the picture she texted me, because I hate feet, and a bloody toe is even grosser than a normal toe. I asked how it happened, and she didn’t immediately respond, so I figured no worries. But then she called me and said she had been walking barefoot and stubbed it on the carpet hard enough to cause her cuticle to bleed. It kept bleeding and she couldn’t find anyone with a bandage. Of course, the first aid kit was in the Dream Duffel in the hotel room rather than in the convention backpack with her. Sigh.
I grabbed the first aid kit, walked to the Convention Center, and helped her get the bandage on her toe. I also contacted her dance director, who sent another instructor to Madeline with some pain reliever. By the time I returned to the hotel room, I had about 15 minutes before I needed to leave to pick up lunch, and I spent that time gathering everyone’s orders and ordering online. I headed out, still in my workout clothes and unshowered. Of course, the Jimmy John’s closest to the hotel and Convention Center was closed, so I had to walk a few extra blocks. Pickup was smooth, though.
When I was walking toward the Convention Center there was a person on the sidewalk kneeling down facing a building with his or her head touching the sidewalk, like you see when some people are praying. I didn’t think much of it, but as I got closer, I realized he or she was sobbing. Then, when I was about 10 yards away, the person sat up and started wailing like I have probably never seen before in real life. From the bottom of the soul, bereft of any hope, not even able to do the next right thing despair. It was really upsetting. In my mind I was thinking, Should I offer to help? No, there’s nothing I can do, and that might not be safe. Call the police? Nothing good can come of that. Social Services? They probably don’t have a strike team. In the end, I just kept walking, but I could hear the wailing for a long ways. It was very upsetting.
I got to the Convention Center on time, and soon the girls were on their lunch break. It was a beautiful Indianapolis day, so we went about a block away to a park with several tables. The girls ate, and remarkably the lunch orders were correct. Soon some friends from the studio joined. It was a lovely pause.
During lunch the national media called the Presidential race for Joe Biden. I don’t know exactly how I imagined myself receiving the news, but in a group of people was not it. I am very relieved by the results, but I’m not naive enough to think that President Trump will go away quietly. After lunch we walked the girls back to the Convention Center and at that point had less than two hours until they were done for the day. The moms planned to eat together to kill the time, and the only two restaurants with outdoor dining we knew of nearby were both across from the Government Center.
By the time we dropped the girls off and walked the block to the restaurant, a group of Trump supporters had already gathered by the Indiana State House. They were waving flags and chanting things like, “Stop the count,” and “Four more years.” I was not at all certain that the situation was not going to escalate, but fortunately it did not. People driving by honking their horns, and one guy drove by waving a large Biden flag, but it was generally tame.
When I picked Madeline up she was tired and hungry. Her foot still hurt, and that toe was really bruised. When we got back to the hotel room she hopped into bed and watched Netflix, and I ordered Chinese food delivery. After dinner I finally got to do my workout. By the time I finished, she was asleep. I took my shower and then woke her up, and she still didn’t want to leave the bed for a couple hours. Eventually she contacted her friends and went to hang out with them for a while. I watched the President-Elect address the nation, and when she returned to the room we had an early night.
Sunday I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Ugh. Madeline slept well, though. We grabbed Starbucks again, and neither the line at Starbucks nor the one to get into the Convention Center was nearly as long this time. After I dropped her off I went back to the hotel, did some yoga to relieve my aches and stiffness from sleeping in hotel bed, and started packing. I checked our luggage with the bellhop and stayed in the room working until it was time to take Madeline lunch — our Chinese leftovers.
We had another lovely lunch in the park. It was a gorgeous day, and even more girls and moms from the studio joined us this time.
After the girls went back to the convention I spent some time in the park getting work done, then I headed to a nearby restaurant with a patio to kill time until she was finished for the weekend. The patio was full of people and chatter when a man approaching the building on the sidewalk started yelling REALLY loudly, using a lot of profanity, and saying nonsense about the Army stealing his brain or something like that. All conversation on the patio stopped, and he paced in front of us a couple of times while yelling, but then he moved on around the corner.
Sorry, downtown Indianapolis. I love you, but three disturbing run-ins with the (presumably) mentally ill — two of them aggressive and one directing his aggression toward me — does not make me anxious to hang out downtown again soon. Let’s get some mental health services going for these folks. And some police officers patrolling on foot or horse or Segway wouldn’t hurt either.
When I finished my smoothie I went to pick up Madeline for the last time. We walked back to the JW where Andrew was waiting to pick us up, retrieved our bags from the bellhop, and headed home.
It’s taken me a few evenings to type this whole thing, and in retrospect I feel like it was good to get away, even if only by a few miles and for a couple nights. It was good to hang out with friends, and it’s so nice when they all agree that masks are important. The Covid rates in the country are escalating so rapidly that I’m doubtful we’ll get another dance gathering, or any kind of social gathering, for quite a while.