Yesterday: My First Game with the Marching Band?

Yesterday was supposed to be the first football game of the school year; but we got rained and lightninged out : ( We still had a great time at the rehearsal, though.

To be truthful, I was sort of dreading the game. Due to my emailing to the wrong email address to speak with the band director about when audition dates and band camp dates were (they changed band directors this year), I was unable to try out. The only open instrument in the percussion section were crash cymbals, which I am terrible with since I lack forearm strength (which you need to play the crash cymbals).

So I attended rehearsal today with a somewhat heavy heart, but once we got into rehearsing outside, playing "The Star-Spangled Banner," "Sing, Sing, Sing," and our fight song, I started to get the hang of the crash cymbals. I even held them the right way. We marched around the parking lot outside, which everyone in marching band refers to as "The Field," since when we march on it, we are simulating what it would be like to march around a football field. When Mr. James isn't directing us, this kid (who I think is a senior) named Banks takes over, and he's in charge of starting off the fight song and the drum line's cadence.
There are some moments that make an impression on you as they're happening (and I know this is random-sounding) and you realize as they're happening that you will remember them for a long time afterwards. This happened as we were marching around the parking lot; we had come to the last song we play before we exit the field, and the entire line began to turn in one spot and form a spiral as we played our fight song. As we spiraled around as a whole group, the percussionists on the outside, a strong wind stirred the leaves on the trees above us and they cascaded upon our heads like golden rain.
Before we marched around the parking lot, another upperclassman named Casey instructed those of us who missed band camp separately about how to march and what-not. Until I learned his name later that day, I simply referred to him as Mr. Instructor. So after learning to march, we met up with the rest of the band, ran through the show, and went inside around 6:30 to eat dinner; those of us who had paid for pizza stood in line for it in the hallway of the arts building. I took my brown lunchbox, got a drink from the table, and stood outside near the bleachers where most everyone was sitting. It was drizzling slightly, pretty, and overcast outside. Then, as I stood there eating my raisins and cinammon toast crunch, the rain picked up and thunder sounded. It started to pour down in buckets, so we all ran inside.
The percussionists all messed around in the back of the band room for a while with all of the instruments. I hung out mostly around the vibraphone. While we were waiting for the rain to let up, lightning flashed outside; it seemed that we might not get to play.
Then, in case there was a possibility of the rain letting up, we loaded our instruments into a Reynolds truck; we also retrieved ponchos to wear. Mine was blue, and it is important to note that it was the first poncho I have worn in my entire life.
Soon after this, we all got onto buses to see if the game was still going to be played over at the Parkland Stadium. The percussionists and Banks got a short bus all to ourselves. Once we reached the stadium, however, we discovered that the game would be postponed until today, and that we wouldn't be able to travel over there on Saturday as a group.
We drove back to the school, and my dad picked me up shortly afterwards. We went to see "Public Enemies" at the $2 Theater, which, besides being a little lengthy, was pretty good. We came home and I slept like a rock. I did have uneasy dreams about Heather and Hope. I dreamt that the latter was around eight years old, and that they were in our upstairs bathroom preparing to go somewhere; I think that my dad and I were going wherever it was that they were going as well. In the dream, it was a surprise to see them in the house, and as Hope was speaking to me about how excited she was to be going wherever it was that we were going, I couldn't help but marvel at how different she was since the last time I had seen her and heard her speak; she sounded very adult-like when she spoke. Heather moved about, packing things silently. This was the entire dream.