Life as a Speaker -- Never a Dull Moment

Last week Carole and I headed to Bloomington IN to do a couple of programs. IN WIC (Women, Infants & Children -- a federal program providing nutrition education and support to qualified women and children up to age 5) is sponsoring "Building Bridges" and "Connecting Bridges" for hospital personnel, community partners and WIC. The goal is to get everyone on the same page regarding breastfeeding education and to build bridges between hospitals and the community.

We've been doing these for the past three years -- I don't know exactly how many we've done, but Carole thinks we've spoken to people in roughly 75 hospitals. Building Bridges is designed to be done first -- Connecting Bridges is a followup program, done four or more months after the original program. Both run 3 1/2 to 4 hours.

We started at Bloomington Hospital. When we arrived it was drizzling slightly. We finished, and left for Martinsville where we were meeting in a community building for a local Catholic church. By the time we got there, it was raining pretty briskly, but we decided to run to Wendy's and pick up some lunch. The drivethrough was a LONG line, so I decided to park and run in real quickly. Sure -- I'd get a little wet, but nothing that wouldn't dry fast.

Uh, right.

While waiting for our two Combo #1s, the heavens opened, the rain absolutely POURED. The lightening flashed, the thunder roared, the lights went out, the computers went down, and the grill blinked out (AFTER cooking our hamburgers though). I got our food in two bags, put the change in one bag, clutched the keys to the car (why oh why didn't I leave them with Carole??) and decided to make a dash for it between strikes of lightening.

Halfway to the car the bag holding our food ripped open and landed with a wet plonk in the parking lot. So did our change. French fries and packets of ketchup were everywhere. The hamburgers were damp but salvageable. Nothing daunted I grabbed the hamburgers and most of the change....

We got back to the church and ran in. I couldn't have been any wetter if I had stood underneath our shower in all my clothes.

Now I DO like looking good when I speak. Professional, anyway. At least DRY!!

It was sad. Very sad.

Not one of my more stellar moments.

Naturally by the time we were finished, the sun was out. I was completely dry by the time we got to Bedford for day number two....