A Dinner for Champions

That's not even 1/3 of the Longwood Welcome Line.

My commitment to this internship reached a whole new level   today. I've been receiving at least 3 emails a day for the past week about the Longwood Welcome Line the night everyone from APGA comes to the gardens. The recipients list included every single Longwood employee (375), intern (18), student (20), seasonal (?), and volunteer (750+). That's a lot of people! Somewhere in the fine print that I  conveniently skimmed over in all the emails, there was mention of matching t-shirts, pom poms, and ponchos just in case the weather didn't cooperate. I'll do just about anything for a free t-shirt (plus attendance was mandatory) so I signed in right after work and found my team leader Courtney something. You know it's serious when you're assigned a team leader. After a wait that seemed like forever, we followed Courtney out to the very entrance of Longwood to man our post. Within 10 seconds of getting to our post, a bus pulls into the driveway so we all start waving and yelling. Their faces were priceless! In the world of emoticons, we had a lot of :D and :O. One part of the email that I did read every time it came to my inbox was the part that said we could leave early if all the buses arrived before 6:00 PM. Since the first bus arrived so quickly, I figured they would continue coming steadily for a while. Boy was I ever wrong. The next bus didn't make an appearance for over an hour. In the mean time, it started to storm, Courtney got even peppier (she was well-chosen as a "cheer captain"), and the director of the gardens (Paul Redman, known in this blog as PBR) took his place at the head of the receiving line. So here I am, dying of hunger in my white t-shirt after a long week of work, when it starts to rain...no not rain...pour. It starts to pour. Thank you, Chuck Ross, for having enough foresight to order us all clear ponchos. Why clear? So the wonderful people from APGA could still read our matching t-shirts, of course. You know the cool thing about ponchos? Yeah I don't either. If you can't tell by this point, I was getting cranky. Fast. Every time a car would drive through the gates, PBR would yell, "We've got another live one!" I'm pretty sure he'd been drinking. Then, Courtney would lead my group in a rousing round of show-them-how-excited-we-can-act, while people on the buses took our picture. The whole thing was definitely an experience. The rain stopped, and the sun came out about 5:30. That made for an interesting 5 minutes where we were all trying to decide whether or not to take off our ponchos. My favorite car to come through was the president of the board because his wife was hanging out of the sunroof waving back to all of us. She was eating it up. Finally, the last bus rolled through the gate, and PBR dismissed us to get ready for dinner.

You haven't heard Don't Stop Believin' until you've heard it from 5 harpists

dinner!

Some of the interns at the fancy dinner.

Appetizer: 3 half grapes, edible flowers, 1 toasted cashew, and watermelon sauce. Yum?

Main Course: 3 beef tenderloin slices, 1 stuffed mushroom, lobster salad, and some weeds. Yum!

Dessert was the most amazing piece of guava cheesecake I've ever put in my mouth followed by a live marching/rock band and fireworks set to the ABBA soundtrack. After 2 weeks of intensity getting ready for this, Longwood really put on a show. They definitely know how to treat their guests and employees.