Drink, Drank, Drunk

 

You guys, I am SO VERY EXCITED! You have probably heard of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, the ICCA’s, right? The Barden Bellas and the Treble Makers? I LOVE Pitch Perfect and have probably watched the first movie at least 20 times over the years. I never get tired of it. The singing! The dancing! The overt misogyny and underage drinking!

Did you know that the movie Pitch Perfect was loosely based on an A Cappella group called Divisi from the University of Oregon? True story. This group was responsible for inspiring a change in the judging protocol for the ICCA’s to prevent cheating and corrupt scoring practices. I have been assured, however, that the barfing scene was artistic license and didn’t actually happen.

My Audrey is unquestionably the tiniest Fu, but she has the biggest set of pipes. That girl can SING. So it probably won’t surprise you that she nailed her audition to Divisi in her freshman year. She sang with them for two years before switching to a co-ed A Cappella group this year called Mind the Gap.

The group hasn’t been able to perform much these days. The pandemic has forced a lot of creative changes, which is not all bad in my opinion. One of the changes this year is that the ICCAs have moved to video submissions rather than live performances for this year’s competition. So this year, Mind the Gap put together a music video and I was lucky enough to have a chance to preview the video with Audrey!

Audrey was home for the weekend, and we had just dropped Albert off at the airport for a work trip Friday night before scooting home so Audrey could join her Zoom party.

Me: Can I watch the video with you?

She: I think it’s just the group and it’s not officially released yet.

Me: I will be very quiet. I just want to see the video.

She:

Me: I bought a bottle of George Clooney’s tequila. Want to have some with me?

 

All it took was a little patience and a few margaritas and she was super excited to have me join her Zoom party! Well, kind of…

She: Will you kind of sit on the side?

Me: Yeah, of course. Nobody will see me. I just want to watch.

OH. MY. GOSH, YOU GUYS! These young men and women are so talented and beautiful and creative. I wish so much that I could share the video with you today but I’m not allowed. The good news is that the ICCAs will be livestreamed for free on Saturday March 13 at 7pm. This round is the quarterfinals where eight groups compete within their regions. There are 135 groups all together, and the top two groups from each of these quarterfinal competitions will move on to the semifinals in April.

After a little Zoom time, Audrey felt pretty confident that I wouldn’t mortify her at the release party by busting out loud Mom jokes or inappropriate booty-shaking. Her friends are lovely and they even let me be in their party picture at the end. My favorite part was after the party when Audrey and I talked late into the night. We two girls did a pretty decent job on that bottle of tequila. Thanks for being so smooth, George Clooney.

Before Audrey left on Sunday morning, my father-in-law invited us over for brunch. He has a monthly food budget to spend at his senior living community and regularly has trouble spending it all. He’s constantly worried about having leftover food money, but he also really loves to attend daily happy hour to indulge in the free appetizers.

With his excess food money, he buys wine from the community market which he also likes us to help him drink when we visit. So Audrey and I also enjoyed red wine with our Cobb salads at 11:30 on a Sunday morning before she headed back to school. My FIL drinks his wine from a tea cup with a cover “so you can’t see how much I drank."

Now that my children don’t need me so much, I’m really savoring the time we spend together. They are excellent people, and getting to know them as adults is truly one of my greatest joys. I know that I have made a ton of mistakes—all parents do—and I’m also confident that they have the fortitude and ability to overcome my parenting bungles.

I hope you always have enough tequila and red wine on hand this week!

Thank you for reading!

Edit: Here's the video!