Got Caught Playing Hooky

Last Friday I took a half day off work so that Hubby and I could attend the opening session of the 2011 MD20 Lions Club Convention.  As many have read before, both of us are active in Lions and hold or have held various volunteer positions at the club, local and state level.

At the opening session on Friday afternoon I was being honored with the Past District Governor's Association leadership award for my district.  We headed to downtown Rochester after working part of the day, and enjoyed the opening ceremonies, where I was also surprised and humbled by a gift of appreciation from the current Council of Governors for my work with the MD20 Lions Leadership Institute over the past 6 years.  It was wonderful when they asked all the Leadership Institute graduates in the room to stand, and that included a large number of the people on the stage, and many many in the audience.  Quite a touching moment for me, especially as I have stepped down as coordinator of the Institute... I needed a break.

After the PDG awards were presented, Hubby and I were very hungry and decided to slip out of the opening session and get some dinner (and celebrate) - we had a  long evening of socializing ahead and I know my limits of going without food... so we slipped out before the opening session was entirely finished and went to Dinosaur BBQ just down the street for some dinner, also figuring we would get in and through before it got crowded.

That's when the trouble began... see neither of us knew that I was to receive another award at that opening session - the International President's Leadership Award ( I think I got the title of that right)... no one who knew had tipped us off to stay put, and most other people did not know either.. and when they called my name... we weren't there....  to make it worse it was a very good friend and mentor who was making the presentation (and who was picked up by the mic saying "I'm gonna kill her!" or something like that!).  We actually got back from dinner when the session was just finishing up - and I got "caught."  Boy did I feel like a schoolgirl caught skipping class!

Luckily my peers have a great sense of humor - and although I took ribbing for it all weekend, I did return to the formal session on Sunday morning where the medal was presented to me with lots of pomp and circumstance.

Humbling, humorous, honored.

It was another great weekend to be a Lion!