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Last night we went to Jabem’s college to watch a basketball game. It’s nice to do things with just one of your children every now and then.
Jabem took us to this adorably quaint Richmond hangout called The Village Cafe, which would have been absolutely perfect. You don’t get much interaction from the wait staff, but you don’t need much. They take your order and bring it to you. They don’t check on you much because how could you not be doing fine great music is coming from an old fashioned juke box player and you are sipping a cold drink from a mini pitcher in place of a glass? (Oh yeah, that’s right. Mini pitchers are sweet.) My husband was thrilled with his BBQ sandwich and Jabem ate what he usually ate, a Joshua, which is a humongous grilled chicken sandwich. I had the blueberry pancakes, which were out of this world. Yum!
The restaurant would have been perfect except there was no distinction between smoking and non-smoking areas and I am so sensitive to cigarette smoke that I suffered from asthma and sneezing for the rest of the evening. To me, that is how you know that smoking in public is a bad thing. If an innocent person, me, can go into a restaurant to get a meal, and come out with a risk to their health, then the smoking shouldn’t be allowed. I’ll get off my soapbox now.
Back to the game: The arena was just crazy with energy. It was like being at a rock concert. The students were so hyped up and enthusiastic that I don’t think the other team even stood a chance. I think it must be awfully hard to play under those circumstances.

Isn’t that wall of gold t-shirts glorious! If you squinted your eyes a bit during the game they looked like a huge undulating arena monster. It was kind of trippy.

These are just some action shots that I took for my hubby to look at later. I was paying NO attention to the game at all. I go to people watch. And this game was RIPE for people watching.

It was funny to me to stand off to the side and watch these two cuties. Jabem got us tickets in the student section, so we got a lot of bang for our twenty bucks.

This was definitely a standing up game, because if I sat down….. this was my view….

If I stood up, I could see fine. And with the zoom on my camera, I felt like I was right down on the floor.

I wanted to take this little cutie home with me. He was working hard during the whole game. He has a VERY important job. And he was a diligent worker.

He was in charge of wiping the sweat off the floor. Yuck! Gotta say, though, it is a necessary job.

These guys were constantly getting our section on the jumbotron. And they were good at riling the audience up. Their moms must be so proud right now…..LOL!

Speaking of proud: during the second half, Larry Sanders, one of VCU’s best players scored an ally-oop (don’t ask me what that is, I’m just going by crowd comments) and this guy in front of me got so crazy with excitement, jumping up and down on the tops of the seats, that he fell down the rows of bleachers. Other than a couple of banged up shins I think he’s ok. It did calm him down afterward, though….LOL!

And look at these goofy guys! Their antics made the jumbotron also. They threw that guy up in the air 50 times! I think they were going for some kind of record.

VCU beat Oklahoma 82 to 69. VCU stayed in the lead the whole time. The excitement was even fiercer at this game because it was the first time VCU had played a nationally ranked team since they opened their sports arena, over ten years ago.

This video shows *some* of the crowd excitement. Aren’t they funny?

After the game we walked back to Jabem’s apartment. We took the longer way back because the campus was so pretty. They’ve already put up Christmas lights and it was like walking through a fairy land.  I’ve got to say that it does my mom heart proud to say that Jabem’s apartment, and even his bathroom, was pretty darned clean for a boys apartment. Isn’t that amazing?

Other than the asthma and the CONSTANT sneezing  (which the old Kiwanis men, working at the concession stand, thought was hilarious…. I really cracked them up) it was a really fun night.

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