It's almost beyond imaginable that one could cram a funeral, a bike ride, and a stuffing party all into one day. It's beyond imaginable that anyone would WANT to.
What on earth is a "stuffing party" you say? Ah.... for that you'll have to read to the end of the blog. But I promise it won't be a long one, because I'm beat.
The funeral was for someone I didn't know, but was the mother of a dear friend. It may be the first funeral I've been to in which quotes from Mel Brooks and Woody Allen were used. I hope I can have those at my funeral. I do know that I want my funeral to end with a rousing UGA cheer. "Gooooooooooooo Dawgs! Sick 'em! Woof woof woof woof woof woof." The funeral was about an hour away, near Rozmo's house, at 11:00 this morning. It was also very close to the location for the stuffing party, which was to take place at 4:30. I didn't want to drive an hour home and turn around and drive back, which is how the bicycle ride got thrown in the mix. Rozmo and I took a little bitty ride (just over 20 miles - but it put me over the 1000 mile mark for this year - go me!) and had lunch in Stone Mountain Village.
For those of you who have never visited Stone Mountain, put it on your list if you are ever in the Atlanta area. It's certainly worth the trip. I would put a picture here for you, but I'm honestly too tired. Google it - you won't be sorry. When Sweet Girl was first stationed in Florida, one of her buddies from elsewhere in the country came up to the Atlanta area for a weekend. She came back telling Sweet Girl, "There's this HUGE ROCK! And it just COMES UP OUT OF THE GROUND!" Hmmm.... I wonder if she even noticed the ginormous carving on it that took about a gazillion years to complete? Sweet Girl told her, "Yeah, that's about 30 minutes from my house." That was before the traffic increased a zillionfold.
The stuffing party is a misnomer for a tedious chore that must be done every year. It involves stuffing the goodie bags for BRAG riders. We stuff them with route maps (most important), a key chain with this year's route on it, a luggage tag, miscellaneous applications for other bicycle rides, samples of energy bars, a coupon for said energy bars, and a little plastic ziplock bag with a business card-type thing for a lawyer. His card says something about cycling and lawyering. I've never needed a lawyer in connection with my bicycling activities, but I can't say for sure that I never WILL, so I guess I'll hang on to his card.
The stuffing "party" involves volunteers handing materials down in an assembly-line fashion. I usually get frustrated because they refuse to do it MY WAY, and/or I'm next to someone who is slow and/or incompetent. Not that I'm judging, mind you. This year, though, I wound up at the end, putting the entire package into the plastic bags and then throwing them into a box. I only had to chastise the man next to me three times because he handed me an incomplete stack. He forgot to wait for the first part of the line to hand him that half of the package before he handed it off to me. The part he left out was the route maps, arguably the most important part of the entire bag. They did give us pizza, though, and I guess any night I don't have to cook dinner can be considered a party.
This was my first official day off, and even with all I had to do today, I had the luxury of sleeping in. What time did I wake up?
5:22.
I clearly have some reprogramming to do.
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