What's Worse.....

I feel obligated to write a blog entry every night, if for no other reason than the fact that three of my dearest family members read it regularly (thank you sister and sister and daughter).

Some nights, though, like tonight, I just want to go to bed, never mind that it's only 7:30. My body thinks it's 8:30, and by the time it gets adjusted to the "new" time, it will be time to change the clocks again.

I felt fine this morning, so apparently just whining about feeling bad is enough to render me cured. That and DJan's wise suggestion of physical activity. I figured if I felt well enough to go to school, I could darn well ride my bike home. The activity itself made me feel better and even lifted my spirits somewhat after a bummer of a day at school, but now I am wiped out.

So I don't know what's worse...

...skipping a night of writing in my blog.

...or writing a poor excuse for a blog entry just to say I did.

You decide, but be gentle with my feelings. They're sensitive right now.

Too Bad Weekends Have to End with Mondays....

It's been an awesome weekend, beginning with the kindness of a stranger on Friday night, continuing with a huge Georgia Bulldog win (over a less-than-awe-inspiring opponent, but still) on Homecoming, a 25-mile bicycle ride this morning, and capped off by an Atlanta Falcons win this afternoon.

But sometime in the middle of the afternoon, in between crocheting and doing laundry and watching football, I started feeling lousy. Nothing specific, just a general **blah** feeling. I can't even really point to where it hurts, other than my foot, but I'm sure that has nothing to do with it. It's probably just the start of a cold, and I'll try not to whine about it. I haven't missed a day of school due to illness in over 7 years. I'm probably overdue.

But there's a chance I'll shake it off overnight and wake up tomorrow morning feeling no worse than I usually do on Monday mornings.

I'll cling to that hope, because it's really not a good week for me to stay out of school. Not that I'm indispensable, but there's a lot going on.

Is it too early to hope for a snow day?

Keeping Me Grounded, Just Another Service Hubby Provides.....

If I ever find myself getting a little too far ahead of myself, a little too excited, a little too giddy, Hubby has an incredible ability to bring me right back to Earth. And slap some concrete shoes on my feet.

Last week I started thinking about a bike ride I've always wanted to do, SAGBRAW.  I've wanted to do it because that's a part of the country I've never been to, and my very favorite cousin lives in Green Bay. (Shhh...Please don't tell my OTHER cousins.)

I read on the website that the route for 2012 would be announced on November 1st. I vowed that if the route went anywhere NEAR Green Bay, I was going to ride in it. I set a calendar reminder so I wouldn't forget to check the route.

The news couldn't have been better. Not only does the SAGBRAW route start about 30 miles from where my cousin lives, it's a LOOP ride, ending in the same place a week later. That means riders don't even have to worry about getting BACK across the state at the end of the ride.

I started making plans immediately, trying to decide whether I would camp outside, camp inside, or coerce Hubby into taking the RV. I emailed the CEO of BRAG to see if he might consider taking a group. (Not sure why I cared, since I have zero interest in riding in a van with 12 or 13 of my closest friends for two days.)

Unable to contain my excitement over an event that is EIGHT AND A HALF MONTHS IN THE FUTURE, I texted Hubby. Knowing he was on the golf course.

Now before you scoff at my naivete for bothering Hubby on the golf course, please try to understand that texting actually works for us. I can text him with something that might otherwise irritate/annoy/bore him, and he gets a chance to think about it before he answers. Sometimes those smart-ass answers take some careful thought and consideration.

Here is the transcript of our exchange of text messages:

Me: It isn't Iowa...... [Because I swore the last time I rode in RAGBRAI that I would never do it again, and I asked him to remind me of that if I ever mentioned the word "Iowa" again. Stupid me. Probably have to go back on that oath too.]..... I would like to do a bike ride in Wisconsin next summer. It starts only about 40 miles from Dana's house.

Hubby: Whatever

Me: I knew you'd be excited.


I love that man.

Not What I Was Going to Write About....

It seems I have a number of blog topics with some variation of that title. Sometimes I struggle to find something to write about that isn't just another version of "what I did today and why I'm grumpy." Other days, like today, I have a blog topic all thought-out and written in my mind, and all I have to do is type it. That was the case today, and I almost wrote my blog topic at school, but I have just enough morals to feel that isn't right, so I didn't. Okay, moral. One.

Then something happened that forced me to preempt tonight's topic. And it wasn't the incident in the parking lot where I get my hair cut, where I was crossing the parking lot and almost got run over by a businessman screeching through the parking lot. Going the wrong way. In reverse. (Good thing they took my blood pressure at the blood drive BEFORE this little incident, because I'm pretty sure they would have been checking their equipment for malfunctions.)

Hubby and I went to a steakhouse for dinner in a nearby town (since our town doesn't HAVE a steakhouse). I didn't really have an appetite, since I was still trembling from the incident in the parking lot. It is impossible for me to tell you how close he really came to hitting me. Close enough that he felt compelled to come back, enter the salon, and apologize. He left with his ears burning and his tail tucked between his legs. The adrenaline was flowing, folks. I could have set a personal best on my bicycle, if I'd had it with me.

I wasn't crazy about the idea of going out to eat, and I didn't want to drive that far. But Hubby said I could drive his new car, and it DID mean I wouldn't have to cook on a Friday night, so we went.

I ordered rainbow trout, something I've never had before in my life. That has absolutely nothing to do with this blog post. (For the record, I prefer salmon.) When we were finished eating, the waitress approached our table. She looked kind of sheepish.

"Someone in this restaurant," she said, "is paying for your meal."

Hubby didn't hear what she said at first, so I repeated it. He looked around, I made a joke to the waitress about it being impossible because we don't HAVE any friends (at least that aren't too cheap to pay for our dinner), and she said, "Nope, it's this table. He said table #55, and that is your table."

Hubby went to the bathroom so he could glance around the crowded restaurant, and I saw the transaction take place while he was gone. The family at a table near ours got a check even though they had just received their food, and I saw the woman cut her eyes over toward our table. I made sure I didn't make eye contact with her, but I was trying to see if I knew them. We were near a town where I used to teach, and I thought it might be possible that a former student was buying our dinner.

Then the waitress returned and murmured to me that this man has done this before. He comes in the restaurant, chooses a table, and pays for the whole meal. I wanted to tell him "thank you," but the waitress said I shouldn't, that he wanted to remain anonymous.

We were grateful for the free meal, but it gave us a strange feeling. I told Hubby that it was a wonderful thing to do, and I appreciate people's random acts of kindness as much as the next person, but I almost wish the man had paid for a meal for a family that couldn't afford it. Missing the point COMPLETELY, Hubby said people who can't afford it don't come to a steakhouse.

I don't mean that to sound like I'm ungrateful. It was a totally cool thing to happen, particularly after almost being murdered by vehicle AND finding the road home closed due to some repairs, necessitating a left turn in evening traffic onto one of the worst roads in our town.

All by itself, that little act tipped the barometer of this day from "leaning toward sucky" all the way over to "almost impossibly cool."

I understand the concept of paying it forward and random acts of kindness, and believe me when I say I fully intend to pay it forward. And not just because random acts of kindness are on my 50 Things to Do list.

I still wanted to say "thanks."

Six-Word Memoirs.....

Ever since my six-word memoir got published, I have found myself creating them in my mind all the time. I rarely write them down, but if you ever see me walking around muttering and counting on my fingers, that is PROBABLY what I'm doing. Maybe I'll compile an entire book of them and see if anyone buys THAT.

**Crickets**

**Crickets**

Maybe not.

Anyway.

Here are a few of my latest creations. I wrote these down today as a reluctant alternative to rendering several teenagers incapable of human reproduction. I apologize for the restraint.

• Riding twenty years. Finally, a cyclist.

• I don't "please wait" very well.

• I may have said that before. 

•  Made that up on the fly.

•  Hardest part of laundry? "Remove promptly."

Unexpected Text Message.....

I received an unexpected text message this past Saturday from Jason, my BFF from high school.

I've written about him a number of times:

• Why I Missed Homecoming my Senior Year
• Wrong Place at Definitely the Wrong Time
• Not a Responsible Baby-Sitter
• Another Jason Story
• When I Met Jason

We have been in touch only sporadically since he coerced me into returning to the Facebook world. We text every now and then, email almost as infrequently. But the feelings I have for him are just as strong as they were when we were in high school and college. It's sort of a brother/best friend/confidante/partner in crime wrapped up in one. A perfect relationship without the sex. Which some would say makes it a perfect relationship.

Jason's text on Saturday read: "Hey D. Wanted to give you my new number in Atlanta. It's....."

I texted back: "Wait...What? You're in Atlanta?" And naturally I was 6 hours in the OTHER direction, in Florida.

Jason has lived in Texas for years. It's where he lived before he came to Georgia when we were in 9th grade. I knew he was a Texas boy at heart and would someday return there. So it came as quite a shock to learn that he was back in Georgia.

Naturally I want to see him. But I'm also a little ... what ... shy? Nervous? I haven't laid eyes on him since before Sweet Girl was born. Pardon me for the understatement, but a LOT has happened since then. I'm not so worried about how we pick up where we left off; my weekends with girlfriends from high school has shown that we do that very well. I guess I'm a little apprehensive about how to go about merging all these people together, people who are very important to me but would have absolutely nothing to do with one another if I weren't the common denominator. Does that even make sense?

And because I've sent Jason the link to my blog before and there's a slim chance he's reading this:

Jason - I loved you for who you were before you knew who you were. I hope you will love the person I've become as much as you loved who I was. I hope we can get together soon. Almost thirty years of catching up is going to take ... well, thirty years or so.

Some Pictures from the Weekend....

A few random shots from the weekend spent with my Sweet Girl and going to the Georgia-Florida football game. (Did I mention UGA won? For only the 4th time in 22 tries? First time in 4 years? Did I mention I was there for that win too? No? I must be slipping.)

The Metro Diner in Jacksonville. Katydid, Frogger Blogger and I ate there when we were in Jax, so I now consider it a tradition. It's a little hole-in-the-wall joint, but the food is excellent. The weather was nice, so we didn't mind waiting outside. We only had to wait 25 minutes, and a parking place magically opened up in their postage-stamp-sized parking lot just as we drove up. It was meant to be!

The order of these pictures is sort of random, but not on purpose. This is the scene leaving the stadium. Oddly enough, when the final seconds ticked off the scoreboard, the UGA fans didn't want to leave. The players were still on the field, the band was still playing... For some strange reason, though, the Florida side of the stadium was empty.

I would love to tell you what was going on at the very moment of this picture, but I'm just not that good.

This shot was from the ramp going up to our seats. Up. And up. And up.

These folks were waiting for the UGA football players to arrive. After the team entered the stadium, they stuck around waiting for a different celebrity to arrive...

A view of the river in the background, with some of the gazillion tailgaters. People arrive as early as a week in advance of this game. And then they wonder why they don't remember the game.

This is the vehicle carrying the OTHER celebrity. Folks stood around forever waiting for Russ to appear. Russ is the interim mascot, pressed into service when Uga VIII died. If you click on the picture, you will see the vanity plate on the SUV says "UGA VIII." The same family has raised the English bulldog mascots for UGA since the 1950's. We haven't heard yet when Uga IX will make his appearance.

Please don't tell anyone we were actually in our seats this early.

This party bus is well known at all UGA football games. It belongs to a friend of Hubby's, though he has basically turned it over to the younger generation and has a DIFFERENT RV that he stays in. There is a constant stream of people up and down that ladder all day long, and most of them don't even know to whom the bus belongs. Hubby and I went to one home game on the party bus. Hubby's buddy would tell people to be at his house at 8:07 to leave for the game, and if you got there at 8:08, he would be gone.

Bad hair day. I took a little trial-size hairspray with me, but it wouldn't work. I'm not sure it would have been up to the task anyway. You can't tell it, but my shirt, my other shirt, my earrings, my sunglasses, my socks, and my shoes all had the UGA logo on them. I wore face tattoos to one game, but then I realized there were no other 50-year-old women sporting face tattoos (only college girls, and they also wear cowboy boots with dresses), so I haven't worn them since.

The view of some bridge whose name I can never remember.

There were two Florida fans in our section, and this one felt comfortable enough in his fandom to wear that head thingie with that other thingie draped around his neck. They were nowhere to be seen as the final seconds ticked off the clock. Did I mention UGA won the game?