Potpourri

The weekend was a mixed bag, mostly good though. I got to see a lot of cousins I hadn’t seen in ages. All my grandmother’s living siblings were present at the family dinner, and I was reminded that my Grandma’s kids/grandkids are the runts of the Cabbagestalk clan. (Thanks for being 5’8”, Grandpa.) It was weird seeing cousins who were little kids the last time I saw them all of a sudden towering over me (and I’m not a short guy at 6’2”). One of my little cousins is now a professional comedian, having been seen in bit roles on Saturday Night Live, BET’s Comicview, and Comedy Central’s premium blend. Another of my cousins there is a former major league baseball player, having played for the Mets, Angels, and Mariners. Unfortunately he played about 15-20 years too early, before average players could command multiple millions of dollars per year. Some of my relatives have not had it so well, and it showed in their faces. We actually missed the dinner portion of the dinner, having been to Sabbath services in Asheboro that afternoon. Services were good as usual, though Noah was a little whiny. I assume he was that way because services were two hours early, and his schedule was thrown off. Then again, maybe he was just having one of those days. It turns out Asheboro is the closest congregation to my parents’ home at 90 miles exactly. Charlotte is right at 100 miles, Raleigh (Warsaw, NC) is 116 according to Google Maps, and Walterboro is ~140-150 (though it’s only 103 miles from my brother’s crib).

My mom and I got into our semi-annual argument Friday night because I was taking the time to go to services Saturday. (Is it still an argument if only one party is speaking?) She doesn’t understand why I won’t forsake church to spend the entire day with the family. I’ve pretty much given up explaining why, and just let her vent. That ended what had been a great dinner put together by my brother and his wife. I guess it’s our turn to be hosts this week, as Clemson’s football season kicks off and my brother is a season-ticket holder. So I went to bed Friday night in a less-than-stellar mood; we overslept Sat. morning, and we ended up making it to services about 15 minutes late. We drove my Pop’s F-150 because my A/C is shot in my truck, and that bad boy drinks gas like a baby drinks milk. I slapped $30 bucks in and the truck laughed at me. So after the family get-together, we stopped by my brother’s house and ended up not going to my parent’s until midnight. Then I got the evil eye from the folks because they’d been waiting up to spend more time with the kids. Dad usually goes to the local convenience store for breakfast before going to work around 10, so I assumed that was going to be the case this time. Therefore, I left the carseats in his truck (assuming he would want to take the boys to breakfast like he did the last time I was home), and I was also planning to gas up his truck then as well. Guess what? This particular Sunday he leaves home around 8 without waking anyone up for breakfast, and he decides to drive his truck. Needless to say, he was not too thrilled about having to get our stuff out of his truck before he could leave; he was even less pleased at not having as much gas in his truck as he was anticipating. Eventually we all get up as mom is preparing to go to church. I tell her we’re leaving early that afternoon so that we’ll get back fairly early. I also tell her we’ll be at her mother’s house saying our good-byes when she gets out of church. I assumed she knew we’d be leaving directly from Grandma’s, but apparently she didn’t. She was already there when we got there (yes, we were behind schedule again), but she left without us saying our goodbyes. After we’d been on the road for a while, Mom calls and is a little peeved b/c we didn’t stop back by the house on our way out. My bad. More guilt.
Anyway, we’re back safe and sound. I think Noah and I are going to go to campus and begin the wife-selection process. If he’s going to put in his 7 years of hard labor to win some lady’s hand, he should probably start now. And why is he calling me Mike?

Whether he killed JonBenet Ramsey or not, John Mark Karr is one sick puppy.

Week six, day 1 of couch-to-5K. What a time to figure out I’ve been doing the program wrong.