Birmingham Chronicles, Day 3
Yesterday we were able to convince my mom to get up, get dressed and go out to lunch with us. It doesn't happen much, but she was in a good mood, felt okay, ate well, and was cutting up. As expected, the event exhausted her, but my sister and I were glad we went, and I think my mom was, too.
Because it takes longer for my mom to get ready there was a bit of down time. I was so bored that I actually did one of those stupid e-mail games where it tells you to put your iPod on "shuffle" and then asks a series of questions to which the song title after you push the "forward" button is the answer. Most were nonsensical, but a few were funny:
"How are you feeling today?" The answer was a jazz song by Miles Davis titled "Half Nelson"
"What is the story of your life?" The answer: Another Girl, Another Planet.
"Describe your high school days:" The answer: Women in My Life.
"What will today be like?" The answer: Runnin' With The Devil.
"How does the world see you?" C'est la Vie.
"What song describes how you dance?" A Space Oddity.
As you can see I was very bored...there were about 30 questions.
At one point, I wondered how my friend Katherine's encounter with Anne Lamott went. She texted me later and said that the writer agreed to be her friend. See, Katherine likes to have her friends defined, so she simply asks people to be her friend when she feels the time is right. I like the question because it creates this tension in people when they hear it, and I also like it because Katherine only asks it to people after giving lots of thought to whether or not she truly wants to be friends. I'm glad Anne agreed. She won't regret it.
My higher-order life-liver sister Jilly and I ran some errands after lunch...just to return some clothes she purchased. We decided to get some coffee and just hung out. I'm not sure when or how she and I became such good friends...I mean, our childhood had the typical stuff you'd expect from a high school guy and a middle school girl, but at some point it changed. Yesterday, we chatted about all sorts of things from children to the first year of marriage to wines to good books to airplanes to what's for dinner and a lot of stuff in-between. When we arrived home after an hour and a half my mom seriously asked us, "Where have you two been? You told me you were just running to the mall to return clothes?" Moms are moms, I guess. Although, it felt very surreal, this return to circa 1982, and I suddenly felt the urge to threaten my sister by harming one of her stuffed animals.
Lloyd, the Great Dog, has won everyone over with his charm. I'm definitely glad I brought him.
The lead story on the nightly news last night was about the MINOR LEAGUE Arena Football team (wow...talk about being down real low on the sports food chain). They were having "faith" night...a promotion where they let church groups in for a reduced price. The team was going to wear jerseys in which, instead of the player's name on the back, it would read "Genesis 1" or "John 3" or "Ephesians 4." You get the idea. Now, apparently, this is in violation of the league's uniform policy and the players will only get to wear them in pre-game warm-ups. The story was followed by a new feature on the Gulf Coast web cam in which the view can be controlled by the person viewing the web shot of the beach. Apparently you can zoom east or west, but somebody discovered you can zoom in on sunbathing girls.
Speaking of news: There was a fundraiser in town in which policemen and firefighters were walking bare-chested down a runway and having women give them dollar bills for "votes" as to who would be on the "Heroes Calendar" for this year. Women were happily throwing the bills in the photo in the paper, and the tone of the photos and the article were along the lines of that this was for a good cause and it was all in good fun. But if it'd been female nurses and ambulance drivers in shorts and bikini tops and guys with the cash, I'd imagine the news coverage would've had a different slant.
Before bed, I watched the hockey game. How in the world do the Dallas Stars keep blowing leads in the last minute of the game? They're down 3-0 in the best-of-seven NHL playoffs first-round, so the season is looking VERY bleak and about to become a bitter disappointment. They should be up 2 games to 1, but now I guess we know what it's like to be Edmonton, when one year we won the series 4 to 0, but won all the games in overtime. Whatever. All this really does is allow me to focus on baseball season.
I was also bummed because I'd planned to watch my nephew play in a baseball tournament. I've never seen him play so it was well worth extending my trip a day to do so...and his team is scheduled to begin tournament play at 1PM Saturday. Dangit.
And, as you can see, I've gotten up at a decent hour today...I feel like I'm back in the groove.
Yesterday we were able to convince my mom to get up, get dressed and go out to lunch with us. It doesn't happen much, but she was in a good mood, felt okay, ate well, and was cutting up. As expected, the event exhausted her, but my sister and I were glad we went, and I think my mom was, too.
Because it takes longer for my mom to get ready there was a bit of down time. I was so bored that I actually did one of those stupid e-mail games where it tells you to put your iPod on "shuffle" and then asks a series of questions to which the song title after you push the "forward" button is the answer. Most were nonsensical, but a few were funny:
"How are you feeling today?" The answer was a jazz song by Miles Davis titled "Half Nelson"
"What is the story of your life?" The answer: Another Girl, Another Planet.
"Describe your high school days:" The answer: Women in My Life.
"What will today be like?" The answer: Runnin' With The Devil.
"How does the world see you?" C'est la Vie.
"What song describes how you dance?" A Space Oddity.
As you can see I was very bored...there were about 30 questions.
At one point, I wondered how my friend Katherine's encounter with Anne Lamott went. She texted me later and said that the writer agreed to be her friend. See, Katherine likes to have her friends defined, so she simply asks people to be her friend when she feels the time is right. I like the question because it creates this tension in people when they hear it, and I also like it because Katherine only asks it to people after giving lots of thought to whether or not she truly wants to be friends. I'm glad Anne agreed. She won't regret it.
My higher-order life-liver sister Jilly and I ran some errands after lunch...just to return some clothes she purchased. We decided to get some coffee and just hung out. I'm not sure when or how she and I became such good friends...I mean, our childhood had the typical stuff you'd expect from a high school guy and a middle school girl, but at some point it changed. Yesterday, we chatted about all sorts of things from children to the first year of marriage to wines to good books to airplanes to what's for dinner and a lot of stuff in-between. When we arrived home after an hour and a half my mom seriously asked us, "Where have you two been? You told me you were just running to the mall to return clothes?" Moms are moms, I guess. Although, it felt very surreal, this return to circa 1982, and I suddenly felt the urge to threaten my sister by harming one of her stuffed animals.
Lloyd, the Great Dog, has won everyone over with his charm. I'm definitely glad I brought him.
The lead story on the nightly news last night was about the MINOR LEAGUE Arena Football team (wow...talk about being down real low on the sports food chain). They were having "faith" night...a promotion where they let church groups in for a reduced price. The team was going to wear jerseys in which, instead of the player's name on the back, it would read "Genesis 1" or "John 3" or "Ephesians 4." You get the idea. Now, apparently, this is in violation of the league's uniform policy and the players will only get to wear them in pre-game warm-ups. The story was followed by a new feature on the Gulf Coast web cam in which the view can be controlled by the person viewing the web shot of the beach. Apparently you can zoom east or west, but somebody discovered you can zoom in on sunbathing girls.
Speaking of news: There was a fundraiser in town in which policemen and firefighters were walking bare-chested down a runway and having women give them dollar bills for "votes" as to who would be on the "Heroes Calendar" for this year. Women were happily throwing the bills in the photo in the paper, and the tone of the photos and the article were along the lines of that this was for a good cause and it was all in good fun. But if it'd been female nurses and ambulance drivers in shorts and bikini tops and guys with the cash, I'd imagine the news coverage would've had a different slant.
Before bed, I watched the hockey game. How in the world do the Dallas Stars keep blowing leads in the last minute of the game? They're down 3-0 in the best-of-seven NHL playoffs first-round, so the season is looking VERY bleak and about to become a bitter disappointment. They should be up 2 games to 1, but now I guess we know what it's like to be Edmonton, when one year we won the series 4 to 0, but won all the games in overtime. Whatever. All this really does is allow me to focus on baseball season.
I was also bummed because I'd planned to watch my nephew play in a baseball tournament. I've never seen him play so it was well worth extending my trip a day to do so...and his team is scheduled to begin tournament play at 1PM Saturday. Dangit.
And, as you can see, I've gotten up at a decent hour today...I feel like I'm back in the groove.
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