CLAY AND WATTLES

Let's See If I Can Get Through This Line

I went out at lunch today, turned left to go to McD's, got in line and noticed a car driving away with a Coke sitting on top, slowly going, but I didn't notice in time to stop it. I watched and all the time I was easing on around in line, wondering when it would fall off, if it would, or if they'd realize they didn't have their Coke, and thinking, well, I'm not the only one who forgets things, feeling much better about myself. Some of this time I was thinking, that'd be a good picture, and thought of using my phone's camera, but it was too far away - the car was. By the time the car got out of sight, I reached for my little change purse, was almost to the pay window and realized I had not even placed my order! See, it's a very simple thing: you follow the car ahead of you, when they finish at the speaker, you drive up, speak into it and place your order... How hard is that? So I got out of line at the last minute, last place I could turn without a curb blocking me from turning. So much for my attention span and having any kind of memory! And it just set me off. I was hysterical by the time I got out on the highway and about that time Sher returned an earlier call, and I wondered if I could make it through Burger King drive-thru - because McD's was just not an option any longer. It was the kind of laughing that soon leads to crying and I was driveling by the time I got to BK order window. Sher is on the other end wondering if she should call 911 for me! "I'm with other people. What's wrong? Let me step away from them," she said. I told her that the people at the pay windows have no idea what goes on in the cars that pull up! I couldn't stop - just everything caved in and it had to come out somewhere - work, sinus, medicines, Mama, work. I ate part of the lunch in my office with the door closed. The rest of the afternoon crept by, but I got a dent made in a several things.

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We met the Bonadys at Kelley's for supper. It had rained very hard all afternoon and was cool. I still had on my long-sleeved shirt and Jean had her all weather coat wrapped around her. She and I had baked potatoes, Paul and Dick, grilled chicken. I told her Mamma Mia is on at the theater here and we agreed to go see it tomorrow night. (Sher had seen it and said it was good; there is a character in it who looks like Jean, she said.) Charlene and Bill were at Kelley's for a Gideon's meeting and she stopped to give us her good news - Will and Leigh are expecting another baby! They have two children - a boy 4 and a girl 18 months I think. She said she would go with us and Jean would call Carol. We haven't done a movie in ages, just birthdays a couple of times a year for the "spring" ones and the "fall" one. (Carol celebrates all by her self - the other three of us share a time!) I called Pam, but she already had other plans. The movie is a musical based on ABBA music. Well, yes, it would be a musical then. Anyway, a girls' night out, long overdue.

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I watched some of the Olympics tonight - mainly the floor gymnastics where Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson won Gold and Silver and their interview with Bob Costas and Bela Karolyi. Then I watched Monk, one of the very few worthwhile programs (to me at least). He and Natalie were on a submarine this week, solving a case. Poor Monk - he's OCD and claustrophic enough without this traumatic experience! (I've been on a sub, but not submerged. There is not a lot of room to turn around!) Sher says the best Monk she's seen this week of the reruns they're doing on USA is "Monk Goes to Mexico." I missed it, but taped several episodes today, which ran consecutively.

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Friend News:

Beck got a new car. The struts on hers were about gone, the A/C needed work, and the inside hood latch was broken. She got a 2007 program Cadillac, I don't remember the model; black, dark interior; very pretty. Beck started a blog for her and her son Art to use to write about family and post pictures. (She's a great storyteller and her family is huge, so there are great stories to be told!) Her dad Mr. Buck is living with them now.

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Carolyn took her Westie, Rufus "Roofie", to Classy Pooch for grooming. I told her to tell Sherill I wasn't mad - I had just done Oscar's haircuts this summer myself.

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Norma, Ruby and Carolyn II are going to the pre-retirement seminar in mid-September. There are many of us getting really close to that "magic" number.

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And Amy, bless her heart, hit a fire hydrant with a funeral home vehicle. It ruined a tire and rim, but the safety valve on the hydrant prevented water from spewing. She was looking at a street sign for a location and turned a corner too sharply. She wasn't hurt, nor anyone else. Said the officer told her he was surprised the hydrant wasn't lying out in the street long before now.

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Bren and Jim were going to Muscle Shoals tonight to Dittos for Kiddos for some things for the granddaughters, Georgia and Lily. Mary Jane said Eliza didn't need anything right now. D for K is a consignment shop that MJ has taken things to before; sounds like a large, well-run store. Bren recommended a book by Andy Andrews, a Christian author and motivational speaker she heard at one of their recent hospital meetings: The Traveler's Gift and said she would like to journal each of the seven steps as she reads through.

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I did make it through that line. And the next and the next. Just another Friday...