Oh, When I Know You're Watching Out for Me, I Look for What Matters

Stinky and her boyfriend.

Wow, kids. These last few days have kicked my ass in every way possible. It was really good, but that goodness can be tiring and stressful and wonderful and definitely requires some processing time. I will attempt to slowly work my way back into blog land this week. I used Stinky's iTouch to get on Facebook for about 5 minutes on Sunday night, but you can't really do much blog reading or writing with that.

Awwww. I really like Stinky's guy. I think she's finally dating a guy at her level, instead of some "project guy" who she tries to help. I told her from way too many of my own experiences, that you can't make someone a nicer person unless they want to and are willing to work really hard at it. I hope she finally understands that.

Tonight, I'll just talk about Friday and Saturday. I'll cover Coadster's freshman orientation in tomorrow's post. Soooo, Friday was wonderful. I got up and went running. Then Stinky, her boyfriend and I got ready and went to lunch at Panchero's (their choice). We made a quick pit stop to the store to pick up Gatorade and water for the cooler and we were off to Lake McBride.

Stinky's boyfriend told her that his family wasn't very outdoorsy and he had never canoed before. He was worried he wouldn't know what to do. I told him he could ride bitch (maybe not in so many words, though) and Stinky and I would paddle. By the time we were about halfway through, he had an idea how it worked and really wanted to paddle too, but we were in the middle of the lake and I didn't want to have to worry about us tipping the canoe. I told him next time, I'd be happy to let him paddle.

After our canoe ride, we went to the beach and swam and read and did some lying about. The weather was perfect.

In the evening, I worked on my backyard. I had a few branches I wanted to get rid off, so I got the fire pit going and burned a few things. It was all very pleasant in my backyard with the fire and a beer....Until the fire truck pulled up in front of my house. I quickly put the grate on my fire pit and went to see what was up. Two firefighters came to the door and said one of the neighbors ratted me out. They were really apologetic about it. I told them I thought it was weird that the neighbor wouldn't just ask me to put it out. They said that people weren't like that anymore, and shook their heads. They asked me what I was burning and I told them. They asked me if they could come back and check things out. They informed me that my fire pit was regulation and totally fine, but I was only allowed to burn corded wood within city limits and they would have to watch me while I put out the fire. They were pretty funny, because they were both huffing the smoke when I put the fire out. They said with everything being so wet, they hadn't had a good fire in a long time and then on their way out, we talked about how nice it was to sit in front of a fire with a beer on a Summer night. I thanked them and they apologized again and I went inside, because obviouslyly my magic fire show was over.

The beach under sunny skies and pretty puffy clouds.

Saturday started a little later than I would've liked. There was a huge, bad storm that rolled in and the sirens went off around 1 or 2 in the morning. We all rushed to the living room to turn on the TV to see what was going on, but couldn't find anything...Except the worst programs and infomercials I had ever bothered to watch. So, we went back to bed, very, very late.

Saturday was also unbearably hot and humid. I tried to run around 10:30 and it was still miserable. Since Coadster was feeling better, we decided to keep to our original plan of riding bikes to some used book stores. When we were done with that, we stopped by the Dewey Street block party for about a half hour.

Both of the girls were off doing their own things on Saturday night, so I went to the Dublin with G For a quick beer. I had been spending a lot of time with teenagers all week, and needed a little chat with friends. It was a nice mellow night at the bar, and I got home just a little later than I had planned. I did find people to talk about books with and didn't have to hear about any high school drama for at least 2 hours, so it was a double bonus.