Shuffle for the Cure-Crawl for the Cure-Stand Around for the Cure

Well, Gerri and I finally passed the starting line at 8:33 am. I had received the invitation the day before when she called to invite me on a whim. Sounds like fun, it's a good cause and there is a mall nearby. Also, having walked in the Plano and Dallas walks before, I knew there was a ton of free loot to be had. woo hoo! I ran into Hauself while gathering loot. (Thanks for the great bandana!) I found myself welling up and touched reading the name placards that people had on their back. They had things like "my Mimi" and "Grandma Johnson", aunts, sister-in-laws, and even several men's names.
I saw the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders signing autographs and realized that my little nephew would love getting something from them for his birthday. I was already planning on getting him a lunchbox shaped like a football, so this would stick with the theme. (If any of you tells him what he's getting, I'll have to deny everything.) I tried calling my brother to see if this would all pass muster since I do not know what an 8 year old boy likes. He called after the race and said that girls still have cooties for Samuel and the pictures of the team might be more of a hit for him but the girl's picture would be okay too. Win Win Win!
Pink was the focus of the day, lots of little boys wearing the pink scarves as headbands which I thought was cute.
The course had people cheering for us at a few of the intersections. Towel waving, kids dancing. One guy had disco music blaring from a boombox. The funniest site was seeing two cars trying to leave the neighborhood and realizing that they were going nowhere for a good hour or so. We just waved and smiled.
Although the finish line was a few more minutes ahead, we passed the starting line again at exactly 9:33am. A one hour walk, pretty damn good, I'd say! We hung out for a little while, but everything started catching up so we headed home.
Over 30,000 people united for a single cause on a Saturday morning at NorthPark. That kind of thing is inspiring. Already, it was a beautiful day surrounded by beautiful people.
I never do that much before 11am!

I will never have a feather pillow fight

I will never own another feather pillow.
I will never own another feather pillow.
I will never own another feather pillow.
I will never own another feather pillow.
I will never own another feather pillow.
...at least as long as I have this dog.

Set up: Middle of the night, Friday night. Have to get up early for the Race for the Cure...apparently the dog does not care about this schedule.

I hear him playing in the room, but it doesn't sound right because he's coughing, so I roll over to look at the floor at 12:39am (yes, I look a the clock when I get up.) I see a pillow...no biggie. I pick it up and realize that it's not all white. The dog has eaten a hole in it. Let me rephrase that. It has an opening like a bag of potato chips - all the way across the top! The dark is feathers. Lots of feathers. Urgh!
So I now need to get up and put the thing in the trash before he digs in some more. Mind you, I have to put my feet on the floor for this task. The floor is soft...and fluffy.
There are feathers ALL OVER the bedroom!!! At this late hour, my mind will not let the concept of cleaning up this stuff enter. What do I do??? Well, I carefully removed the feather covered sheet from my bed and grab a new sheet and climb into bed, dog safely on the other side of the bedroom door. The little feathers were making us both cough. Right before I fall into dream land, I realize that if I had not found the feathers in the bed, I could have choked to death on them.
The headline: Death by Down. A Feather Fatality. How embarrassing.
Well, I get up and do the Race for the Cure and try not to think about the clean up that this will require. I finished up in a few hours because a vacuum seemed the best way to clean up and I had to empty it a lot. Geeesh!

Trip to San Antonio

Max was an excellent co-pilot on my trip to San Antonio. It was 5 hours of boredom for that puppy, but he knew the routine on the return trip. Lots of time spent looking out the window and only one bark at a "mean" motorcycle that sped by us. Lots of curious "bah-bah-bah's" with all the new things he saw though. He also figured out that when I leave him in the car, I might come back with french fries or potato chips! You can see the window has many smudges on the inside.
Here's a picture of his sleepiness:



and another:

Max

Max saw himself in the mirror today. Actually, he was laying in front of the washing machine waiting for me to drop a sock and he looked up and saw me in the bathroom mirror. I decided to look at him and talk to him through the reflection to see what he did. He went into the bathroom and put his paws up on the counter...That's when he saw it. Himself.
A few grunts, but that darn dog didn't go away! So he left the bathroom...Then decided he wasn't going to back down, so he went back in. He must have done this at least four times and got more and more confused each time.
I finally had to nudge him out and close the bathroom door.
He sat in front of the door for a while because he KNOWS that dog is in there!

Under 21

I left my ID in my car yesterday. I popped into a RaceTrac to purchase a beverage and smokes.

I was carded.   I was suprised. Suprisingly.

Should I have been offended?  I've seen many people be offended. ....nah!! I didnt' do the "What, I don't look over 21 to get this measly pack o'smokes?!" or better "Let's see YOUR ID!"

I'm thirty-XXXXX years old!! Of course I'm not offended! I know I look young, I have had my share of people asking for my ID in the day, but not in a while!

 

I just floated back to my car and grabbed the card to bring back to the clerk, then another compliment came when he said, "You must get that a lot, huh?"  I couldn't hide the smirk holding back the wide grin.

Had I not had the ID in the car, I think I would have gone without the cigarettes since I was floating on a cloud for the rest of my trip home.

 

The day ended well following that exchange.

It's true that, whether you know it at the time or not,  a nice word can make someone's day.

 

 

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Izmir American High School Reunion

I never told you how my trip to SA went.

My school reunion was nothing how I expected.

Almost 20 years has gone by since my graduation. Let me tell you, we picked up where we left off and we all still look good. :)

We have aged gracefully and I am not the only one who gained weight!

It wasn't a class reunion so much as a reunion of folks who all happened to be there during the same few years.  So it really was a social gathering.

Some of us coincidentally graduated there and others were not even close. My sister, for example was in the 8th and 9th grade while we were there. When it comes to our crazy escapades, she was a part of them.

Stealing beer mugs from the pubs, going to discos, ripping off Mercedes logos from the cars, going to the fair to ride the most dangerous, unsafe, rides on earth. Making our way thru the Hang Out on Saturday afternoons where all the coolest kids in the city stood around looking, well, ...cool. Clubbing 4 times every weekend (Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon).

Yeah, the geeks got geekier and the rest of us seem to have found our niche on this big blue marble too.

Actually, looking back, I think even the coolest of the cool were geeks at Izmir American High School!

San Antonio was a great location too. We were able to make a few phone calls and track down more people. We've all probably lived in the same town for years and just lost touch.

Ya see, we were a bunch of kids from all over the country tossed together in this little 5 story abandoned tobacco warehouse and expected to be the same after we got back to the States. I think not. So we went our separate ways trying to blend back into the world we left. Think Breakfast Club the day after.  A world that didn't change much. We changed.

Sitting at the table eating Doner with 50 other brothers and sisters was a moment that you knew you fit in somewhere.

We do need to plan better though. We were always spur of the moment, loose planners. On Friday night, someone mentioned that SA has 2 Turkish restaurants, but one had closed only 2 weeks before. No one knew which closed but dammit we were gonna go eat some Turkish on Saturday if it killed us. We caravaned our way over and ambushed the place. We had only called them 30 minutes prior to arriving (It took some doing to even figure out what the names were, we only knew them by location.) Needless to say, it took several hours to even start to be served. Even though we were there FOREVER! we were having a good time, all of us in one room with kids and spouses.

 

Here's something peculiar. The whole time I lived over there, there were people who had left before us and we had never had the opportunity to meet. In San Antonio we all kind of came together. A lot of "oh so YOU'RE ...so and so!"  Well, there's the case of Michelle Horn. A name that was always familiar while in high school and even today because even though I didn't know her, I thought I had and just didn't know how since we shared the same friends but at different times.  I'd hear my friends say things about Michelle and knew she had moved before I got there, but it was incredibly familiar.  It's hard to put this in words. It was always surreal.

I was looking at the piles of photo albums that people threw onto the hotel bed for us to just wander through and reminisce...well, one had pictures of where I lived prior to Izmir -- Scott AFB, Illinois. ...and there was my old neighborhood...and the school gym uniform the girl was wearing was new at the time I lived there...and that girl is someone I knew!!...and her and her and oh my god, that's Kenny Ogilvey, the Scott Baio look-a-like!!! Whose album is this!??!  Turns out Michelle lived at Scott at the same time I did. I did know her! I knew of her at least! ....it gets better, she lived in the house that was directly behind mine. The house I lived in for about 6 years. She had lived there for 2 years during 7th and 8th grade. Our school didn't have yearbooks for junior high, so I don't have pictures of the entire class, just our homerooms. 

Needless to say, I was floored.

It was a wonderful weekend and we'll be trying to get together annually from now on.

 

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