Auburn
13
May 11
Friday the 13th!
The only thing more terrifying is Thursday, the 13th!
My sense of pop culture, or my need to find such things funny, must have become especially detached lately. Didn’t even realize it was Friday and a 13th until I started writing this.
Happily, nothing terrible happened today. Slept in. Turned in my grades — the semester is done! Rode the bike.
We have a big hill at our house. I am convinced it might be the biggest hill in town — being officially in the coastal plains and all. The ride started with that hill. I do not like this hill in the saddle. The Yankee says “You’ll get used to it.”
Which is the thing that concerns me. That’s the sort of descent that will break something when you get casual about it. I have enough mass to build up some real speed on the thing. And I’m fragile.
So we pedaled a while, had a nice ride and then got ready for the Alabama at Auburn baseball game.
Which got rained out. Friday the 13th strikes after all.
We went out for barbecue and banana pudding instead. There’s always a silver lining in slow cooked meat. (As a general rule: if you find a silver lining in your meat you should send it back, but go with it.)
We visited Moe’s Original Barbecue, which has become a popular stop on Magnolia. I always said a little northern Alabama barbecue would do well here. The first time we stopped in the line was almost out the door. Now the college students have all gone home for the summer and it was merely full rather than packed. And, for the first time at Moe’s, I had the barbecue chicken. It was very good.
The banana pudding still isn’t anything to brag about. Now I just want Dreamland. Or Jim ‘N’ Nicks.
Our Friday night? We bought things at Walmart. We picked up a garden hose sprinkler attachment, socks, a birthday card and other small things here and there. We know how to party.
11
May 11
Summer is here
The seasons have changed in more ways than one. My spring classes are now completed. All that is left is to finish up the grades. Then I’ll turn my attention back to my dissertation. And sweating. With spring gone summer has shown up, starting today. Riding a bike in the 90s isn’t the best idea, but we did that today. Nice ride, too. I should ride more.
Cleaned up some comment spam. The spammers like photo blogs, like my LOMO blog, where I dumped 100 spammers, but the automated text has lately been unfailingly polite.
After that we hit the grocery store. In the figurative sense. The store is made of brick and cement and various other painful looking substances. Hitting it would just be silly when what you really need to do is pick up cereal and sandwich stuff.
Then there was a little reading. And then some more research. Finding obscure Russian scholars is proving a tough challenge. I found seven items from this small group today, though, so that’s a start.
And then there was a baseball game. Auburn hosted Alabama State in a makeup game that was pitched as Fan Appreciation Night. Most people had something better to do (and school is out, further reducing the crowd). They didn’t even announce the attendance, but it was somewhere in the Montreal Expos territory. On the official statistics they called it 1,868. Only if they counted you twice.
They might have miscounted the Alabama State pitchers. They had some big guys on the mound. The starter was an all-district center in high school, was listed as bigger than Auburn’s national championship center and I believe it. They just got taller and more impressive as the night went on. Auburn got an early lead in the game and flirted with giving it away before finally winning 7-5.
Lovely night to spend watching baseball, but every night is lovely at Plainsman Park. (This weekend they host Alabama.)
