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If you get that deal at your grocery store where, when you buy groceries you add up points toward a gas discount, do it:
Our fortunes from dinner tonight. One of these was mine, but you’ll have to guess:
From a weekend 30-mile bike ride:
We pet-sat yesterday afternoon. He’ll be much bigger by the next time we see him:
If you need us, Allie and I are busy watching the Tour:
My folks came to town to see the new place this weekend. My step-father helped us build out our attic. We added about 100 square feet of storage space, which will be great for storing decorations and clothes and whatnot. Took us a part of one afternoon and, before long, we had the traditional ceremony of passing the first item, a pair of exterior Christmas trees, through the doorway and into a corner.
We also took them sight-seeing, and lingered in places like this:
For lunch on Sunday we went to Dat’s, a local Cajun-esque place. It is a delightful mixture of rundown and homey and the food is pretty good. The company is better. How often do you get to eat with Dean Martin?
There’s also this little cookie store in town, one of those things you probably couldn’t do anywhere but a college town. It is in an old house with uneven floors and a desperate need of dusting and a coat of paint. But! You can get cookies! Delicious, custom-ordered cookies. And they have a flowchart to help you out:
What we ordered:
Anyway, the folks were great. Lovely to have them visit. We made them to promise to come back when we knew more about the place ourselves, so we could give a proper tour. And, also, the next time they are here, we won’t build things. But my step-father loves to build things.
The Yankee and I had a nice short little ride this evening. Around the curve and down the hill we go:
There she is, ahead of me as always:
And this was right before we literally ran out of road. It became a strange ride, really. Usually you just go out and have a nice time and then come home. This time we got lost, the paved road turned into gravel. Another road turned into a closed road. Riding your bike isn’t usually frustrating, but it can be bemusing. And also, terribly attractive:
Allie stayed home while we were on our ride:
On Saturday we took a long ride. We went through downtown, alongside a creek, through a park, on roads that start with the word “Old” and to a town in the next county above us. Also, we went directly by the local driving school which seemed a dodgy proposition after you thought about it a bit. This was a 56-mile ride where we climbed 2,600 feet or 1,800, depending on which app you like.
I’ve grown skeptical of all of them, though. I think I’m going much faster than their speeds would suggest, he said, while elevating his chin and using a sidelong stare to indicate he’s joking and he’s actually quite slow on a bicycle.
We went by this on our ride. You wonder what all has been stored in there over the years, and how many kids climbed over all that stuff, and what they thought about it:
I always loved places like that as a kid. Oh, I could go climb over it now. But I’d hurt myself. And I’d be “trespassing.”
Whatever, lawman.
I think about the most random things when I am riding or running. I tell stories to myself and make up great jokes to write down and I forget all most all of them soon after. Most of them were brilliant, though. Except for my forgetfulness, which is probably just brought on by being out of breath as I ride.
Like this, I took a picture of this sign and car lot for some reason. It was hilarious in my mind. And if I could tell you the joke you’d think it was mildly amusing, too. But that was Saturday and this is Monday and I have forgotten it already:
Just look at all of those bargains!
What do you figure the point of that one part of the fire department is:
If you built that just to have the longest fireman pole slide in three counties … well, that would seem odd. And I didn’t notice it as I pedaled by — it was uphill, mind you — but that looks sort of like a watch platform or a diving board or something on the top. or perhaps it is the world’s most optimistic rain break.
Nothing fancy for the Fourth this year. It just felt like a good day to stay in. We celebrated with a patriotic and colorful dessert:
So that’ll go in the archive, which has grown quite historic. And large:
We pedaled out to one of the lakes this weekend. Going out there is nice. Getting out of the lakes is a different thing, because there are hills. We thought we knew hills. We didn’t know hills. But here’s the big “everybody goes here” lake:
Allie stayed home, thank you very much. She is enjoying her afternoons on the landing in the sun.
She looks like she’s in a scene of a kitteh noir, doesn’t she?
“He walked through my door like a hooman with no tuna, all slow and clumsy with excuses for hours. No Joe I knew would think to come here without tuna, and he knew the game, so the jig was up. His rap was tired. He had the kind of expression that told me he was a hapless sort. He had bad news written all over his face. At least the pets were pretty good.”
The Yankee made an apple pie.
When that happens you enjoy your apple pie. (It was tasty.)
It started in a classroom. It had to start somewhere, and of course it started there. Lauren and I were in this grad school class and we hated it. The only person less interested was the professor. Near the end of the term she showed back up and, she says, I made some snarky comment. And, she says, she checked me out.
It started in the parking lot of that classroom building, which has since been razed. We complained about the class and talked about this and that. We talked a long time. She was smart and funny and quick witted. The next week we did the same thing. And she was smart and funny and quick witted again. Also, she was pretty and had this smile.
It started over scratch made lemon icebox pie. The first meal we shared. Later she and I went on a date and our classmates, the Chess Club, (we have king pieces and everything) began to think of us as inseparable.
It started among people that care the most for us. I met her parents, who are delightful. She met my family, which is lovely. We took family trips. After some long time, she wondered when I would propose. I drew that out as long as possible.
It started in Forsyth Park, under our tree, where we always sat and read and talked and listened as the world went by. I, finally, proposed. I was trying to work up nerve to ask this question to which I already knew the answer. Just looking for a sign. Give me a signal. Any signal will do. Was that falling leaf my signal? Why am I so bad at subtlety? I’d excused myself to go to the restroom, a feint to leave so that I could come back, which was my plan. In between I met a man and we quoted scriptures to one another about family and marriage and that was, I took it, as my signal. Who has mastered subtlety? This guy. So I excused myself from one of the better-timed Biblical conversations I’ve ever had to return to one of the longest running, most important conversations I have.
It started without a speech. “Would you like to have more adventures with me?” That was it. Somehow it didn’t occur to me beforehand to think up anything to say. But it was perfect and simple. It was a callback to an early conversation about adventures and history. She said yes.
Then we got married. It started seven years ago under a heavy canopy on the hottest day of the year with a small group of important people. The things I recall most often are that smile, the picture-taking, learning what the clinking of silverware on glasses meant and the thought I had, immediately after, that I wished I’d done this cool thing and that gracious thing during the ceremony. My uncle married us, and was terrific. Our guests always, always, talk about the heat. One of our best friends likes to remind us I turned scarily white. There is no such thing as summer wool.
It started with her. It had to start with her. We’ve had many adventures. We’ve gone places and created memories I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. Most of them were of her doing. All of them — the trips and the more important, bigger, moment where we were just sitting on the sofa and reading together — fall neatly into the idea that your experiences make you who you are. When people say that you can hear the happiness, satisfaction, contentment; you can pick up on the recognition of self-awareness in the voice. It is difficult, then, to imagine any better thing to be.
I took this picture of her in Savannah, the night before we married. The night before it started.
It started in Savannah. It started in a classroom in Birmingham and it started in the parking lot outside. It started at a friend’s apartment and in my house. It started among friends. It started among family. It started in our homes.
That’s the fun thing about adventures. If you are up for it, you’re always starting one.
