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Regular Life
In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. – Robert FrostBrowsing Posts published in December, 2008
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(Note: This is continued from Part 1.)
Although the Dixie Stampede was the main event on our first night in Branson, especially with our unexpected participation on the arena’s dirt floor, the warm-up show was just as spectacular.
Because I never had seen world-class juggling, I might have exaggerated a bit when I called Albert Lucas the “world’s greatest juggler.” After a few minutes of research I found that such a title doesn’t really exist. He does hold at least one Guinness World Record, however, and there is a juggling move named after him.
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Have a great holiday, whatever yours might be.
- see the world’s greatest juggler;
- act like an idiot in the spotlight of a crowded arena and, if you’re my wife, waller around in the dirt while you’re at it;
- freeze your face off on amusement park rides in winter weather;
- relax and hang out with family; and
- find the definition of “waller.”
The next couple or few posts will cover the above, not necessarily in that order.
About a week ago we drove to Branson, Missouri to meet my family for Christmas. I know what most of you are thinking. “But, Mark, you don’t seem very Bransony to me. What gives?” Tourist towns generally are what you make them, and it’s more about the company than the place.
Branson is no exception.
On the surface, it’s kind of like Las Vegas but without gambling and whores. On the outside, at least, it’s all Christian-like.
(continued from “Reconnecting“)
Sometimes the quest for photographs makes one do things that otherwise seem crazy.
As I took the last step from M’s porch stairs to the sidewalk, I closed my jacket against a cold blast of wind and flipped up my collar. It was 10 o’clock, but I was determined to see the lights on Fayetteville’s downtown square.
The thermometer in the rental car said the outside temperature was 28 degrees (F, for all you non-Americans), but it felt much colder.
At that point we were two adults becoming friends, not two old friends trying to reclaim what we once had.
On my most recent business trip, I had dinner with two cheerleaders on the same night.
More specifically, I re-connected with two high school friends, M and S. It’s possible I insulted one of them, but if so she took it in stride.
I did it all through the magic of Facebook.
In an eastern Oklahoma convenience store near one end of the Cherokee Turnpike.
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Nothing’s a guarantee with today’s economy, but I think we’ll dodge the live-in in-law bullet.
Will you?
For those with parents younger and/or less prepared for long retirements than ours, I have to wonder — how big is their guest room, and where will they put the computer? The exercise bike? How many times can they watch The Bucket List without somebody losing an eye?
These are questions that many may have to answer as the economy falls deeper into the abyss. Regardless of the current downturn, there’s the sheer number of baby boomers now or soon retiring. The population pyramid “bulge” that Social Security depended on, created by the boom of births in the mid-1940’s and the increased life expectancy, is spreading upward.
The graphs make this clear.
Until this year, I never had been to a Black Friday sale. Although we avoided anything like the tragedy that befell Jdimytai Damour at a Valley Stream, NY, Wal-Mart, we certainly caught glimpses of the same insanity.
We were in my hometown for Thanksgiving. There, Wal-Mart is the only store that features a Black Friday sale, and any town with more shopping opportunities (shopportunities? shoppertunities?) is at least 30 miles away.
In anticipation of this, my wife Shannon had brought a Wal-Mart sale flyer along on our trip. When my cousin J voiced her own intent to attend the sale, it was on. My brother C and his wife A threw their collective hat in the ring.
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A little over a week ago my lovely, intelligent wife made her second biggest blunder of our married lives. A picture follows the story.
Setting: The week of Thanksgiving, our house. Benjamin and I sit on the couch watching something on television.
Shannon bustles about behind us, cleaning out the pantry. She hands me an empty box and asks me to break it down to make room for it in recycling. The carton for instant mashed potatoes, its adhesive resists mightily as I work my fingertips into the seam. Finally it rips and I collapse the box. Shannon retrieves it.
Task of manly brute force complete, I continue watching television. A bird chirps merrily. All’s right with the world.
About Mark
Cubicle geek by day, proud husband and father by choice. Living in Texas by some weird twists of fate.
Random Act of Photo
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