Possumblog

So...

The Weekend, Part II. Long, as usual. I'll use the extended entry to keep from taking up so much room...

As I mentioned last week, Reba stopped off on her way home and went to see Miss Alisha at the hair place, who proceeded to do her do up right with a cut and a color and an hour or so of pleasant conversation. She's a good kid--only 21--full of wit but thankfully not silly or flighty, and she does really good work. Reba was quite pleased with the result and the company AND with the fact that it was about a quarter of the cost of the expensiver place. (I like that, too.) Anyway, I just hope she stays around for a while. I hate having to find someone else. (I suppose that goes equally well for both wife and hair stylist.)

First thing to do Friday after I got there was to load our tiny bit of stuff into the Focus along with the kids' stuff, and make a quick run by the grandparents' house to drop it off. That done, with the requisite time spent hugging on various children and telling them to go back inside so we could leave, we went on to Sam's to fill up on some cheap(ish) gas for the trip. Upon going up the hill toward the companion Wallyworld--Sam's retailing district on Chalkville Road, one of the oddest things I had seen in several hours, that being the sight of a perfectly restored postwar Rolls-Royce chugging along up the lane to make the left turn into the Wal-Mart shopping center. There ARE other stores in there, and a movie theater, and the fancy Chinese joint, and it IS prom season, so I'm sure they were going somewhere other than Wal-Mart. Although the whole idea is kinda interesting. Anyway, it was a beautiful car--I'm not sure which model (a Silver Wraith, I suppose), but it had the crisp knife-edged Mulliner coachwork and bustleback trunk that supposedly inspired the 1980 Caddy Seville, the ugliest GM car ever made until the Pontiac Aztek. (And a style that was also ripped off for both the Lincoln Continental and the Chrysler Imperial. I think it is a credit to the sheer horror of the Aztek that no other company has decided it was worth copying.)

We turned up the hill to the right, got our gasoline, and then--well, we had to go to Wal-Mart, too. Reba wanted to get her watch battery changed out, so we went to the jewelry counter where the staff was as helpful and attentive as jellyfish.

"If it didn't come from here, we caint take the back off it."

Thank you!

I wound up having to do all the prying and battery replacing myself. BUT, it works now. For some reason, when the battery went dead a while back, rather than take it and have a new battery put in, Reba inexplicably just bought a cheapo watch. It had quit too. For some reason, cheap, non-waterproof watches don't take well to being immersed in water. Go figure, huh?

ANYway, grabbed some burgers from the in-store Mickey D's and we were FINALLY on our way.

Uneventful drive, and pulled into the nice, relatively new Wingate Inn and carefully signed in under our assumed names of Mr. and Mrs. Doe. It's really a nice place--the room was clean and hadn't been smoked in, and it was still in one piece, and the place was nice and quiet with no one running up and down the hall screaming. Our room was on the second floor at a little mezzanine level that looked right down onto the lobby and desk, which might have something to do with the quietude.

Ironed some clothes, watched some History Channel, set the alarm clock, went to bed, awoke with a start because it was light and the alarm still hadn't gone off. Because it hadn't gone off. I hate hotel alarm clocks. Thankfully, it was only about ten minutes past 6:30, so we upped and showered and repacked and stole the tiny soap and headed downstairs for breakfast, which was also included in the room price.

Lots of German men lounging about eating breakfast with us. I don't know why. There were at least three different small groups of them, with none of them acting like they knew the others. Sneaky Germans.

Check out, load the car, make the quick run over to the school, escort Reba to the bookstore so she could get the rest of her books, while she does that I look through the phone book for the nearest library. They had one on campus, but someone said they didn't think it was open, and I HAD to do something other than just sit all day in the student lounge. Found one I thought was close-ish, but since I don't know anything about Montgomery, it took a while to actually find it.

Walked Reba back to her classroom, and left out heading back down Eastern Boulevard, made the turn onto South Boulevard, stopped at Food World, checked the Yellow Pages map, turned around, headed back up South Boulevard, then back up Eastern Boulevard, turned east onto Troy Highway, stopped at the Chevron on 71, turned around and went back down Troy Highway the way I'd come, turned north onto Bell Road, drove, drove, drove, thought it might have been good had I written down the address, stopped at the Shell on Vaughn Road, looked at the Yellow Pages map, found out I was only about a half-mile short of the library.

Hooray!

It had only taken forty-five minutes to get to a point that I was later to find out was only ten minutes from where I had started out. I had made one gigantic loop.

No matter.

The branch was small, but it was well equipped with some books, which are pretty important for a library to have. I lolled around at the computers (finding myself to be on the naughty list) and read several magazines before it got to be time to head back over to the college and eat lunch with Reba.

They put on quite a spread for them--it's included in their fees, of course, but everyone thinks of it as a free lunch. Which there ain't none of. And yes, even though it was a buffet and even though I probably could have sneaked through without any of the staff being the wiser, I paid my five bucks so I could enjoy my bone-riddled pork chop and limp green beans with a clear conscience.

I felt kinda bad for Reba, because everyone gave us plenty of privacy--I know she probably would have like it better if some of her classmates had sat with us, but I guess I scared them all away. (And no, I did not scream "TREEEE" at any of them. Much.)

After that, it was time for her to head back to class, so I walked her back to the building and gave her a quick smooch and a pinch on the bottom when she turned around, and then drove on back to the library for a few more hours of uninterrupted reading. Absolutely wonderful.

On back again around 3, picked up Miss Reba, and headed toward home again, and once again, an uneventful trip, and a pretty one--Saturday was one of those beautiful Southern spring days. Bright blue sky; warm, but not hot. And none of the humidity that'll be coming on in a month or so.

Got to her parent's house, they were gone with the kids, so we went on to refill the gas tank (32 mpg this time--pretty darned impressive, I think) and got some groceries. Home, unload, get the van, get the kids, eat some supper, back home, into bed with the whole wild lot of them, up early Sunday, and to church.

Class was good, and as usual I asked Rebecca and Jonathan if they learned anything. Jonathan said he learned what that "R-word" was that I had just erased off the board. Whatever it was.

"Reconciliation?"

"YES, SIR!"

"And that's all?"

"Daaaad..."

For some reason, Rebecca had more questions than usual, and after class we used up nearly the entire 20 minutes of break-time before worship just discussing Bible stuff. That was nice. I wonder sometimes how much gets through, but apparently a lot.

Then on to worship, where we were treated to being pummelled in the back by Tasmanian devilchildren for an hour, as well as treated to being unwilling audience to an hour-long, unquietly-whispered conversation amongst the three people in front of us.

Don't get me wrong--I want people to visit us, and not be made to feel unwelcome or unloved or uncared for. And I realize that some people don't think of worship as being something you do, but rather think of it as something that you watch. But, you know, if I was just coming to watch, I don't think I would sit and talk all the way through the show.

Yes, I know the show's a bit on the boring side--no magicians, no laser lights--but, still. Surely you can tell that NO ONE ELSE IS SITTING THERE ON THEIR SEATS CARRYING ON AN UNINTERRUPTED CONVERSATION AND HAVING A WONDERFUL SILLY LAUGH-FILLED ESCAPADE LIKE YOU'RE HAVING!

Is it so impossible to be reverent for an hour? You have the whole day to yammer about your nails and lunch and every other thing and about how funny you think everything is--could you just please hush for a little while?

And, hey--people behind us--I really don't blame your children for being ill-behaved. I blame you. Please tell your children that constantly hitting the pews with their feet and poking people with songbooks and pulling the girl's hair in front of you and screaming and fighting internecine battles is really not a good thing. Maybe you could take them out to the nursery and tell them.

Obviously, it was difficult to concentrate Sunday morning.

Left, drove over to see Ashley's grandparents and eat lunch, home to get Boy's stuff packed, and I took him to get his hair cut. Miss Alisha wasn't there, but he'd gotten so wooly that there was no way to wait. And now he looks like a perfect little Mercury astronaut. Got gas in the van and got it washed (after several stops to find a carwash with the cloth strips instead of nylon brushes) then home again to finish packing, then back to church where it was MUCH quieter for the evening sermon, then to home, some nice quiet soup for supper, and then, to bed.

What a weekend it has been. But oddly restful. A few hours alone in a library'll do that, I suppose.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at April 18, 2005 12:43 PM