Transitions are for wimps

Miscellaneous notes:

1. Did you know Queen Elizabeth turned 80 last week? She looks pretty good for 80. I wonder what kind of moisturizer the queen uses? Probably something made by peasants. Or made out of peasants.

2. Friday night turned out to be a bit more drinky than I'd anticipated, due to the weight of group emotional weirdness drowned in group consumption of beer. I ended up in what was doubtlessly a rambling, repetitive conversation with Ed K., downstate Illinois' once-only full time radio meteorologist, who asked "Are you SURE you're not a meteorologist?" Hee! No, Ed! I'm just drunk!

3. Saturday I drove to Terre Haute, Indiana, and attempted for a second time to visit the home of Eugene Debs, labor leader and socialist. I didn't get inside, though. I forgot that Indiana, in a fit of modernity last year, decided that this would be the year they'd abandon their quirky resistance to the wackiness of this "Daylight Savings Time," as the kids call it, so I was an hour later than I thought. I meant to blame that for my failure to actually go inside Debs's house, but really, once I got there I just couldn't figure out what I thought I was going to DO there. "Hello! Just thought I'd take a peek at a dead socialist's kitchen. Thanks!" So I got ice cream instead.

4. I also went hiking in Kennekuk Cove County Park and Turkey Run. Kennekuk was weird--I was going on this trail that went to a really, really, really old cemetery, and periodically alongside the trail there'd just be an illegible marble headstone. Something was hopping all along the trail. It sounded like frogs hopping, but it's not wet enough for that, and I couldn't find any toads. It's too early for grasshoppers. I reckoned it might be the long-dead of rural Vermillion County getting pissed off that I was hiking through their final resting place, or possibly pissed off at being dead and consigned for all eternity to rural Vermillion County. Since nobody knew where to look for my body if rural Vermillions, dead or alive, decided to wreak havoc with my person, I turned around and hightailed it out of there.
The best part though was the cemetery sign by the road, an old wooden branded sign reading "Maysville Cemetery." Directly below that, a gleaming yellow diamond proclaiming "Dead End." Indeed.

5. I had a total Mrs. Robinson moment at a gas station in Veedersburg. The kid who worked ther strutted out to the island, and gave me a look back over his shoulder. Why hello, young man! I like the way you refill that washer fluid! He winked at me, I smirked back, and drove away laughing at the absurdity of it. Oh, my illicit teenage Indiana gas station lover! We were never meant to be. Sometimes it's good to be a stranger in town.

6. I walked all over the place on Sunday, then loaded up some goods and stopped by Amalier's house, which was very cozy and homey in a very comforting way. She loaded me up with a yummy sandwich and juice box dinner. Perfect!

7. We won our first softball game of the season 23-12. I didn't contribute much to that, I must say.

8. I just found out through a guy on my softball team that the editor of my high school yearbook (before me) is president of the local Scrabble club. Although I have never played Scrabble myself, it seems somehow unavoidably dorky that in the Venn diagram of my spheres of acquaintance, the overlapping wedge is situated in a coffee shop Scrabble society.

That's all I got. Happy Monday! Er, Tuesday!