Well tomorrow is another school day. On the third of June.
I’m sure you can imagine my excitement.
So I just spent the weekend in Atlanta. In fact, I’m actually on my flight on the way home right this minute. I’d planned to watch a few more episodes of season two of Scandal, which is my current T.V. obsession, but forgot to download them on iTunes. Yet there was still hope because the plane has wi-fi and I thought I could watch them on Hulu.
Alas, it doesn’t appear that technology has come far enough to provide a sufficient signal to stream a television show at 10,000 feet. And so I’m having to resort to scratching this blog post on the side of my cave as I fly home instead of finding out what Olivia Pope is up to and how she’s going to fix whatever terrible dilemma someone finds themselves in the next episode.
But on the bright side, a woman next to me has a hacking cough so, fingers crossed, I may end up with a case of bronchitis before it’s all over.
Who says air travel isn’t as glamorous as it used to be? Other than maybe the man in front of me who has taken his shoes AND SOCKS off? God give me strength.
The weekend in Atlanta was great. I flew out on Friday morning and had two episodes of Scandal all downloaded to watch on the plane. Those were the good old days.
Sophie picked me up at the Atlanta airport and we went to meet one of my favorite people I’d never met in real life, Paige. She and her daughter, Savannah, met us for Mexican food at a restaurant that Paige clarified would never be her first choice for Mexican food, but she chose it merely for its close proximity to the hotel where Sophie and I were staying. And, honestly, the chips and salsa were pretty good. However, the decorative piping of sour cream across my quesadilla didn’t scream authenticity.
Paige and Savannah were as delightful as I hoped they would be and we all sat for a couple of hours laughing and talking about all manner of topics. Paige doesn’t realize that I’ve basically appointed her my mentor for all things involved in raising a daughter because she has four girls that are all older than Caroline. This may not be a task she would have chosen, but she’s stuck with me unless she changes her name and moves out of the country.
After a while it was time for Sophie and me to head over to the arena for Living Proof Live. It was so fun to see so many friends we hadn’t seen in a long time and, of course, Beth’s teaching was so great. There may be a time when I can articulate what this weekend meant to me and how God used it to encourage me and answer some questions I’ve had spinning around my head, but I’m still processing it all. So I’ll just say it was much needed.
On Friday night after LPL ended for the evening, Sophie and I decided we were a little hungry and wanted something to eat. We couldn’t really find anything that was still open and we just wanted something quick, so we ended up driving through McDonald’s. And let me tell you, a McDonald’s cheeseburger isn’t what it used to be. Which is saying something considering it wasn’t much to begin with. But it was the saddest thing I’ve seen or eaten in some time. Yet I ate it anyway. Let’s not speak of it again.
Here’s the thing about Sophie and me. We have a long track record of eating some truly subpar meals together. We used to travel together a lot more to various LifeWay events and it was a guarantee that if there was a bad restaurant in a fifty mile radius, we would find it and eat there. If you think I’m kidding then I’ll share we once ate at a Mexican restaurant in North Carolina that had a rat on its sign. And not a cute rat. As if there is such a thing.
So on Saturday night after everything was over, we decided to go in search of a good meal. When we checked the list of nearby restaurants the hotel had given us upon check-in, we realized the nicest thing listed was a Kentucky Fried Chicken or “KFC” as all the politically correct cool kids call it these days. And, no offense to the Colonel, but that wasn’t going to cut it. We had dreams of sitting at a table and placing an order with a real live person who would bring us our food.
We found a Pappadeauxs nearby but so had everyone else in the greater Atlanta area and thus we drove in search of an alternative that didn’t involve a drive-through window and ended up accidentally finding a good Italian restaurant complete with a lounge singer with a fondness for soft rock hits of the 70s. In other words, who needs Pappadeauxs when you find a place where the hostess is also the singer and likes pina coladas and getting caught in the rain?
And now I’m finally home and sitting on my couch. I realize earlier I said I was still on the plane and at that point I was but then I had to power down my electronic devices and stow my carry on items. I also had to listen to the hacking lady next to me bicker with her husband like they were Frank and Estelle Costanza. Good times.
So that was the weekend. Now I’m going to wash the plane off me and crawl into my own bed.
It’s good to be home.