S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night!

So I am sitting in our local Panera on a Saturday night. If I were just a smidgen more like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, I’d be doing laundry, but honestly that’s just crazy. I do laundry on Friday night.

Such an exciting life to be led.

Earl and Jamie are on a camping excursion just this side of the New York-Pennsylvania border near the quant little town of Deposit. I was going to go as well but I didn’t know what the cell phone reception was like down there and since it’s my on-call weekend, I figured that having cell service was very important. So I have been home trying to amuse myself.

I had plans to write lots of code for a project I’m working on with my friend Jeff, but it turns out that sometimes I become insanely stupid (or insanely distracted) because I haven’t been able to figure out the simplest of tasks in that arena today. I can usually do these things with one hand tied behind my back (it’s a cute trick I like to show off with at staff meetings), but I don’t know if it’s because it’s Saturday and my mind just isn’t into it or what, but I couldn’t get any of my code to make sense today.

Perhaps my mind just needed to relax.

I did accomplish 121 minutes of cycling this morning. I was going to ride for an hour but I just couldn’t bring myself to head back home as I was too busy enjoying the summer weather. Summer officially starts in a week and it’s finally starting to feel like it will really happen around here.

I am happy to report that this Panera is one to never disappoint; there is a young tot screaming at the top of it’s lungs at a pitch usually reserved for Mariah Carey before she got über diva-ish. If I were a cocker spaniel my head would be cocked.

A man just kind of stared me down as he walked by en route to the beverage center. I couldn’t help but notice this as I saw his mustache and mustaches tend to catch my attention. (He looked like he could have been in the military at one time). This got me to wondering why I have this scraggly beard. I always have ambitions of becoming the next Dan Haggarty with a big, crazy beard but I just don’t have the genetics to pull it off. Well, the left side of my face can pull it off, but the right side can not. While I’m quite unbalanced at times, I don’t like to look the part. Even though I know this, I keep hoping this will change as I get older but it doesn’t change. It just gets grayer. I was recently told that my beard looks like a creamcicle. I took that as a compliment.

People watching fascinates me and I have selected the best seat in the house here at Panera for people watching. I am situated right next to the food pick-up area. A woman in a long flowing prom gown just walked up to pick up her tomato soup. Now that’s a snappy date.

There was once a teacher who had next to her picture in the yearbook, “People fascinate me. I’ve never met a person that didn’t impress me.” Though I didn’t have that teacher (she taught special education), I LOVED that attitude and have sort of adopted it along the way. Sometimes I lose sight of that philosophy. That teacher had such a zest for life. She’s the one that helped me on one particularly rough day in high school. That attitude and that one day changed my life.

My gosh I’m getting heavy in this blog entry. Perhaps Panera needs to start serving cocktails.

The child has stopped screaming like Mariah Carey. Cocker Spaniels and garage doors all over the area can now relax and calm down. I know that I have.