Sunday, May 03, 2009

Road Trip! Destination: Uncharted Territory

Today was lovely. I slept in until nearly 2 (recovering from the all-day-long party I threw in my classroom for the departure of my student teacher yesterday), and perhaps I could have slept longer, if my mother hadn't called on the tele to wake me.

It then dawned on me, more powerfully than before, that if I was going to travel into new territory today and take seriously the opportunity a new county gives me for visiting another Catholic gift shop, then I'd better be up and out of this apartment by 2 at the latest.

But of course, it was 2:36 when I actually left -- and, with dejection, I saw on my GPS screen that my arrival time was 3:47, which would leave me with hardly any time to shop before they closed at 4.

But my GPS and I tried for it anyway.

And even when I made a few wrong turns and set the time back to 4:02, I was so gutsy that I called ahead, begging them to please stay open a bit later for me since I was coming from so far away. Oh, would they, please?

This they miraculously did, and they even stayed open until 4:35 for me. My shopping would have been a lot quicker if they hadn't kept chatting it up with me, but I think they were just amazed that a girl like me existed. Why on earth was I there when surely there is a Catholic gift shop in my county? But I didn't let them distract me. I found gifts for Brooke and a few things for myself, and I finally encountered the perfect reliquary for Catherine.

I then met Tim at his brother Justin's house. We sat for a while on the back deck and caught up, in between strums on Tim's guitar. It was a beautiful day for backyard fun, and that's just what Tim's little nephew was doing on the grass behind us. We then went to dinner, and--after exchanging analytical theories on love and life--parted ways. Tim was off to a house party and I was off to visit Doug, and perhaps the three of us would meet up later, if I would remember to extend the invitation -- which I did, but which Doug passed on, most likely because I arrived at his house 3 hours later than I should have.

I'm horrible with time, as you know, but I didn't leave him hanging, at least not that I think. We were texting all the day long, and he was being quite generous with me, saying that I could arrive whenever. It's just that my projections weren't so accurate, and so I kept having to make multiple 45-minute adjustments to my arrival time.

It was my first time seeing Doug and John's place, and the most impressive thing was the two 10-foot-tall armored knights that stood on either side of the arched doorway into the living room. They listened to our conversations and creeped me out when I walked passed, but despite that, I still regret not getting a picture of them.

The girls from work and I were supposed to crash Jess' sister's bachelorette party tonight, but somehow those plans fell through. So instead, I came home and found myself in a prayerful, reflective mood, ready to pray 5 decades on my new wooden Rosary beads and write you this blog, dear reader! :-)