Guilt Entry

I keep wondering when I'm going to have the incentive to write something here. I think I can see actually see time passing at high speed, and I can't keep up with it. I can't blame an impending wedding for it, as I might have expected, because no one is making plans or even thinking about it. I think that will come - or not. We may all just show up and have a little wedding - which I think is what Emily wants.

One reason for not writing is that I feel like I need to show something for that 24 hours a day I have, and I can't think of anything. I enjoy all my hours, but maybe I just waste them. I have been guilty of just sitting outside and soaking up the sunshine some, and I have watched a few Auburn basketball games - even though they make me nervous, and I can't watch a whole one. One afternoon, I had to take nearly an hour to go correct a mistake that the bank made on my IRA CD. We were going to have to pay taxes on it, and so I had to go plead my case. It wasn't really hard once I got the paperwork together, and the bank guy made a couple of phone calls. Somehow it had gotten coded as a Roth, which is taxable. I'm waiting to get the corrected forms. I think Mike thought I had withdrawn it all and was buying fabric.

Anyway, I just called Mike and tested his memory, which he says is fading fast, and he made 100%. With Paul Harvey's death, I was thinking about how his radio show was such a part of our everyday life in 1967. I asked him what he thought about when he thought about Paul Harvey, and he said, "Auburn." I asked him what soup we usually ate for lunch then,and he answered correctly "bean with bacon." He also said "beef with barley" but I don't remember that as well. I walked home from work every day for lunch, and if Mike didn't have a class, he was there too. We sat at that tiny little table in the bay window and ate our soup and sandwich and looked at the mail - same thing every day - and listened to Paul Harvey. It's just like yesterday, thinking about watching the seasons change from that window and hearing that voice. Whole chunks of years of my life have been forgotten, and who would have thought something as simple as lunchtimes in 1967 would be remembered so distinctly. I think it was such a happy year that we remember a lot about it: Everything about Nadine, the best cat ever, who ran that apartment. Drinking Kool-Aid and eating popcorn, which was the only snack in our budget. Going to the Winn-Dixie on Glenn for groceries and sweating said budget. The huge magnolia tree outside the back door with the tree-house where I would go and read and drink strawberry soda. The excitement of finding enough money to go to the Sani-Flush for an ice cream or going to a movie - I think the movie happened only once. There was a fraternity behind us, and we could sit on the steps and enjoy the music on weekends. Mike had a part-time job at the Tiger Club, and it was a big deal for him to get to bring home some doughnuts that didn't sell. I had new wedding-gift dishes and pots and pans, and even making the nightly hamburger casserole - from another wedding gift - "100 Ways to Cook Hamburger" - was fun. I hate that the old house was torn down. I'm not sure when it happened, but once we drove by and found a Hardee's there.

I need to go waste some more time - laundry, cleaning up the kitchen, straightening my closet (and taking a small nap). Remembering makes me sleepy.