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Detour to Nostalgia
I found out a couple of days ago that Albert was going to have to work two 18-hour days in a row. This seemed like a good time to visit my mother. So, I packed up Boo and hit the road Sunday.
Behind that simple statement lie a few facts. First, that I was a complete dumbass and stayed out roleplaying until 3am the night before. Two of my friends had to attend a funeral (their second in two weeks, which really, really sucks :( ), so our regularly scheduled gaming was called off. So instead,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pktheater whipped up some characters and ran a one-shot. He read off the character descriptions so we could pick, and I decided the uptight warrior-priest sounded cool. I got handed her with a "congratulations, this means you're the leader." So, you know, I had to stay to the end. Couldn't abandon the troops. :) The game was mucho fun, and thus I found myself not getting to sleep until after 4am.
Fact two is that Boo decided that there would be no, repeat, no morning nap. I probably could have got her to sleep, but then there was no way I would be leaving at anything resembling a reasonable time. Especially since I hadn't gotten up until it was almost time for Albert to leave for work. So, with Albert's help, we fed lunch an hour early to a sleepy-eyed baby, and I hit the road around noonish. It was a good thing I opted for the early start, too.
Fact three is that traveling to my mother's necessitates driving over Monteagle Mountain. In the last few weeks, there have been three rockslides at the same place on the west side of the mountain, and the third took place just a couple of days ago. I knew that the I-24 eastbound traffic up the west side of the mountain was down to one lane, but I didn't think it would be that bad, or at least no worse, time-wise, than detouring through Tracy City or Sewanee. Even though traffic was tail-backed to six miles before the slide, I still thought it would be best to take my chances. But just as I reached the last exit before the slide, state troopers showed up and shut down the interstate, making us all take the detour through Sewanee. To sum up, it took me an hour and forty-five minutes to traverse what is normally a ten-minute zoom up seven miles of interstate.
It wasn't all bad, though. The detour actually took me right along my old stomping grounds, up the windy little road that climbs from Cowan to Sewanee, the University of the South, which happens to be my alma mater. I go over Monteagle all the time, and Sewanee is only a few miles from the interstate, but I never seem to have time to visit. So, when I found myself detoured right through the Domain, I decided to take a five-minute detour of my own. It was kind of frightening how little had, in fact, changed. There was a spiffy new sidewalk replacing the heel-gouging gravel paths between my old dorm and the main quad, and they'd also cut off the road at the dorm's parking lot. But the same shops were there, the same bank, the same restaurants, as if nothing had really changed. Which is kind of appropriate to the place.
Anyway, I survived the trip, and so did the baby. I spent today sleeping in, having lunch with my dad, and trying to figure out how to transfer my mother's digital pictures to her computer. (I've never used any computers other than Macs, but I've given up trying to explain to my mom that I really don't know what I'm doing with her computer. Every time I claim ignorance, and then sit down with the thing, I still make it work, so I guess I can't blame her for not believing my protests of incompetence.) Unfortunately, the battery on the camera died before we found out if we were doing the right thing, so we'll have to try again tomorrow.
Boo is perfecting her stomping skills these days. She can't walk, but she can cruise, and she's started taking these enormous giant steps when I hold her up. Albert calls her Girlzilla, and exhorts her to crush cities beneath her feet. Not sure what the baby-raising books would say about this.
Behind that simple statement lie a few facts. First, that I was a complete dumbass and stayed out roleplaying until 3am the night before. Two of my friends had to attend a funeral (their second in two weeks, which really, really sucks :( ), so our regularly scheduled gaming was called off. So instead,
pktheater whipped up some characters and ran a one-shot. He read off the character descriptions so we could pick, and I decided the uptight warrior-priest sounded cool. I got handed her with a "congratulations, this means you're the leader." So, you know, I had to stay to the end. Couldn't abandon the troops. :) The game was mucho fun, and thus I found myself not getting to sleep until after 4am.Fact two is that Boo decided that there would be no, repeat, no morning nap. I probably could have got her to sleep, but then there was no way I would be leaving at anything resembling a reasonable time. Especially since I hadn't gotten up until it was almost time for Albert to leave for work. So, with Albert's help, we fed lunch an hour early to a sleepy-eyed baby, and I hit the road around noonish. It was a good thing I opted for the early start, too.
Fact three is that traveling to my mother's necessitates driving over Monteagle Mountain. In the last few weeks, there have been three rockslides at the same place on the west side of the mountain, and the third took place just a couple of days ago. I knew that the I-24 eastbound traffic up the west side of the mountain was down to one lane, but I didn't think it would be that bad, or at least no worse, time-wise, than detouring through Tracy City or Sewanee. Even though traffic was tail-backed to six miles before the slide, I still thought it would be best to take my chances. But just as I reached the last exit before the slide, state troopers showed up and shut down the interstate, making us all take the detour through Sewanee. To sum up, it took me an hour and forty-five minutes to traverse what is normally a ten-minute zoom up seven miles of interstate.
It wasn't all bad, though. The detour actually took me right along my old stomping grounds, up the windy little road that climbs from Cowan to Sewanee, the University of the South, which happens to be my alma mater. I go over Monteagle all the time, and Sewanee is only a few miles from the interstate, but I never seem to have time to visit. So, when I found myself detoured right through the Domain, I decided to take a five-minute detour of my own. It was kind of frightening how little had, in fact, changed. There was a spiffy new sidewalk replacing the heel-gouging gravel paths between my old dorm and the main quad, and they'd also cut off the road at the dorm's parking lot. But the same shops were there, the same bank, the same restaurants, as if nothing had really changed. Which is kind of appropriate to the place.
Anyway, I survived the trip, and so did the baby. I spent today sleeping in, having lunch with my dad, and trying to figure out how to transfer my mother's digital pictures to her computer. (I've never used any computers other than Macs, but I've given up trying to explain to my mom that I really don't know what I'm doing with her computer. Every time I claim ignorance, and then sit down with the thing, I still make it work, so I guess I can't blame her for not believing my protests of incompetence.) Unfortunately, the battery on the camera died before we found out if we were doing the right thing, so we'll have to try again tomorrow.
Boo is perfecting her stomping skills these days. She can't walk, but she can cruise, and she's started taking these enormous giant steps when I hold her up. Albert calls her Girlzilla, and exhorts her to crush cities beneath her feet. Not sure what the baby-raising books would say about this.