standing by

It was a lovely day in the middle of nowhere today; the temperatures were just about perfect, with no hurricanes or earthquakes or any other disasters to mar the day. I didn't get out of bed until almost eleven, which is about when I would have woken up anyway when accounting for the time difference, which meant I only had three hours to unpack, shower, hang out, check my online Google+ game, eat lunch, etc. before my mother hosted her garden club here. I chose not to participate in the club meeting, since I'm not a gardener and know nothing about anything they were discussing. Instead, I sat on the back patio, overlooking the pond and the lush rolling hills, and wrote six pages of the non-gargoyle book. I still wrapped up in time to help my mom serve dessert to her garden club peeps (I don't know if the oldest member, at 94 years of age, would appreciate being called a 'peep', but I shall anyway) and say hi to all of them, so that was nice.

And then my father and brother returned from hiding (they'd spent half an hour waiting at the end of the driveway for people to start leaving) and we all drove up to see my cousin Drewbaby's first football game of the season. We stopped on the way for dinner at the Pizza Ranch in Indianola, which is pretty much the opposite of anything Alyssa-approved, since they serve both a pizza buffet and a fried chicken and mashed potatoes buffet. Yum. We made it to Bondurant just as the Bondurant-Farrar high school band was playing the national anthem, and Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy had saved us seats in the visitor bleachers (since Drewbaby plays for North Polk). Aunt Becky and Uncle Brian were also there, so we basically had a family reunion sans Drew in the bleachers, much to the detriment of everyone around us who actually knew what was going on and cared about football. Happily, Drew made 4 of his 5 point-after kicks and his team won handily, and since the weather was gorgeous we all had a lovely time. Then we all hung out at the nearby Burger King before parting ways at closing time so that our side of the family could drive home. We got here around 12:30am, and now I should really go to bed. Goodnight!