Patience

Trips to Jackson teach me so much.

No, really - they do.

A cow struts herself down a small path in a hill.  "I'm cool.  It's all cool.  I'm just ambling down thepath down this hill to....uh... another hill.  Yeah, another hill.  Or wherever.  It's all good.  Yeah, I'm alone.  I have no idea where all the others like me went but oh well.  Their loss.  Yeah, I'm cool". Seriously, you can see it in her strut. She's the epitome of 'fine within herself'.  And I laughed out loud in the seconds I picked up on all that - 'cuz that's one confident cow.

A guy in a white van full of people - at least 8 maybe 10 people - is tailgating me.  He doesn't adjust well to the constant up and down in speed that occurs on a two lane highway with slight slopes up and down.  His van also appears to struggle a bit uphill - so it gets behind (which is actually to a much safer distance from the car in front of it) - and then catches up again (somewhat dangerously so, I think) on the downhill slopes.  Finally, he passes me, the car in front of me and the car in front of that car.  And he ends up stuck behind the two cars just ahead of all of us - and stays stuck for the remainder of the trip up the hill.  I find perverse satisfaction in noting 'yeah, all that hurrying really put you ahead of the rest of us, huh?'.  I smile again at the joy of karma.

Patience, people.  Patience.  It was a beautiful day with bright blue skies.  Partly cloudy but not stormy. Love the drive up there - town by town.  Gauging how far I am based on the places I pass.  I think of when B. was little and we made him a map of landmarks so he would know how far along we were on the trip to J.'s parents.  Always helped him pass the time and fret less about how long it was taking to get there.  He's always in such a hurry -

I played my free play and some of the extra I brought with me to play.  We collect our leftover weekly allowance at the end of every week and when I'm in the mode of going up weekly for the various things they are enticing me with to go back up, I use the extra money for my gambling.  It's working.  And today, I'm proud to report that while I didn't win anything significant, I won enough to play a bit - and I did not drain every penny in my wallet - so I feel really good about that.

I'm going up next weekend, too - for two nights (free).  Tons of player events that weekend and I just feel like a get away would be great.

I had to make a potty stop on the drive home and always stop at places on the right side of the road so I won't have to go across traffic to go back the way I'm headed.  Today, the only place around was a small farm store - and I indulged in a delicious pannini, brought home a peach pie and found real pancetta for Pasta Carbonara.

It was an expensive restroom stop.  The sign in the bathroom proclaimed 'Restrooms are for our customers'.  Pretty common.  And then added 'a customer is defined as a person who purchases good and services from the business they are visiting'.  I can take a hint.

The getaway will be great incentive to work like a maniac this week and get the big report pretty much done.  It's well in process...but I'm at the point I always get to - it's in process but still so, so much to do.

Not looking forward to Monday but here she comes.