Sunny Thursday

It’s 61 degrees and I’m on the bike for the day.

My first stop was the post office where I noticed someone had dropped their ear plugs. I left them there on the pavement. Using someone else’s ear plugs is like using a stranger’s toothbrush. Besides, I didn’t want to get hearing AIDS.

After not enough thought, as it turns out, I decided on breakfast at Waffle House.

Even though I was wearing my fluorescent lime green riding jacket, I was apparently invisible to the waitress for several minutes. When she brought my silverware, she apparently noticed a problem with the knife – or else figured I couldn’t be trusted with it - and left only the fork and spoon on a napkin.

I ordered coffee and a 3-egg ham and cheese omelet with hash browns and toast. Naturally, the meal showed up with a packet of mixed fruit jelly. Who the hell likes or buys mixed fruit? I’ve long contended that Mixed Fruit is what they package at the end of the day with the leftovers.

When the waitress brought my check, I asked her for a packet of strawberry jelly in exchange for the mixed fruit. She brought it, but still hadn’t noticed that she’d shorted me a knife. Have you ever tried to apply jelly to toast with a fork or a spoon?

And, by the way, Waffle House coffee is fucking awful.

Now I’m at Hastings sipping some real coffee and using their free Wifi.

I thought long and hard yesterday about driving up to Indiana for my cousin’s memorial service this afternoon. I don’t know that my presence would have made that much difference to her sisters and brother. They might have been impressed that I’d care enough to drive all the way from Arkansas, but mostly their minds would be on other things and 14 hours is a long time to spend in a car for a short event like that.

Instead, I sent flowers and resolved to make time later this year to drive/ride over to Nashville and spend time with her brother, Sam. Sam is close to my age and at various times in our lives, we could pass for brothers, or maybe even twins.