In Eckleburg's Eyes - 11/7/2008

On Thursday the unthinkable happened. I had two home cooked meals in one day! No. No one in my family prepared either.

On Thursday morning, I pitched my proposal to update the church’s adult education program to MLM. MLM agreed with each of the numerous suggestions I made but cautioned me to be prepared for some backlash due to issues of personality. He noted that I needed to be prepared for the reputation I have in the church I grew up in. (See Mark 6:4) I scheduled a meeting with TWC for Wednesday, November 12th at 10 am, to pitch him the same proposal. If all goes well, I will then try to sell my plan to GWS. Please keep this concept in your prayers.

I spent the better part of the morning/afternoon working with the Fish Hospitality Pantry. For a description of this ministry, see the October 3rd edition of “In Eckleburg’s Eyes”. MLM and I took five deliveries to the Washington Pike/Holston Hills area while MWS and his partner Jeff Burnette took three. (I still have a little competitiveness in me. In their defense, we did have my Garmin.) MWS’s daughter, Annie, said what she always says when told her father will be delivering FISH. She warned that the people will “get tired of fish.” That’s a woman with my kind of sense of humor. That may or may not be a good thing.

The four of us met back at the home of CMU for a late lunch. CMU’s neighbors were scheduled to eat with him the night before but cancelled as the husband needed to work late. Their loss was our gain. CMU cooked jambalaya from a recipe from Southern Living. It was tremendous. It included Asiago sausage and shrimp. We also had salad and cornbread. Yes, RWW, I’m gon’ at my cornbread.

CMU’s arraignment is now set for November 20th at 1:20 pm. I learned that the October 29th postponement was due to the Assistant U.S. Attorney being ill prepared for CMU’s many letters of recommendation.

On Thursday night, I ate with KLTW, KJW, and RAW. When I arrived, KJW had just gotten out of the tub and her hair looked as though she had a bad 1980s perm. That may explain why she does look happy in this photo.

KJW had Dora the Explorer soup while the rest of us ate tomato soup. It was great, though I was still stuffed from lunch. The highlight of the meal was the pomegranates. The best thing about the new Kroger is that they carry these fruits. They are addictive and nutritional. If you have never had a pomegranate, I highly recommend them.

The KJW story of the week was that she drew “spider webs” on her parents bed sheets. Unfortunately, she drew them with a pen and the ink will not come out. Now, when this is referenced, KJW covers up the sheets with blankets so her error will not be detected.

KJW’s recent discoveries include M&M’s and Blue’s Clues. She has also learned to say “I like beer” and “I’m Rick James”. (Read shortened Chappelle’s Show reference.) While the latter was clearly her father’s doing, the former was not. When she was in a grocery store, she pointed to the beer section and asked what it was. When she learned it was beer, she responded, “I like beer.” Though she said it only once, RAW has had her repeat the statement many times so that she can say it clearly when her Nana keeps her on Saturday.

Later in the night, I ate yet again, naturally at Applebees. I joined JTH and ALK and TK and his girlfriend “Sarah”. AFH was our server. She was in the midst of a bad day after having been reprimanded by her general manager for attitude problems. The g.m. has little contact with her. She explained, “Nobody wants to work at Applebees.” Thankfully, she did not use this defense with her general manager.

The highlight of the night for me came in this exchange between ALK and TK. ALK, an avid reader, always reads the book upon which the movie is based before watching the movie whenever possible. TK feels this will only ruin a perfectly good movie.

ALK: “Movies are not as good as books.”
TK: “Not if you don’t read them.”

It is worth mentioning that TK is an English major.