Dispatch from Carthage #5: Random Thoughts

Thoughts too small for their own posts:

• Why is it that no matter where Nicole and I go for a meal, the table at which we sit is always wobbly?


• Fountain drinks are almost universally served in styrofoam cups here. Environmental consciousness aside, they just don't hold the lids very well. It's only a matter of time before I spill my lemonade all over my pants.


• Road kill - every day I've seen a new dead animal on the road. Every day.


• Speaking of roads, most of the roads around here have no shoulders. It's just pavement bordered by grassy ditches. In the Portland area, I can't think of any paved rural roads that have no shoulders.


• Also, the method for naming roads around here is certifiably crazy. On one level, you have your tree-named roads running alphabetically east-west, and bird/animal-named roads north-south. Then there are the numbered roads: CR 164, CR 170, etc. They seem to progress from one end of the county to the other. Wackiest of all is the letter system, whereby you can have Highways V and HH and D and M and O all over the place, not in any order, and yes, I know that Jim blogged about this on June 18, 2005.


• It's still strange to think that I'm two hours ahead of almost everyone I have ever met.


• Stranger still is the number of people here in the area who vaguely look like some I know or have known. I guess there are only so many types of face out there.


• So much for 185. I need to start losing weight again, because it's getting uncomfortable to tie my shoes.


• Within a week of my arrival here, Nicole and I went to a Carthage High School football game. For free. Nicole, and now I, are the youth leaders at the church, so the high school figured that we shouldn't have to pay to see any home game. So they sent us a pass, gratis. Go Tigers!


• Tired of hearing me mention this? I'm getting married in two and a half weeks. Married. Me. At nearly 34 years of age. It's blowing my mind, big time. And I can't wait!