But it's a pretty good workout, wandering lost around seven acres of cornfield. And the roasted corn afterward was pretty good.

Ya know that feeling...

It's that defeated feeling as you're leaving the hockey arena, after a blowout game, not having ever attended a game to support the local team before, hanging your head, watching your feet as you schlep back to the Rock Star Parking Spot you scored a few hours earlier, thinking, "Man, we suck."

Arggghhh. At least the dog is also a girl, so that evens out the score in my house.

Hmm... what would you do if you had one takeback? One do over? Thanks, Travis, for putting this thought into my head. Actually, that one has me pondering a couple of loved ones tonight.

Further, do we really too often focus on, "Where should I be?" and, "What have I not yet attained?" instead of, "Wow, look at from whence I have come, y'all!"

So, this evening, instead of the crying that I want to do, hey, check yourself out! Have you not just about been through it all?

Against all odds, too. Each of us needs some serious TLC, people. I'm talking full spa treatment.

I've been having these headaches and dry, bloody noses, and I'm pretty sure those are due to allergies. I think I'm allergic to something out here. Everybody is. I just need to find the thing that will make that stop. Headaches are pretty much a non-issue for me, but the bloody exudite on a daily basis was a concern.

I'm thinking about that hotel full of Western journalists that was triple-bombed in Baghdad, and how I was going to do that with my life, report news from war zones, and I'm not. Even though I wanted that so badly. There's a reason for everything, huh?

What sort of key are you and what do you unlock?
brought to you by Quizilla

I feel so helpless being across the country when I feel kind of needed. Tanya's baby boy has been in the hospital with pneumonia for a week. But today, he's off the oxygen, which Tanya says is a very important step to going home. I wish I were closer, to help. I don't know what I'd help with, but ... you know...

Mmm, this latte` is so good. Thank you, honey.

We're about to go Halloween costume shopping, for a party tonight. I know, there's nothing like last minute. I figure the perfect costume will hit me, and I won't have to be a ...

Gosh, I just had a total flashback to T-lot. In the middle of the winter one time at NDSU in Fargo, I had to park somewhere out in the middle of T-lot. I think all off-campus students had to park in T-lot, but I digress.

I was working on my deadline at The Spectrum, and maybe Nightbeat at KDSU, and by the time I came out of there, T-lot was empty, save for my lone Cutlass Supreme.

It's, like, ninety degrees in South Texas today, and my body feels like it is battling those 40-mile-an-hour winds and -40 temps to cross that empty field to get to my flippin' car, then just pray the thing would start, because there was nobody around for a jump.

I know I have no right to complain, because I think that was the only time I ever parked in T-lot, and maybe there should be a rule against de ja vu blogging,

I love my mom. She's absolutely crazy, but whose mom isn't? And whose mom isn't the first person to whom they go for advice or when the world is too much?

My childhood and college friend Bridget lost her mom a couple of weeks ago. Her mom was her world, and her best friend, and anyone who knew her knew that.

Last week, Bridget then became a mom. She has a daughter of her own, and I can't imagine what she is going through. And tomorrow is her birthday.

It's got to be almost too much. If not for Faith.

My cappuccino gets cold too quickly. Might it be the hard Texas aquifer water with which it is made?

I need a new product for my hair. There is this little curl, right in the middle of my forehead. I used to know somebody who said this curl indicated my superpowers. Many superheroes have this curl. Anyway, I think I need a new product, as nothing will make this curl behave.

Perhaps I need a new hairstyle for my impending milestone birthday? Someone said Thirty is the new Twenty-one. I like that.

The bridge over the canal at Ancient Corinth in Greece represents for me a paradox.

I was so excited because of where we were, and what we were seeing, and the air smelled pretty good. Then, we saw this ship coming down the canal, and that skinny little bridge began to quiver. Anyone else standing there, then ran to one side or the other. We stood in the middle, and either were going to die, or come away with an awesome photograph of that moment.

Where do you draw the line between that which almost kills you or makes you stronger?

Travis has a notion that his cat doesn't want to be petted by anyone else. But one day, when I had to go into the office, before it became Travis' room, Ike came out from wherever she was hiding and ALLOWED ME TO PET HER. Not only that, but she was PURRING. There was a love moment, people.

Well.

Everything I've been able to glean about this annual Greek Funstival is that this year, this 44-year-old tradition was this weekend. Even had friends lined up to meet us there. So after waking up too late for church this morning (well, I woke up on time, but Mr. Erik was impossible to awaken), having the friends call, regrettably, to cancel, and driving through every area of town where the artwork is displayed on all available cement surfaces, thank God for The White Rabbit. Because finding The White Rabbit is how I knew we were almost to where we needed to be. I was surprised, too.

Parking was ample, so we waltzed into this Greek Orthodox Church, just as families were serenely exiting mass.

...And read a big white sign informing us that the Greek Funstival is next weekend. No, I am not kidding. I can't believe it took us so long to find. For nothing. Well, not for nothing, we did go across the street for Greek lunch, after all.

All I could hear in my head was my precious Uncle John in New Jersey: "Honey, I miss you so much, your face is in front of my eyes all of the time! I wish you'd never left here!"

I just love him.

Consider all the memorabilia hanging around on the walls and ceilings of restaurants everywhere.

I realize people go to school for this. But when I try to arrange stuff like this on my walls, it just ends up looking like slapped-up crap. So you can imagine how I hesitate to pound nails into walls.

I prefer to ponder it. A lot. Before I commit to the permanence of a nail.

Thank God it's Friday.

I try to buy stuff kids are selling for school fundraisers whenever I can. It's doing my part. Today was payday, so I ordered cookbooks from the high school foreign exchange students, and five-year-old Roxy made a haul off of me with one of those fundraiser catalogs of Christmas items.

My friend lost her mom. Though I hadn't seen her in years, and hadn't been to a slumber party at Bridget's house featuring mud masks and Bon Jovi in just about as long, I mentally went there today (who needs pictures, with a memory like mine?). I've got the cds from that night, too. And Bridget is having her first baby this next week. I can't imagine.

Some people were discussing today that saying, "I'm sorry" more than once is a sign of weakness. Once upon a time, one of my friends was saying to another, "I'm too nice to you. I'm too nice to everybody."

I think that's okay. I think it's just fine to be too nice to everybody, as long as you develop a thick enough skin. My friend Duncan tells me, "Winnie the Pooh lives in the Hundred Acre Wood, where everyone knows he is Winnie the Pooh and treats him as such. You, however, live in the real world."

I believe, as life is short and everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle, we should just be plain ol' decent to each other, so there wouldn't have to be sorries.

Buy whatever kids are selling for school fundraisers. Be sweet to people. Don't sleep too late on Saturday. You know, the basics.

Who better to understand how you feel than someone who also has seizures? Well, Erik had two of them overnight. Gosh, poor baby.

So I am operating on no sleep. Nobody better come at me with a problem today.

My de ja vu is acting weird lately. So just now I am having a cup of smoked corn chowder, but mentally I am with Jonathan Brunner at, what was that Mexican restaurant, in Bismarck.

My friend Heather's take on that is perhaps this fourth of my brain is just rewiring itself, and whoop! Tash and I are driving down some road singing that Meatloaf song.

I have to work this afternoon, people. I can't spend all day playing.

A ten-minute grand mal, and I feel like I had a serious workout. I need a massage. And a hot tub. And some Greek food. And hey, everybody, remember this weekend is the Greek festival downtown. Who's going? I might need a scooter, though. I can barely walk.

Seriously.

Somebody said something to me the other day and I have been pondering it ever since. This person had shaken a hand that shook the hand of Adolf Hitler. Wow.

History is nothing. Think of your oldest relative that you knew, and their oldest relative they knew. I've shaken Dan Rather's hand. It's not on the level of Hitler or anything, but it's not bad, if you think about the hands he's shaken.

"Brush With Fame" used to be the icebreaker in a lot of my speech classes in college. But seriously, history is so... so... nothing. Know what I mean? And we're so close to it. Just think of whom you've touched.

Oh, allergens. Grr. I just... Grrr.

In like, second grade, I learned from Barbie Elliott how to plug my nose when I sneezed. This seemed to be the most polite way to get through the cold season in North Dakota. Thanks, Barb.

Nowadays, people make fun of the way I sneeze, because I do so very quietly. To me, this is the best way not to snot all over everyone and everything in my path. It's polite, right?

Erik and my mother have decided that plugging one's nose when sneezing quite obviously causes brain tumors(because Barbie and I each had one). Like these two people should talk.

People like them are the reason I took to sneezing quietly. These folks are the two loudest sneezers I know. Sneezing Soulmates. And I can say that here, because I have been handed continual buffalo biscuits about my sneezing habits all my life. But again, I think this is a preferable alternative to blasting icky exudate all over everybody within range.

I think it's appropriate. And I'm all about that, you know.

List every stoopid (I spelled it that way on purpose) movie you've ever heard of, and throw in some fart-noise-making-silly-putty-kinda-stuff that I just eventually had to confiscate and hide (because "A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets...")

Dodgeball just ended. Napoleon Dynamite is just beginning. GAH. And there's a whole bottle of Captain Morgan I didn't tap into on top of the fridge, because Hurricane Rita didn't come this way. And I don't have to work tomorrow.

I love Travis so much. He, being my baby brother, I have always adored, like a puppy. I was four when he was born, so he was my babydoll. He's just so cute. But Erik is reliving his youth through Travis, and I think I now live with two college boys.

I'm gonna have to hide my hooch.

Last night we were reminiscing, and Travis said, "Remember how Mom always told us to 'be careful what you do, because someone is always watching'? Well now, the Internet is always watching."

We talked about how that may or may not include snotty girls from high school who were ego-surfing and found that you called them a bitch one day on your blog. Whoops.

I was informed last night that it doesn't matter if I have my Webmaster delete the page, it is archived SOMEWHERE, until the end of time. Or the end of the Internet, whenever that may be.

Hi, Internet. Good morning. Cappuccino? Mike's Hard Lemonade?

Erik has a spreadsheet that tells him just when we'll be completely debt-free. I called the Bank of North Dakota this morning for a pay-off amount. Thirty-two more measley li'l payments and that college education is MINE.

If we go out to dinner on Friday night, after a long, hard workweek, and you leave me alone at the table in the middle of a busy restaurant to "just run into the bar to check the Red Sox score quick" and end up on the phone with your dad yelling, "AW, MAN!" and "YESSS" and discussing doubleplays, and errors, do not be offended if the restaurant owner is talking with your wife when you come back.

If you don't like it, then don't leave me alone for so long. Or, in the future, we just won't go out on game nights. Excuse me, that should probably be capitalized. Game Nights. I know, I know, you're a citizen of the Red Sox Nation.

I don't want to hear about this again. Especially if it gets us any table we want in that restaurant in the future. Love you. Mean it. Heh. You're cute. Relax. Endoxi.