One More Deep Breath

Tomorrow we plunge into Finals Exam Week at Southern Man's university so it will be a busy time of writing and administering and grading exams as well as taking care of the thirty-odd appointments students have made to demonstrate their final programming projects. That goes clear through Friday, which is packed from morn 'till night: breakfast with a candidate for an open Dean spot, academic meetings later in the morning and early afternoon, Winter Commencement, and various receptions afterwards. There is an hour that evening when Southern Man needs to be in three places at once and that doesn't count the airport as teen daughter flies in that day; it is not yet determined who is free to pick her up. Twelve-year-old daughter arrives on Saturday. And that means that during the week before Christmas Southern Man will have both girls at home and the usually quiet Casa will be filled with chattering and laughing and music and cooking and (occasionally) fussing. It Will Be Good.

Yesterday Southern Man dropped by our monthly "Coffee Talk" which is usually at the singles director's home but he is down for knee replacement surgery so we met at Panera Bread instead, which Southern Man usually avoids but made an exception this time. There was a geocache in the parking lot so he dragged a couple of the girls out to find it...

Two happy cachers and proof that Southern Man has a social life. A small one, to be sure, but it is there.

It was a cold but beautiful day so Southern Man was determined to spend a good deal of it outside. He went after another cache that had been nagging him for a while and couldn't find it on the third try but he knows it's there somewhere (this is what they call an "extreme" cache out in a wooded area) so he will hit it again later. Then he went out to The Land and fooled around a bit but it was too cold to do anything really productive and he decided to come back into town instead of spending the night in the (cold) trailer. He either needs to fix the trailer's gas heater or pick up a couple of electric heaters pretty soon now. And get an electric blanket. Today will be much of the same - it's cold but not too windy so it will be another outside day.

The evening's entertainment was...well, let's say that no one throws a Christmas party quite like a charismatic megachurch. It was big and crowded and loud and while Southern Man is and will always be Nazarene he can't quite imagine any of his former pastors standing in front of a high-octane rock band and dance troupe proclaiming that "Santa is in the house!" and then witness the Merry One himself zoom overhead to the platform on a zip line. So that was great fun and Southern Man was in such high spirits that he even did a little night caching on the way home. And in an hour or so a delicious pot roast will come out of the oven (his secret broth recipe includes a beef bullion cube and a bottle of beer) and Southern Man will have his own private feast. It's not too early to say "Merry Christmas!"