Years ago, back when I was still at that library reference desk in North Carolina, I worked with some really neat people. One of my favorites was a sassy southern woman that was straight out of central casting for Designing Women. She was somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty years old, and beautiful in a very classy, traditional way. She had shoulder length, cinnamon colored hair, and a soft voice with that gorgeous old North Carolina southern belle accent. She wasn't necessarily a cougar, but if a handsome, successful 35 year old asked her out, I bet she wouldn't have said no. And she was responsible for one of my favorite quotes from a person I actually know (as opposed to a historical figure). For the second time in maybe a month, we had come in to work to find they were completely reconfiguring the first floor of the library, since the first change was awkward and unworkable, and had left the door to our back office out of sight, resulting in one of the librarians having her purse stolen from her desk. My sharp-witted friend looked around at the second change and said, "I always heard when you rearrange your furniture, there is something wrong with your sex life. Someone here is having problems."
For all that my paternal grandmother was a terrific, loving woman, I had trouble in my young adulthood staying close to her. Since I was a teenager, I had started feeling like I was on the periphery of that side of my family. I love them all, and was never rejected by any of them, but I sort of felt like a part-time member of the family. When my grandmother died, and the girls and I flew out to the funeral, I remember learning things about her that I never knew, and understood it was my own fault for not spending more time with her to develop a more grown-up relationship with her and know these details. One of the things I really wish I had known was just how much of a sports nut she was. I sat and listened to the preacher speak about her sports addiction, about how when her favorite Dallas Cowboys weren't doing well, she would get so tense, that the only way to work out that nervous energy was to get up and clean house, and not look directly at the game. I sat in that service and thought, "So that's where I get that!!" They said that she even picked up new sports late in life, and learned to love hockey. I don't recall for sure, but I assume she followed the Dallas Stars. Following her example, I didn't really care about basketball until a few years ago, when my Buffaloes started winning games, and I realized how often my older daughter made it on tv in the basketball pep band. That the basketball team had so much more success than the football team just made it more fun to watch and learn the game better.
What do these things have to do with each other? Today was the season opener for my college team. I was thrilled to discover an hour before kickoff that there was a sports channel on my lineup that carried it out here. I had been watching home renovation shows while I waited for the game to start, and by kickoff I was already wound so tight I had made great progress on cleaning up the kitchen and living room, that had been left to fallow while I slept off the fatigue from my new crazy fitness routine. I don't think it was all the way through the first quarter before I was wound so tight that I started moving furniture. The man hated the way I arranged the living room (he always does), but I was adamant about this one. Now he has been gone for four months, and it's still a ways off before he gets his first holiday. It's time to experiment with some different configurations, although this means if I want to move the secretary down here to use under the television, I'm going to have to carry it myself.
My team started winning (we had a 1 and 11 season last year, so this was exciting), and I was more able to sit down and watch our first win in 9 games. Now the room is in shambles, half the stuff is in the kitchen, and the fire under my ass has gone out. I need to put it in vague order before I go to bed tonight. Maybe there's a good game on tomorrow, so I will be inspired to finish it.
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