The Unluckiest Lucky Person in the World

Today, I feel like Hurley on "Lost." You know, the kind of feeling that if you had a silver cloud it would have a black lining? Why do I feel this way?

Saturday I attended the Custer and the Indian Wars Symposium in Denver, Colorado. I won one of the big raffle prizes - a pair of tickets to the Monday Night Football game last night, between the Broncos and the Chiefs. As a Broncos fan (lost in KC) I have always wanted to see a game in Denver, but never had the opportunity. And here it was handed to me, two $54 tickets, a pair of hats and assorted blue-and-orange stuff. But I couldn't stay. My husband had to go to Dallas Monday on business, I had class Monday night, work Tuesday, and just couldn't justify taking my son out of school for two more days.

Man, it is tough being the "good seed." I hope my mother appreciates it.

Reality Hits

We buried my great-aunt this weekend. Or more precisely, we sprinkled her ashes from the banks of the Missouri River, as she requested. The service went smoothly. The span of time between her death (in June) to now had softened the impact. The two and one-half months served as a cushion. I am sure most of us thought we had concluded our mourning in that time. At least I thought I had, until last night. Going through my son's backpack, we found the annual school picture order form. As usual, I sat down to make my list of names and photo sizes, and out of habit started to write down "Peggy". I couldn't finish the list. It was too hard to do it without her.

There Are Always Possibilities

My title here is one of my favorite Spock lines from "Star Trek" - in my life I have always found it to be true, and as a mantra it has always bolstered me, no matter how tough I perceived life to be. And, once again, believing in possibilities has not failed me. Since hurricane Katrina hit, I have been monitoring websites for the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library, hoping against hope it was not totally destroyed. This was a gem of a historical site I visited on my June vacation, and was one of the many places on the gulf coast I was hoping to spend more time at in the future (see post on Beauvoir). Today I was happy to see some current photos, with a very positive message about rebuilding this beautiful and unique place.

A Seinfeld Post

Finally, a nice quiet weekend. We went camping, and nothing happened. No catastrophe at home, no problems with the camper. Decent weather - cool enough in the evening to cook over an open fire. Even spent an evening driving around Squaw Creek Wildlife Preserve, shot a roll of film, and everything worked. I didn't even collect a large number of mosquito bites! I finished reading a book, did some howework, lost to my 9-year-old at chess, lost to my husband at the washer game, and got bored with a LOTR monopoly game that was stuck in a 3-way tie. The weekend was like watching a really good Seinfeld episode - nothing happened!