How Walgreens Saved Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas and through the house there arouse, suddenly, a ruckus...

Christmas Eve started out semi-normal this year. And by semi-normal I mean my mom was running around putting finishing touches on everything, my dad was cutting wood so we wouldn't have to do it on Christmas Day, and friends were dropping in periodically (because that's how my parents friends are). 

Nothing of real interest happened. We called my brother who was in D.C. and chitchatted with him for a little while, Dad went to the farm with my nephew, they came home and he took E home, Mom and I just kinda hung out. 

So then around nine, Dad decided that we should make homemade candy. Okay, sounds great! So, we get the dough made up and prepared, and I say, "Do we have chocolate chips?" 

You don't have to be a genius to see where this is going...

Now, it's Christmas Eve and at this point it's ten, so obviously there aren't any stores open. But, we called around town anyways. Ingles, Publix (actually, come to think, I don't know that we did call Publix, but we'll say they were closed anyways), Walmart . . . all the big places were closed. 

So then someone suggested Walgreens. 

And lo! Walgreens was open! So Mom ran over to Walgreens, grabbed the chocolate chips, and the homemade Reese's process continued. And Dad was in a good mood again--which is what we wanted all along. Hah. 

So, the candy turned out good. Mom was also able to get a Coke for her ham that she'd forgotten, and then Christmas Eve proceeded like normal. Well, normal for us. Hah. 

Thanks Walgreens! And Merry Christmas! 

Old Friends

Tonight reminded me just how much I miss some of my friends back home and how much I need to cherish some of those old and familiar relationships. This feeling was spurred because tonight I talked to one of my best and oldest friends for the first time in about three or four months. I know that you're probably thinking, "You haven't talked to one of your best friends in that long? What the heck?" But see, Hannah (on the left, and that's a super old picture, by the way) and I have a unique relationship. She's one of those people that I can just pick up with right wherever we left off.

Anyways, I was on Facebook tonight and turned my chat on for the first time in probably three or four months. But for some reason I did turn it on tonight and all of a sudden I got a little chat message from Hannah (yay, technology!). 

And for the next three hours we just talked about everything under the moon and caught up with what's been going on in each other's lives. After a few months we both had a lot to share--some of it good, some bad, some happy, and some really sad--but just being able to go back to that. . .that familiar, not having to explain anything or any sort of history to someone and not having to worry about judgement or anything. . . it was just really nice and comforting and I kind of feel peaceful about everything right now. 

One thing I also love about Hannah is that she's one of those people who I can talk to about faith and my walk with God without feeling like it's not good enough or inadequate and stuff like that, you know? I mean, she's never hoity-toity about things. And she realizes how fragile things are too, so if you say something that she doesn't agree with, she'll tell you how she feels, but she manages to do it in such a humble and innocent a way that you don't feel like you're being corrected or told off. It's amazing really. And I'm not just talking about when she talks about religion, she's able to do this with any subject. 

Anyways, just talking to her made me realize how much I cherish our friendship. I ended up having to run abruptly, but we ended with the promise to talk more often because we've both really missed that. It's Christmas break now, so we're going to get together and just have a catch-up day soon. I'm really excited. 

Smile!

Itzhak Perlman performed today at the Performing Arts Center where I work. For those of you who don’t know, he’s just a world-renown violinist, no big deal.

People were running around like absolute chickens with their heads cut off.

Imagine those girls that you see in old video reel of The Beatles concerts—the ones that are reaching towards the stage and screaming and practically crying—that’s basically how all of our patrons and our students today were acting. It was actually quite humorous.

Mr. Perlman was gracious enough to allow sixty lucky music students at UGA sit on stage. In order to get these students on the stage, there was an elaborate scheme and routine they had to follow, but I digress. Before the students were able to enter on to the stage they had to pick up their ticket, show their student ID, and check everything they had on their person at the coat check. This is where I was.

The students were allowed onto the stage early and their coat check was just sort of chilling in the lobby. We couldn’t move the coat check rack across the lobby with the other 1000 people who weren’t students still waiting to go inside, so I was regaled to sit in a chair by the elevators with the students coats and wallets and phones to keep them safe until the performance started and we could move them across the lobby and into the box office.

So for the next forty-five minutes or so, I sat there and mainly played on my phone (thank goodness for technology, right?). Occasionally, a frazzled and lost student wondering how to get backstage or a grumpy old man looking for the bathroom would interrupt my Angry Birds rampage and I’d direct them in the right direction, but for the most part, it was pretty slow.

Then, this older woman—probably in her seventies—and her husband walked by, laughing about something and I heard the word “elevator”. Since I was sitting by the elevator I kind of grinned at her, she smiled back, and I went back to Angry Birds.

Then suddenly, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I looked up and the elevator woman was standing beside me with this huge grin on her face. “Thank you,” she says.

I smile, what on earth is she thanking me for? I wonder.

“Thank you,” she repeats. “for your big, friendly smile. I just love it when people smile and are friendly to strangers, and they so very rarely are anymore. So thank you.” And with that she patted my shoulder in that old woman way, hopped on the elevator with her husband, off to enjoy the dulcet tones of Itzhak Perlman (the aforementioned tones were dulcet and breathtaking and beautiful; I may have snuck in for a few minutes of listening when I got off work).

That woman’s words really got me thinking. I’m a happy and friendly person; I don’t think twice about smiling at strangers (and maybe that’s simply a by-product of being raised in the South?). But she’s right! People don’t simply smile at strangers anymore. As soon as our conversation was over I texted a friend who lives in a different region of the country and told him about it. He immediately laughed and replied with “If you’d done that here, the old lady would have been Russian and asked what you were so happy about.” which made me laugh, but also kind of made me sad.

I don’t know . . . it just got me thinking . . . it shouldn’t be such a shocking thing to be on the receiving end of a smile. But it is. And it’s a strange society we live in. I think I really (inadvertently) made that woman’s day today, simply by smiling at her.

But what she doesn’t know is that she also made mine by talking and smiling back.

Tossing the Pigskin

Once upon a time there were these two groups of men. One group wore the hideous combination of orange and blue. The other wore the esteemed colors of red and black. And once every year since 1915, a mass exodus of over 60,000 twenty-somethings and college co-eds head to the neutral city of Jacksonville, FL for the one of the most intense and heated fights the world will ever see. 

I'm talking about the annual Georgia/Florida football game, of course. 

So, early Friday morning my roommates and I took off for what would end up being one of the best weekends of our lives. 

The first night we went to this place called The Landing. It's like a huge outdoor bar/music venue--and also a mall, not sure how that works--kind of thing. Ten bucks to get in, and there's restaurants and bars and shops and it's just really a blast. So, we hung out there for a while, some shenanigans were had, and then we headed home. 

The next morning we got up early to hit the continental breakfast at the hotel and tried to avoid the obnoxious Florida fans. After breakfast we picked out our outfits (because let's be honest, that's what really matters) and tried to figure out the tram. Then, we headed out to brave the masses!

We arrived at the Jacksonville Jaguar's stadium sometime around twelve. One of my roommates, Julia, her boyfriend is in the UGA band so we tried to find him before the game started. But, oh, with 60,000 people in one place, phone service was less than patchy--it was non-existent. So we wandered around and tried to find Forest for about an hour and a half. Finally, we found him in the very place that we started. 

Next, we tried to meet up with some friends of Julia. Again, our phones wouldn't work so we were kind of just wandering around blindly. After another hour of wandering around, we finally found lot P and met up with our friends. So, we ate, drank, and just tailgated merrily for a bit before the game started. 

About three o'clock our friends got ready to head to the game. We didn't have tickets (because they're freaking expensive!). So we were just going to hang around the tailgate and watch it on TV with our tailgating neighbors.

Then, suddenly, someone said, "Hey--let's go to the game!" 

So off to find an ATM we went. 

So now that we had money, we had to find tickets. Not only tickets, but we had to find three tickets together for the amount of money that we had (which wasn't a lot). After about four unsuccessful tries we finally found three tickets that were together and that were in our price range--and by price range, I mean that between the three of us we had exactly enough money to buy the tickets. And after we bought the tickets we had this moment of panic that they were fake or something. But they weren't! And--AND--they were on the fifty yard line about six rows up. In short, it was awesome. 

And the awesomeness was only perpetuated by the fact that Georgia won--GO DAWGS!

So after almost getting on the wrong bus and heading to who knows where, we finally ended up back at our hotel. We quickly changed outfits (again) and went back to The Landing with our friends from the tailgate to eat and go out. 

And then things started to get interesting. 

I was the DD for the night and one of my roommates had a wee bit too much to drink--but it's GA/FL so who cares, right? But, this also meant that the majority of the night was chasing after her. It was bad but also humorous. And we'll just leave it at that.

BUT the highlight of the night was meeting Robin Williams. Or, at least a man that looked scarily like Robin Williams. He was also a little drunk and upon meeting me says, "Dixie? That's your name? What an awesome name! You know, I can see myself marrying a woman named Dixie. I can see myself saying someday, 'Yeah, that's my wife. Her name's Dixie. And she knows all about the South, football, fried chicken and all that shit.'". And then he proceeded to kiss me. And Morgan managed to snap a picture of it! So, yeah, Robin and I will be tying the knot soon. 

The night ended shortly thereafter and the next morning we headed home. We stopped in St. Simmons just for fun and to see the beach--fun fact: St. Simmons beach was the very first beach I ever went to. My dad's best friend was from there and he said it was a tradition in his family for that to be the first beach a person goes to. Anyways, then we headed to Savannah and ate an early dinner on River Street, then headed on home to Athens. The GPS got us extremely lost on the way home, so that was sort of scary. We decided to go the scenic route home (note to self: next time, take the scenic route there not back). We ended up in like the ghetto of Dublin, going down this little road that didn't have street lights. It was the sort of street that, had we been characters in a scary movie, there would have been three or four burly (or scraggly, I'm undecided) homeless men with clubs chasing us. I'm NOT exaggerating. 

Well, we finally got out of there and then the GPS took us down this long country road (again, no street lights) and this time we didn't have cell service either. Out of the three of us, not one of us could make a call. And it was a full moon (I'm extremely superstitious). Oh, and we were running on fumes and had been since Dublin. Eventually though, we made it to the end of the long country road, found a gas station, and our cell phones started working again. 

Finally, after many, many hours (and a McDonald's trip in which I thought I'd lost my wallet) we arrived home. It was in the seventies when we'd left on Friday and we returned home on Sunday night it was in the forties. Winter came to Georgia while we had been gone! And . . . a bottle of vodka spilled in the trunk so that wasn't fun to clean up in the cold. But we did and the night ended with us busting into our fourth roommates room and telling her of all the weekend's escapades. 

So, all in all, first GA/FL game equals SUCCESS! 

The Things Kids Do...

Okay, so I have the funniest/most awful thing that one of the kids that attends a camp I work at did. In order for it to make sense, you need a little background. Brace yourselves, because it's awful, yet slightly humorous--in a childlike innocence way, because the girl who did this is only nine. 

Every Wednesday at camp we make prayer cards for people off the church's prayer list. Normally, they're only allowed to write on one side of the postcard because we have to write the address on the back. This week all the campers made them for the same guy--a guy that went to school with all of us and was in our friend group. He is/was(?) in the Army but was severely injured about a three months ago when he stepped on an IED, losing his left arm and right leg. The kids were allowed to write on both sides because we were going to mail them in a big envelope. 

So, we told all the kids this and said they needed to write things like "Thank you for your service", "Keep your head up" (my boss's idea), etc and not "Get Well Soon" because he isn't really sick, per se, or things like "I'm sorry" because we want to keep his morale up and be supportive and nice. 

So this one little girl named, draws a pretty picture of a flag and writes on the front of the post card "Thank you for keeping me and my family safe." And we're all thinking, how sweet! Because seriously, the rest of the kids didn't listen and just wrote things like "Thank You" and her's really felt heartfelt, you know? 

Then we flipped it over...

On the back she had drawn two stick figures. One had a head, body, two arms, and two legs. The other had a head and body, but was missing an arm and a leg. Above the pictures she wrote "Me" with an arrow pointing to the normal stick figure and a "You" with an arrow pointing to the...er...other stick figure. Underneath she wrote "I feel sorry for you!" 

*facepalm*

You can't send that to a guy who just lost an arm and a leg!!!! 

Needless to say, we asked her to redo it, and she didn't really understand why, lol. I think by "I feel sorry for you" she meant, "I feel bad for you" and meant to be sweet and sincere, but still we were all like "Whoa! Can't send that to him."

A very important lesson was learned: ALWAYS screen the prayer cards before sending them. 

We kept the card, heehee, because in all honesty, as awful as it is--it was still sort of funny. In that awful way. Showed it to the preacher and who was SO appalled, lol. 

Water and Tomatoes

I dreamed about water last night.

The details are a little fuzzy and blurry, but I remember I was somewhere with two of my friends who are also my roommates. We were on a large body of water—it may have been a lake, it could have been the ocean. We were riding in a motorboat and decided we wanted to get out and swim like the rest of the people around us.

So, we did. We jumped out and I remembered being scared of what was going to happen. This is strange, because I’ve never been afraid of the water. I’m like a fish. I love water and swimming and marine life. My parents started teaching me from a young age not to be frightened of the ocean for example, but instead to have a healthy respect for it and its power.

But, I digress. It was a strange, unfamiliar feeling and that’s all you need to know. Back to my dream.

Nothing bad happened after we jumped out. We swam for a bit and bobbed in the waves that were created from other boats. Then, someone suggested that we move to another area, a deeper area. We swam to this deeper area and I remember moving through the water, but then, all of a sudden I was jumping in again and the water had gone from being like fifteen feet deep to being less than five.

I woke up just as I felt my legs buckle underneath me and as I heard a huge cracking noise.

Nothing was out of sorts in real life. My covers weren’t mussed and I didn’t even wake up freaked out. Just a little perplexed, thinking “Whoa, that was a weird dream.”

I’m not sure what it means or what it could signify. I’m not planning any trips to particularly large bodies of water and I don’t live near any either. But, I'll certainly be cognizant and extra aware for the next few weeks. The last thing I want is for me or anyone close to me to have broken legs. 

Like I said before, I don't know what the heck prompted this strange water dream. But--I did eat tomato based vegetable soup last night before I went to bed though. Historically, tomatoes make me dream weird, off-the-wall things--like that I'm cliff-diving or flying through the air on my own. And my soup was pretty watery (and by "pretty" I mean "extremely" watery. I'm still perfecting the finer points of cooking) sooo maybe that's where all this came from?

:) 

Horoscope Horror

Oh gah. Oh gah. Just had one of the top ten most mortifying moments of my entire life. 

So, I am sitting in my class room, waiting for the class to start and reading the Red & Black. This is an independent student run newspaper in Athens. You might have heard of the "Red & Dead" stink a few weeks ago, when the entire editorial staff walked out and they gained national recognition, but maybe not. 

Anyways, I think the horoscope sections are just ridiculously funny so I flipped back there and was scanning through them. The relatively cute guy next to me sort of laughs at me. I look up, smile (probably awkwardly, because let's face it, I'm anything but smooth), and shrug. :)

So he asks, "What's your sign?"

"I'm a Cancer," I say, and I'm thinking "Hey, he's chitchatting with me. Heehee. Continue conversation Dixie. You got this." So then I add, "Not to be confused with the phrase 'I have cancer' which has happened before," roll my eyes and laugh.


Semi-Cute Guy chuckles lightly and simply says "Same!" 


So I'm like thinking "Aw, he's a July baby too". So I say, "No way! That's cool!" 


This time he out and out laughs. Like really enjoying his own little private joke. I don't know what to do, so I chuckle a little nervously, right? Right. Then he adds on "Not same in the you mean." 

What??

Then he continues: "I actually did have cancer." 


Oh God. Please just let the ground swallow me up. RIGHT NOW!  

What the Sam heck do you say to that? To a person you hardly know sitting next to you in class?!

So I stumbled through something akin to "Oh gah. I'm sorry. I have a bad case of foot in mouth disease." Yes. I actually said that. 


Semi-Cute Guy laughs again and is like "No worries. It was a few years ago, had a couple surgeries and it's gone now." and then he goes on to talk about how there's this really funny video of him right after one of the surgeries when he was on pain drugs, etc.

Needless to say my ears were BRIGHT red. They're still burning just thinking about it. SO incredibly mortified. 

Moral of this story? I'm not exactly sure...except maybe I shouldn't try to be witty, because it's obviously not working for me. 

Bright side of this story? Well, besides my bright red face, perhaps it was the fact that the guy was cool about it. And it made for a really good story.

:) 

O-64

Earlier in the week I had text one of my best friends, Candice, asking if we could have a long overdue girl’s night out—I wanted to go see Magic Mike (heehee). Unfortunately, she already had plans to see it with a coworker. What we were going to do now? 

Well, we ended up ended with nine sheets of bingo cards and some markers.

On Friday nights in my small town, the local Lions Club holds Bingo at seven o’clock sharp. Frequented by the little old ladies of the town (and occasionally the coerced husband), this weekly Winder tradition is an intense two and a half hours. Most everyone has played bingo before, in some shape or another. But this was serious, intense, competition-like bingo.  People have their lucky seats, they have their lucky markers, and woe be unto thee who talks while the numbers are being called. 

We bought our cards and markers and looked around for where to sit. Finally, spotting a few familiar faces, we chose a two spots in the middle of the middle row, directly under a ceiling fan. There’s no air conditioning in the Winder Lions Club, so the seats under the fans our coveted items.

So, we had our cards and markers and we were feeling lucky—all that’s left to do is get five in a row right?

Hah.

I had played bingo once before here when I was about six years old with my parents—more for the experience than for the love of bingo. Apparently (maybe because I had been six) I hadn’t paid much attention to the entire experience, because there were things listed on the program sheet that I had never seen before.

Hat pin, double postage stamp, small picture frame…what in the world were these? I thought all you had to do was get an entire row covered. “Well”, we thought, “We’ll play it cool and act like we know what we’re doing, even though we don’t and we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

But after a little deliberation, we decided just to ask the ladies sitting next to us, who were more than happy to help during the ten-minute intermission. I went off to get drinks and when I returned, Candice was an expert. A hat pin is four in a corner and a diagonal tail, double postage stamp is all four in a corner and four in the adjacent corner, and small picture frame is covering up the numbers that frame the free space.

It may come as no surprise that these particular three games didn’t go so great for us. The rest of the rounds included two early bird rounds, a block of nine, a six pack, a letter X. In the letter X round, we learned that you’re not supposed to mark anything on your card unless it actually goes in the X. That way, when the official reader of the numbers comes to double check your bingo card, he doesn’t have to search for it.

Of course, we mostly ignored this rule (heehee) because as Candice said “It just makes me feel better to think that I actually have a good card by seeing all those marks.”

The night ended by a jackpot coverall round—this one we knew how to do. Taking a swig of our Mountain Dew and Root Beer (the strongest drinks served and the strongest need) we high-fived and said, “We’ve got this!”

A marking frenzy ensued and things were looking dismal for both of us at the beginning. After twenty balls had been called it seemed we only had a total of about fifteen between us. All of sudden, things looked up and suddenly a few minutes later, Candice was only two away from bingo and I was one.

O-64 stood between me and the jackpot of $800.

One ball later some yelled “Bingo!” someone yelled one ball later and a nice looking lady whom I think is actually friends with my grandmother took home the jackpot.

Even though Candice and went home empty handed, we left with fun memories and plans to go back the next Friday that neither of us have plans and are in town. It was honestly one of the best girl’s nights filled with lots and lots of laughing that I’ve had in a while.

So, my advice: don’t scoff at the mundane “old lady” activities such as bingo or bake sells. Well…I don’t know about the bake sells. Those do sound like they’d be pretty boring. But seriously go out and give bingo a shot! You just might end up having boat loads of fun. We sure did!