Susan

Check out these parrots.  At least I think they’re parrots, they may be something more exotic. They belong to Susan, the cousin that Lynn and I are going to be staying with in Omaha this weekend, and as excited as I am about many aspects of this trip, it’s these stupid birds about which I keep saying to everyone “Can you believe I’m going to spend the WEEKEND with these guys?”  Susan swears they both talk up a storm and promises they’ll be all over us. 

I haven’t seen Susan in about ten years.  She and Lynn and I grew up in the country together, in western Pennsylvania.  You had to cross a field of cows to get to her house from ours.  The three of us were inseparable until my dad was transferred to Pittsburgh when we were all about 9 or 10.  We kept in contact throughout junior high and high school, then Lynn and I took off for UT.  We knew it would only be a matter of time before Susan joined us in Austin, and she did, about a year later.  But Susan had no interest in college.  While Lynn and I lived in a dorm, she found a trailer and lived out in the country.  She couldn’t stand not being able to see the stars at night. While we plugged away at our classes, she worked, mostly as a waitress, and explored her wild side.  She married young, had three kids, divorced, and for the past 20 years or so has lived in Omaha with her second husband.  We would have loved to have kept in closer touch with her, but she flatly refused to get a computer and an email account.  Oh, she’s a character.  I think the increased contact we’ve all had since deciding to go up there for the marathon has sparked her interest in keeping in touch, and just a couple of weeks ago, she got an email account.  I had to talk her through the first few she sent to me.  With one foot in the 21^st century, she decided to go all the way, and got a smart phone.  I can now count on a text from her roughly every two hours.  I love that free-spirited girl, and you will too after you get to know her a little better this weekend.

I’m still not completely over my funk, and when my mood is on the fence, not walking is not an option.  Even though I thought I might make today my day off, I had to get it out of my system.  Banks and I went to Stacy Park again – my go-to until the marathon – where he became enamored of a certain dog, refused to walk away from her, and when I gave the leash a good hard yank, the tether broke away from the retractable hand piece, and we finished the walk with a 15-foot cord wrapped around my wrist.