I'm still a week behind...

[mellicious]

So if you want to read about Ohio, here's your chance.

Monday I slept until late, about 10:30, I think. Rob's mom always tries to feed us pimento cheese sandwiches for lunch, which I absolutely loathe and Rob doesn't really care for either. So we usually go out for lunch. We ended up at Pullman Bay, which is this little local place which has really good (and cheap) food. Then Rob's Aunt Betty, who I had never met, wanted to go to Wal-Mart, so Rob and I and his mother took our fancy rental car and picked her up. She's nearly 80 and apparently has been in rather bad health for years - but she seemed spry enough to get around a little bit. Rob said she seemed better this year than when he was up there the last time. She said that I was "pretty as a picture" several times, which is not really something I hear every day. (And she asked Rob how he got so lucky.)

She and Mom (I'm already tired of saying "Rob's mom") took forever in Wal-Mart - I gather that Betty was doing things like trying on socks, although I didn't witness this myself! So meanwhile, we ended up buying a bunch of junk - a hair dryer (I did need one), an Ohio State pullover windbreaker for Rob, a shirt for me that was on clearance, and some other assorted odds and ends. I think we were in that store for a good hour and a half. Maybe more.

We didn't do much the rest of the day. What Rob's parents watch on TV tends to drive me crazy - 4 MASH episodes, for example (I'm not joking - 4 in a row, I think it was on the Hallmark Channel) and THEN a couple of episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond. I did have the foresight to bring Christmas cards to address, which I sort of think was a stroke of genius. I always have trouble finding time to do those. I went through my address book and made a list of 50 people right off the bat, and that's not counting the TUS card exchange, which I don't have the addresses for yet. I got cards addressed for most of the original 50. (A few of them that I'm iffy about I decided to wait on.)

I've also gotten a good bit of reading done - I started the 3rd Belgariad book on the plane, and finished it Monday. Those always go fast - I wish I had bought more of them. So now I'm working on the last Dark Tower book. I'm about 200 pages in, as of Tuesday, but it's 800 pages long so it just might last me the rest of the trip if I ration it out a little bit.

(more later!)